Ideological amplification viruses (or the year the beat took over)

We’re still in December, the season of lists and things that looks back on the year, and sometimes even forward to the year ahead (not the case here I’m afraid). Before we tick over into 09 I wanted to revisit something in music that took up a lot of my time and attention in 2008, both in my listening, reading and writing habits. This ‘thing’ isn’t easily described as such: it’s not a genre of music, even though names have been thrown about in semi-seriousness and ended up sticking, and it’s not limited to just one city or one artist or group of artists. This ‘thing’ is best described, in its crudest form I guess, as: the beat.

ed note: I’d originally intented to have this post as a continuation of the best 30 tracks of the year I posted earlier in the month, but canned the idea. However considering I put a list of tracks together that really stood out in this whole beat/production thing in 08 and uploaded them to the server, it would be a waste to not do anything with them. So you’ll find these tracks throughout the post, in between paragraphs, kind of like an audio illustration of the whole thing. The titles link to myspace.

2008 saw a real rebirth of the beat and return of the producer as a front man in hip hop, and in certain corners of the electronic music scene. Now I say hip hop, but maybe that should be certain corners of the hip hop scene too, considering how global and ubiquitous the music has become. Still for the sake of argumentation we’ll say hip hop, and electronic music too. This focus and attention on producers and their, often instrumental, work hasn’t just happened overnight. It’s been brewing for quite a while (see the earlier attention surrounding Madlib, Jay Dee, Prefuse, Dabrye and El P to name a few ‘luminaries’) but this year it really took on an entire new level with attention, excitement and coverage reaching well beyond bedroom walls, internet forums, small labels and local club nights and even reaching into the mainstream of hip hop and elsewhere.

Afta 1 – Honey Dip – Circulations

When I tried to get to grips with what was happening with these producers and their music earlier this year for a feature and series of interviews in Serie B magazine, I chose to go for something that was a bit obvious I guess, but which for me really signified how the whole thing really made me feel. I called it the ‘return of the boom bap’, cheesy but you know. My point was that ultimately the work of these new producers was a bit like history repeating itself, a new golden era of production to rival the classic boom bap of the early days of hip hop when instrumentals made you want to go absolutely ‘mental’ and possibly break your neck from so much headnodding.

Elsewhere we had Martin Clark acknowledging its influence beyond hip hop when he coined the term ‘wonky’ for his regular column on dubstep and grime over at Pitchfork. He remarked that not only was the work of certain producers like Rustie and Hudson Mohawke being included outside of the hip hop scene, it also had similarities with certain grime and dubstep productions in the use of synth and mid range melodies. By the way those similarities go both ways, you could even say these guys ‘influenced’ each other considering that heavy bass is also quite prominent in a lot of the new hip hop related productions, in a similar fashion to its importance in dubstep and grime.

And then Sasha Frere Jones over at the New Yorker went for ‘lazer bass,’ highlighting how certain producers’ work was changing how you thought about club friendly hip hop, or electronic music. Shook Magazine went for the beat, in a way that’s quite similar to what I was going for but which covered a fair bit more ground looking at scenes in L.A., London and Amsterdam in quite a bit of detail. I think it was Dan Hancox over at Lower End Spasm who said the ‘awkward squad of hip hop’ when describing a mix from Ben UFO that included a 30 mins selection of music from a lot of these new producers. Over at audiocultures.org, Juha used ‘the bleep generation.’ And then over in France, I think one of the guys hiphopcore.net pointed out that this year was really the year that the producer came back to the forefront in hip hop.

Bullion – Get Familiar – One Handed Music

Interestingly, all these attempts at framing what has been happening to hip hop, and outside of it, have come from most of the main cities involved in this production renaissance, though that’s probably a very tenuous link, but indulge me it’s the end of the year. Non-exhaustive list of said cities would go something like this: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Montreal, New York, Glasgow, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Tokyo and elsewhere (I stuck to the bigger spots). Which is to say, as I pointed out earlier on, that this renaissance of the beat and of the producer has been very much a worldwide thing, helped by, carried over and amplified by the internet and the shrinking of the global musical village we all live in. This in turn has meant that it’s stayed quite fresh and diverse, with no one really sticking to one formula or style.

