Modulations
Encyclopedia
Modulations is a multi-media exploration into the history of electronic music, consisting of a documentary film
, its soundtrack album, and a book. The project was directed by Iara Lee
, the maker of the documentary film Synthetic Pleasures
.
, house
, hip hop
, techno
to the myriad of styles in between. It includes interviews with many notable artists and innovators in electronic music such as Carl Cox
, Robert Moog
, Coldcut
, Squarepusher
, Mixmaster Morris
, Pierre Henry
, Giorgio Moroder
, Derrick May, Genesis P-Orridge
and Karlheinz Stockhausen
.
on krautrock
, Peter Shapiro on disco
& post-punk
, Kodwo Eshun
on house
, David Toop
on hip hop
, Mike Rubin on techno
, Chris Sharp on jungle
, Tony Marcus on ambient
, Kurt Reighley on downtempo
, and Michael Berk on the technology of electronic music. Also interviewed is industrial music
founder Genesis P-Orridge
.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, its soundtrack album, and a book. The project was directed by Iara Lee
Iara Lee
Iara Lee is a Korean Brazilian film producer and director based in New York City. She is better known as the director of the documentaries Synthetic Pleasures and Modulations, as well as for her involvement with the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla", in which at least nine pro-Palestinian activists were...
, the maker of the documentary film Synthetic Pleasures
Synthetic Pleasures
Synthetic Pleasures is a documentary film by Iara Lee that explores the idea of pleasure and futurism.-Awards and nominations:*1996 Sundance Film Festival - Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in the Documentary category...
.
Modulations, Cinema for the Ear (1998)
The Modulations film, directed by Iara Lee, traces the evolution of electronic music from musique concrèteMusique concrète
Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical"...
, house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
, hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
to the myriad of styles in between. It includes interviews with many notable artists and innovators in electronic music such as Carl Cox
Carl Cox
Carl Cox is a British techno and house music DJ.-Biography:Cox grew up in Oldham, Lancashire, before attending Glastonbury High Boys secondary modern school on Glastonbury Road in Morden. Cox began his career as a hardcore and rave DJ in the mid 1980s...
, Robert Moog
Robert Moog
Robert Arthur Moog , commonly called Bob Moog was an American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer.-Life:...
, Coldcut
Coldcut
Coldcut are an English dance music duo, comprising Matt Black and Jonathan More. Their signature style is electronic dance music, featuring cut up samples of hip hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia.-1980s:In 1986, computer programmer Matt...
, Squarepusher
Squarepusher
Squarepusher is the performing pseudonym of Tom Jenkinson, an English electronic music artist signed to Warp Records. He specialises in the electronic music genres of drum and bass and acid, with a significant jazz and musique concrète influence....
, Mixmaster Morris
Mixmaster Morris
Mixmaster Morris is an English ambient DJ and underground musician. Relating specifically to ambient music, Morris stated "It's exactly what you need if you have a busy and stressful life".-Life and career:...
, Pierre Henry
Pierre Henry
Pierre Henry is a French composer, considered a pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music.-Biography:...
, Giorgio Moroder
Giorgio Moroder
Hansjörg "Giorgio" Moroder is an Italian record producer, songwriter and performer based in Los Angeles. When in Munich in the 1970s, he started his own record label called Oasis Records, which several years later became a subdivision of Casablanca Records...
, Derrick May, Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, writer and artist. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution,...
and Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
.
Soundtrack
- "I Feel LoveI Feel Love"I Feel Love" is a song by Donna Summer, taken from her 1977 concept album I Remember Yesterday.The song constituted the "future" segment of the album, which represented a stylistic progress through time...
" – Donna SummerDonna SummerLaDonna Adrian Gaines , known by her stage name, Donna Summer, is an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. She has a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Summer is a five-time Grammy winner and was the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach... - "Planet RockPlanet Rock (song)"Planet Rock" is a 1982 song by Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. In the background and hooks featured Marvella Murray, Yvette Murray, Melissa Johnson and Sandra Wheeler. Although it was only a minor hit in the US, Canada, and UK, it helped change the foundations of hip-hop and dance music...
" – Afrika BambaataaAfrika BambaataaAfrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...
& Soulsonic ForceSoulsonic ForceThe Soulsonic Force are an American electro-funk and hip-hop ensemble led by Afrika Bambaataa who helped establish hip-hop in the early 1980s with songs such as "Planet Rock"... - "No UFO's" (remix) – Model 500Juan AtkinsJuan Atkins is an American musician. He is widely credited as the originator of techno music, specifically Detroit techno along with Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson...
