![]() ![]() ![]() Hence “minimal techno,” a sub-genre, emerged in the ‘90s (again, primarily in Germany) in the form of stripped-down records by producers such as Richie Hawtin.īy now, one can find minimal jazz, minimal house and minimal classical, and electronic production techniques and conventions are dominant in mainstream music. Here, the music is reinvented, minus that bloat of progrock or the more expressive, emotion-laden tropes of folk and nascent hip hop. Most importantly, such music was unadorned, a sonic equivalent to Le Corbusier’s streamlined machines for living or the de Stijl group’s return to elementary parts. Its basic components were layered but remained identifiable.Įarly electronic music tended to pioneer it own aesthetic, and its production (especially the machines used to make it) were foregrounded rather than used as a means to a larger end, such as a pop narrative/allegory or orchestral accompaniment. It relied on the intermediary of the machine and invited immersion over time or movement of the body. Early ambient work by Brian Eno, Steve Reich’s calibrated hand claps or the pulsing, chirping krautrock of Kraftwerk and others attempted to erase the hand of the artist (like Donald Judd’s untitled cubes), while also calling attention to the work or the sound at hand with no reference to tradition, narrative or conventional pathos. On the other hand, almost from the outset, minimalist as a descriptor started to seep into to other realms, from spare interior design (perhaps influenced by the “zen-like” simplicity of like Robert Rauschenberg’s open expanses of white) to deconstructed haute couture to entire genres of music.Įlectronic music may have the most legitimate claim to the mantle of minimalism, borne as it was of the industrial/digital confluence of the ‘60s and heir to the cool, repetitive and relatively anonymous contours of late modernist sculpture. ![]() If you read my previous post, you know that the term “minimalism” is at risk of becoming unmoored from its avant-garde origins in the ‘60s. The former’s “Picasso Baby” compares his abode to the Tate and the Louvre, while the latter has declared his allegiance to modernist architecture, albeit by way of calling himself a minimalist. But while the helmeted Frenchmen have abandoned West in favor of a more retro feel, both Hova and ‘Ye have loudly embraced European high culture. In this summer of Kanye West, Jay Z and Daft Punk, it’s starting to feel like 2007 again. ![]()
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