Again giving an exhaustive list of producers might be a bit counterproductive, but if we look at the bigger names that have really come to attention this year, it’s quite obvious that this renaissance of the beat and the producer comes from hip hop and stretches beyond it, with influences and roots in dub, electronic music and even jazz. For the jazz influences, Flying Lotus is an obvious one, being a member of the Coltrane family. His productions echo this heritage, but also a variety of other influences including electronic music. Hudson Mohawke is also quite obviously influenced by electronic music, as are most of the Glasgow based producers, both as a result of personal taste and of the city’s musical heritage. For dub, Ras G is an obvious example, with productions anchored in dub stylings as well as the free approach of the likes of Sun Ra. And it goes on and on, Harmonic 313 and Dabrye echo the sounds of Detroit’s techno history, Fulgeance restyles the popular French electro sound, etc…

It was someone over at hiphopcore.net who remarked to me that while there is definite link between all these guys, lumping them all together is a bit of a catch-all way to look at it. And that’s true to an extent, but ultimately, and this was my argument all along, all these producers are linked because they are all doing hip hop, they are all doing something that has roots in hip hop and is evolving hip hop production as most people understand it. Ok so there are differences in their sound, but put it all together, and it flows naturally, something I tried to examplify with the mix I put together to go with the article I wrote.

Flying Lotus – GNGBNG – Warp

Flying Lotus – Infinitum (Exile remix) – Warp

What’s interesting in the link between this new generation of hip hop producers and electronic music is how this year the link has gone beyond just musical similarities and influences to artists playing live alongside each other and collaborating. In Glasgow, the LuckyMe guys have put on parties were artists from the more interesting corners of the electronic music scene played alongside LuckyMe members and guys from L.A, Spain and elsewhere. In London and L.A, the link between this new school of hip hop and elements of the dubstep and grime scene were as obvious in the line ups of parties like Low End Theory and Brainfeeder as they were in the music being played.

Kode 9 was perhaps one of the first names to bridge the hip hop and dubstep scenes (though referring to him as part of the dubstep scene is not entirely accurate) after his encounter with Fly Lo at the Red Bull music academy back in 2006. In 2008 he released an EP from Samiyam on his label, and played a fair amount of shows alongside various members of the new generation of hip hop producers. All of this only further help to establish a link between the new generation of hip hop producers and various corners of electronic music.

At this point you might be wondering what’s with the title of this post. I’m getting to that right now. I want to borrow a quote from another one of 2008′s major themes and most talked about subject, and that is social media. I’ll leave any commentaries on that for another time, but I came across this post over at Chris Hambly’s blog and one quote in particular got me thinking.

Humans are innately biased, fact is we cannot help it, we simply prefer to be in situations where we do not feel like the odd one out, we seem programmed to flock to like-minded groups. This is not anything ground-breaking or new, it’s a basic human trait.
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So what can we call the glue in these “packs”, “tribes” “groups”, “fan bases”? What term describes this commonality of behaviour, the mind-fuck of similarity?
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Ideological Amplification is what.
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Ideological Amplification is when a belief within a tribe (niche) becomes the “norm” or “accepted” and often “expected” and is then exponentially amplified among its members.

Mr Beatnick ft Ahu – I know all the bitches (Simbad’s slow mix) – Altered Vibes

Chris’ definition of Ideological Amplification struck me because all of a sudden it made me think about how it can be applied to pretty much anything. He just worded something we all instinctively know. As he said the need to flock to like-minded groups is a basic human trait, and as such the need to spread and amplify an accepted belief is also normal.

Taking it a little further, I thought about how this applied very neatly to the explosion in interest that has surrounded the new generation of hip hop producers this year, as well as other producers in dubstep and elsewhere.

If we take hip hop as the tribe, though maybe not a niche anymore as it has definitely gone fully mainstream, then this renaissance of the beat and this return of focus on the producer and instrumental hip hop can easily be seen as a movement that goes against the Ideological Amplification of the hip hop tribe. The majority of this new style of hip hop doesn’t fit the accepted conception of what hip hop is and should be, it doesn’t fit the norm. And that’s why journalists and others have flocked to using other terms like wonky, or glitch hop and trip hop in the past.

So if this new wave of producers and their music goes against the Ideological Amplification of hip hop, then maybe it’s more akin to a virus. Fact is you need, and almost always have, viruses when it comes to Ideological Amplification because otherwise everything is just normalised and accepted, and that’s just boring. Another way to look at what happened this year in hip hop is like this: the return of the producer to the forefront and the attention and interest given to instrumental hip hop and productions that go beyond established templates and norms is nothing more than a much needed virus that shows people that there is more to hip hop, and to other music, than what they might take for granted. The virus breaks down the Ideological Amplification of hip hop and forces people to rethink the norms they’ve put on it, whether as a fan or a producer.

