Music development & Ishkur

Before I move on to the next blog post, I wanted to share something. I've been a great appreciator of music and sound ever since I could hear; my mother loved '60-'70s Rock and my father liked the big band crooners. I've never been a big stickler for name referencing, dropping, or even the deeper qualities of music nerd-ship but I have been on the prowl for delicious noise since I was old enough to influence my parents' pocketbooks. Hard to believe, some of the first music I had my parents buy was punk and pseudo-punk: Greenday's Dookie and Kerplunk, Misfit's Walk Among Us, and I remember my mother's friend's much older son liked Guttermouth so I got a live album of theirs (I didn't comprehend what "Live" implied, bad acoustics and low screaming fans-- which worked for that album at least). It's not that I didn't like the music either parent was listening to (my father also had an appreciation for older country: Johnny Cash, Roger Miller, Hank Williams Jr.) but rather that I wanted more music and they just weren't listening to anything else. And they still didn't even when I started to, so it became a personal thing for me in a way; I had all the time in the world to understand and appreciate the music that I was listening to.

Which brings me to Electronic music. I know there are tons of people that "don't get it", don't like it, and don't have any clue about what they're talking about. The latter includes people who claim to enjoy Electronic music and are partially responsible for the great confusion. What great confusion? Why, the great confusion that plagues the population of mankind as to what in the hell this E-lec-tron-ic music is! And boy are you lucky that I found a solution, rather, that this fellow named Ishkur made a solution for you (all).

Now, if you've been browsing the Evolution Control Committee's website like you should be then you may have already caught this. It is Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music. and it is comprehensive. Begin with the basics and then click the tutorial (read all 14 pages of history). Once you've completed the ground work you can move on through: House, Trance, Techno, Breakbeat, Jungle, Hardcore, and Downtempo. He's done an impressive job of organizing the time lines and relative connections between super-genres and sub-genres. Ishkur even provides various samples of each musical styling and a hint of commentary as to their value to music in general. I've thought of myself as fairly well versed on the subject but Ishkur has done far more homework than I even comprehended as relevant. But it is (relevant). Really. His critiques are poignant, wholly agreeable, and encourages readers to continue their surf through the annals of Electronic music history. It's examples like this that make me wonder whether people create things like this out of sheer ingenuity or through perseverance of completing a final project or dissertation.

Enjoy the time sink and if you have any leftover knowledge when you're finished, just put it in a box and save it for later. It tastes better the next day.