1. /0 as per usual, was trolling. Acquiring the Urine, as it were. 2. The Alarms WIll Sound CD had some awesome moments. It transmuted the patience Richard James put into hours and hours of step programming into real-time instrumental virtuosity. It isn't better or worse than the original, it's different, in an interesting (and very enjoyable) way.
3. I haven't heard the Blue Potential thing, except for snippets, and the snippets didn't make me want to seek it out. As a former orchestral musician, my feeling is that orchestras are really good at playing notes, and playing music from the domain in which the players are trained. If the conductor is decent, and the back half of every section isn't there just to collect a paycheck, magic can happen. Said magic rarely happens when the music on the stands comes from a musical domain completely foreign to the musicians. This isn't limited to things like Techno-Orchestral works. I've heard performances of Webern and Alban Berg that were just awful, because most of the orchestra -- and sometimes the conductor as well -- just can't get into it. Nothing is worse than an orchestra playing a piece most of the players hate. You feel the hate coming through. On Jan 10, 2008 9:29 AM, Dennis DeSantis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Toby Frith wrote: > > there is something a bit daft in the idea that classical musicians > > interpreting > > techno music sort of "validates" it which I often feel is the hidden agenda > > behind > > these sorts of exercises, because ultimately classical music and orchestras > > are > > seen as the high end of the spectrum, whilst some guy pressing buttons on a > > drab grey box is seen as the opposite end. > > I can't speak to the concept behind the Blue Potential project, nor to > the way audiences might feel about the notion of validation for these > projects in general. > > But I worked on the Alarm Will Sound/Aphex Twin thing, and our only > motivation there was that we just loved the music and wanted to hear > what it would sound like played by acoustic instruments. There was > certainly no sinister marketing angle or highbrow/lowbrow thinking - > that's for cultural theorists and hipster bloggers, not musicians. >
