I have always felt very strongly about subjecting yourself as an artist to all possible influences regardless of genre or culture or even your predisposed taste. Obviously if you want to become the best at something you have to choose a limited field at the beginning to learn the boundaries before breaking them. For example if you want to become the best country artist you have to stick to that genre for some time to learn its nuances and then add something original to stand out. To truly progress and change culture and break new ground you have to open your mind to all possibilities around you, not just the genre or sub-culture you try to represent, often poorly if you do not stay true to yourself.
Otherwise your creative potential will inevitably stagnate and you will wake up some day realizing that you have been doing ten years same beats with just new packaging. You cannot call that progress, that sounds like regress. Yet that is how most of major music business works, drying up new fads and beating them to death, like dubstep, until masses grow out of it. Do not get me wrong, good tune is a good tune and if you love something go for it, but from time to time something radical has to be injected into pop-DNA of any given era to keep it constantly fresh.
What comes to culture and influences, I get musical ideas from the oddest of places, like music in the ending credits of the movies – best songs are always kept there – or tune into some odd beats with all of my attention in those few flashing moments Vic Mackey and his posse busts through a door in The Shield. Anyway, a bit about my past before I let you dig into this weeks playlist. I grew up listening Aphex Twin, drum and bass and detroit techno and later hip hop and much more and there was also roughly a three year period a few years ago I did not listen any music, except my own when I was composing. I used to go to raves and clubbing regularly since I was a teen and everything I did was electronic music during the first seven years I started all of this seriously, but I was drawn to that world mostly because I wanted to understand the essence of the sound, rhythm and dancing.
I will leave you with that thought and will cover my creative process on other posts as that is a whole another beast. Anyway, this weeks playlist kick-starts your Friday and Saturday evening with a strong emotion starting off with Eminem and Bjork leading toward much harder to digest tracks from Ed Rush & Optical to Carl Craig‘s remarkable mix on Maurizio‘s Domina and ending after two hours or so with classic Billie Holiday. I bet you did not expect that one, but it fits! I picked most of the tunes sometime in the last spring, because they represented my mood at the time, but also because I felt some of the older songs, people who are not privy to the various genres of electronic music, should hear at least once. All I can say, just go with it and enjoy the ride!
▶ Broaden Your Horizons playlist
Individual videos ▶
Eminem – Lose Yourself (Live)
Evidence – I Know
Busta Rhymes - You Can’t Hold The Torch
2pac - Until The End Of Time
Röyksopp - Sparks
Björk – Hyperballad
Björk – Undo
Björk – All is Full of Love (Chris.Su Remix)
Artemis – Inner worlds
Ed Rush & Optical – Compound
Ed Rush & Optical – Fixation
Plastikman – Pakard
Maurizio – Domina (Carl Craig Mix)
Laurent Garnier - The Man With The Red Face (Live)
The Aztec Mystic – Jaguar
St. Germain – Heavy piano
St. Germain – Rose Rouge
Erykah Badu feat. Stephen Marley – In love with you
Billie Holiday - You Go To My Head