It becomes even more interesting when you bring Kode 9 back in the mix. With his own work, and that of his label, Kode is a very obvious virus to the Ideological Amplification of the dubstep scene, a scene that blew up in 2006 and has since become very homogenised with accepted styles of productions and norms. From the start Kode was never one to follow these, and there’s a nice quote from an interview where he said that he would continue to give ‘dubstep what it think it doesn’t need.’ That sums it up nicely. And that’s definitely what has been happening for a while, but it has really blown up and reached a new level this year.

With his Hyperdub label, Kode has continued to redefine expectations, breaking norms and acceptances. And that links directly to the work of many of the new producers who are going viral on the Ideological Amplification of hip hop, and probably could even be stretched to give an explanation as to why Kode 9, his label and his work, have found an affinity with people like Fly Lo and others in the new generation of producers.

Nosaj Thing – 1685 – Stussy/TTlab

Ironically though, while this new wave of productions definitely acts as a virus, breaking down the Ideological Amplification in certain music scenes, it’s also creating its own niche and Ideological Amplification. Terms like wonky, glitch hop, lazer bass, and before that trip hop (which has been making a scary return in various articles discussing Flying Lotus’ music), all end up creating their own niche tribes with then pump out their own Ideological Amplification, repeating the process. If we look at wonky, which is the one term that seemed to really stick this year when talking about the new wave of hip hop producers and their influence beyond just hip hop, a quick google search will throw up quite a lot of forum discussions, articles and even shop sections. At the same time there is a quite conscious and verbal reaction from artists and fans against it, so hopefully it’s a case that it won’t take hold for too long and just disappear like trip hop did.

Thing is today the creation of niches and Ideological Amplification is only made worse by the internet. Ideas can spread faster than before, and more people can attach themselves to it. At the same, it’s partly because of the internet that a lot of these producers and their music blew up in 2008, because people talked about it, exchanged mixes, tracks and information about live shows. As such, the internet turns out to be a bit of a double edged weapon in that it can be used to spread a virus against an established Ideological Amplification, like it has done with hip hop and dubstep in recent years, but it can also be used to create new niches and Ideological Amplification around the viruses originally used to challenge establishing ones.

Considering how much noise has been made around someone like Flying Lotus this year, who, willingly or not, very much became a poster boy for the new beat generation, it’ll be very interesting to see how things evolve in 2009. Funnily enough I recently saw an interview with Fly Lo where he describes himself as an electronic hip hop producer. Considering everything, I think that’s a nice way to put it. It’s important to make sure that the internet and other media is also used to give voice to the artists, because otherwise it’s too easy to create niches around beliefs held only by those who consume music, niches that will most likely end up being skewed. It’s the same for writers and journalists. There is a duty to at least challenge what is established, or being established, rather than just feeding the Ideological Amplification.

Phat Kat – Nightmare (Fulgeance Zombie Socca Remix)

As I said before, this renaissance and evolution of the beat and of the producer in hip hop has long standing roots, but with 2008 proving a turning point in terms of popularity and entering the collective consciousness, the next year will be all the more crucial. Already this year there have been tendencies to replicate rather than innovate, to stick to a form of Ideological Amplification around this new style of production, but with the diversity of people involved and of their influences I think it’s fair to say that even if only half or less continue to stick to their guns, they’ll be there to provide yet another virus to fight any accepted belief or norm that is taking form around their current ‘style’ of production.

And because it’s the end of the year, and to reward anyone who’s made it this far with the post and is interested in finding out more about this new generation of producers and their take on hip hop, here’s some more recommendations split geographically.

Tokyo/Japan:
Circulations, Jazzy Sport

America:
Flying Lotus, Samiyam, Ras G, Take, Kutmah, edIT, Daedelus, Glitch Mob, Waajeed, Elliot Lipp, Machinedrum, El P, Dabrye, Mono/Poly, 00genesis, Dublab, Dday One, Afta 1, Exile, Mochilla,

Glasgow/London/UK:
LuckyMe, Hudson Mohawke, Rustie, Mike Slott, Bullion, Paul White, One Handed Music, Mr Beatnick, 2tall, Mark Pritchard

Europe:
Onra, Fulgeance, Mweslee, Robot Koch, Josip Kloby

And the list very much goes on. You can find all these guys on myspace, I would link all individually but I’m lazy today.

Take – Slouched Over (edit) – Inner Current