- "Simon from Sydney" – LFO
- "Strings of Life" – Rhythm Is Rhythm
- "Yeah" – Jesse SaundersJesse SaundersJesse Saunders is a DJ, music and film producer, remix artist, promoter and entrepreneur. He is one of the pioneers of House music, often cited as "the originator of House music". His 1984 single, "On & On", co-written with Vince Lawrence, was first record with a house DJ as the artist that was...
- "Amazon 2-King of the Beats" – AphroditeAphrodite (artist)Aphrodite also known as A Zone or DJ Aphro, is a UK jungle and drum and bass DJ/producer commonly referred to as the "Godfather of Jungle", who works along with Micky Finn on their joint Urban Takeover label...
- "Stormbringer" – Panacea
- "The Shadow" – RobTimecode (DJ)Timecode, real name Rob Playford, is a UK drum and bass DJ, producer and record label owner.-Biography:He is best known as founder of Moving Shadow—one of the biggest record labels in the drum and bass scene named Moving Shadow, formed in 1990—and as engineer and producer for Goldie on...
& GoldieGoldieClifford Joseph Price, better known as Goldie is an English electronic music artist, disc jockey, visual artist and actor. He is well known for his innovations in the jungle and drum and bass music genres, having previously gained exposure for his work as a graffiti artist... - "Luxus 1-3" – Ryoji IkedaRyoji IkedaRyoji Ikeda is a Japanese sound artist who lives and works in Paris. Ikeda's music is concerned primarily with sound in a variety of "raw" states, such as sine tones and noise, often using frequencies at the edges of the range of human hearing...
- "Atomic 2000" – ColdcutColdcutColdcut are an English dance music duo, comprising Matt Black and Jonathan More. Their signature style is electronic dance music, featuring cut up samples of hip hop, breaks, jazz, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia.-1980s:In 1986, computer programmer Matt...
- "Kritische Masse 1" – To Rococo RotTo Rococo RotTo Rococo Rot is a Berlin-based trio who combine electronic and acoustic elements to create instrumental post-rock and electronic music. The group is composed of bassist Stefan Schneider and brothers Robert and Ronald Lippok . Ronald Lippok has also gained praise for his work in Tarwater...
Modulations, A History of Electronic Music, Throbbing Words on Sound (2000)
Edited by Peter Shapiro. ISBN 1-891024-06-X. Featuring: Rob Young on the pioneers of electronic music, Simon ReynoldsSimon Reynolds
Simon Reynolds is an English music critic who is well-known for his writings on electronic dance music and for coining the term "post-rock". Besides electronic dance music, Reynolds has written about a wide range of artists and musical genres, and has written books on post-punk and rock...
on krautrock
Krautrock
Krautrock is a generic name for the experimental music scenes that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s, especially in Britain. The term is a result of the English-speaking world's reception of the music at the time and not a reference to any one...
, Peter Shapiro on disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
& post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
, Kodwo Eshun
Kodwo Eshun
Kodwo Eshun is a British-Ghanaian writer, theorist and film-maker. He studied English Literature at University College, Oxford University and Romanticism and Modernism MA Hons at Southampton University...
on house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
, David Toop
David Toop
David Toop is an English musician and author, and as of 2001 was visiting Research Fellow in the Media School at London College of Communication. He was notably a member of The Flying Lizards. He was a prominent contributor to the British magazine The Face. He is a regular contributor to The Wire,...
on hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, Mike Rubin on techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
, Chris Sharp on jungle
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
, Tony Marcus on ambient
Ambient music
Ambient music is a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric", "visual" or "unobtrusive" quality.- History :...
, Kurt Reighley on downtempo
Downtempo
Downtempo is a laid-back electronic music style similar to ambient music, but usually with a beat or groove unlike the beatless forms of Ambient music. The beat is sometimes made from loops that have a hypnotic feeling...
, and Michael Berk on the technology of electronic music. Also interviewed is industrial music
Industrial music
Industrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
founder Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis P-Orridge
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is an English singer-songwriter, musician, writer and artist. P-Orridge's early confrontational performance work in COUM Transmissions in the late 1960s and early 1970s along with the industrial band Throbbing Gristle, which dealt with subjects such as prostitution,...
.
External links
- Modulations homepage at Caipirinha Productions