An early adopter of moog, (he loves experimenting with analog tapes) Les Techno is at the party at the edge of the world, where we're all deep frying inside of hell's pressure cooker on earth, AKA the Amazon rainforest. Gulp.
Despite the decades-old climate control debate the global population is continuing to be subjected to, we've forgotten how to act as people in times of environmental and politcal stress, and Les Techno's electro-goth, post-punk nugget, "Edge of the World," is his response to this lethargy.
"Edge of the World" isn't his only response to global and at-home crises, nor is it his last. The musician has other things to say about the current state of things, and he's making sure you hear him out. There are a few reasons why he's nicknamed the "Purveyor of Cool," and we have some for you here.
The "Purveyor of Cool" is a convincing artist because he does the opposite - he plays off cool and doesn't give a shit. But really, he gives all the shits.
Les Techno's off-the-beaten-path school of cool epitomizes a block in music history when post-punk video personalities like Devo were rising to commercial fame despite their use of satire and uniformity to draw attention to larger problems. Reagonomics and the anxiety caused by Cold War conflict caused youth tastes to change - white, middle-class Americans valued material wealth, buying into what they once could not. This meant leisure activities, too. These conditions gave rise to MTV.
Some artists, who were also social advocates, used popular platforming on network cable to criticize the status quo. In an interview with MTV, David Bowie flat-out questioned the industry's exlusionary policies (very few black artists were getting air time and radio play in the 80s), later went on to create the 90s chart-climber "I'm Afraid of Americans" as a response to a culture of anxiety created by Corporate America.
As the world changes, many artists, pressured by their management, change to keep up with it, but Les Techno is the exception (As his Facebook "About" section reads: Les cannot be managed and cannot hold a job). He's more concerned with using his music as a vehicle for change and posterity.
He's stripped of labels. Sure, you can try to categorize him, but why would you?
Les Techno represents everything that traditional record label executives hate, making him even more cool. Again, it's the anarchist spirit that makes a splash and leaves a mark, not the pigeonholed, comfort-zoned one. Les Techno controls the direction of his own music marketing, paying no mind to the negative commercial affects of genre mixing.
In a Les Techno track, you're almost guaranteed to hear a clash between forces: synth rock against hip hop, new wave against dark wave, and accoustic against analog. It's hard to feel encumbered when an artist is always grasping beyond the edge, pushing boundaries and opening us up to new listening experiences. Is that a little hypnogagic surf rock we hear in there?
His CV of co-collaborators is pretty impressive.
If you're not familiar with his resume, here's some facts: he's trained on jazz guitar (taking a cue from playing mate Larry Coryell), his NYC roots greatly influence his sound, and he has produced dance tracks for artists all across the board, including Run-DMC, Mobb Deep, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
A jazz trumpeter from the Buffalo/Toronto area once told me in an interview that the experience of listening to jazz is like buying a train ticket to nowhere. The adventure is in not knowing. The same goes for a Les Techno listening experience - powerfully disruptive (but not distracting) sounds play off of each other, with hints of free jazz and funk peaking through the cracks. It's an ugly-beautiful kind of sound that only a NYC rocker could nurture.
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