You know that music genre you say you don’t like? Chances have it, I say, a lot of that is simply based on not being familiar with the sound. That’s why, I have found, musical enjoyment is a process. We start at one point, something that is similar to what we are comfortable with, an easy access, you might say. From there, we establish an enjoyment for what we are listening to, and as we become more accustomed, we are, both, less inhibited in venturing outward and more likely to seek out new stuff that sounds slightly different.
Granted, there are times when we are more directly nudged into something from zero to a hundred – I am imagining youthful ears hearing HipHop or Metal, or whatever it may be, from friends or an elder sibling, for the first time – but as we settle into our own taste, we tend to be less likely to make these drastic leaps.
Actually, I think this steady development is also why we often show friends a song we think is so awesome, but it just won’t click with them. Not right away, at least. The shift is just too stark to really enjoy on their first listen, whereas you have had the chance to incrementally move there.
If auntie comes and asks to play her some of the music I am listening to, and I play her YA’s “Cycle Of The Mental Machine” over my headphones, that’s bound to leave her with some rustled jimmies. And that’s not to say that she is mental for hating it or that I am mental for digging it (Who’d I be to make such diagnoses, anyway? I am no doctor!), but because I have had years of coming around to the sound, whereas she has just been linebacker-tackled into the deep end of the rave pool.
For me, it’s been a process of listening to David Guetta in my teens (yeah, sue me), then moving through house and minimal and deep house and progressive house and melodic techno and techno and hard techno and maybe even tekkno. And for her (this imaginary stand-in for pretty much any other), it might well have to follow somewhat of a similar course. Heck, it might well have to start at an even earlier point: finding its way from disco deeper into House and onwards, or from Punk into harder electronic counter-culture.
Anyway, there tend to be steps and stops along the way that are essential for a sound coming into full, vibrant technicolor.
For electronic music and me, one such essential step was the 2008 release of Hannes Stöhr’s film “Berlin Calling”, which depicts the rise and fall of an imaginary Berlin DJ by the name of Ickarus (subtle, I know), finding himself in the throes of leading a (professional) life that is inseparably entwined with partying. The crux is that Ickarus is played by none other than famous German DJ Paul Kalkbrenner, who scored the film with his own music, and some scenes being shot inside famous Berlin clubs, adding to the film authentically capturing some key facets of Berlin nightlife. All this played into the reason why the movie and music had such an impact on an impressionable 16-year-old me.
As someone who enjoys confined venues for the close intensity that they can lend to electronic music, Kalkbrenner’s music often, and especially on “Berlin Calling”, lends itself to arenas or, better yet, open air festivals. The sound is so expansive that the image of a field in the setting summer sun comes to mind, thousands dancing in front of a stage as the music reverberates and rolls across the masses. Eyes closed and taking a deep breath as vibrant energy makes the hairs on your arms stand up, before enjoyment mixes with the distant melancholic knowledge that the party is finite, and then returning to appreciating the moment with your friends. Lovely.
Lucky for us, summer is only just upon us – plenty of memories to be made!
Have a gorgeous weekend!
Coryphe 