Capturing the unamenable nature of the future is undeniably challenging yet offers incredible perspective. In group C, this idea is one we decided to tackle. The idea of working with this concept was initially inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, we then decided to look at similar pieces that also worked on this concept. Riddley Scott’s 1982 film Blade runner and Kubrick’s 2001: A space odyssey were another two seminal pieces we decided to draw inspiration from for this project. During our initial meeting we found that these pieces described the present by using the future as a reference – we wanted to twist this idea and describe the future by using the past. This thought is the concept for “I’ve been away but now I’m back”
We then began discussing musical artists / projects which have previously explored aspects of the concept. I suggested artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never, Steve Hauschildt and Holly Herndon. The concept of futurism is an idea central to most of their work. Due to their extensive exploration into this concept, I felt their work offered incredible perspective to our ideas.
OPN’s 2015 – ‘Garden of Delete’ pioneered a new sound – symbolic of an interpreted future. The record is a glissade of mucilaginous, animated synth leads paired with harmonised, auto tuned and multi distorted vocals and speech. These samples range from YouTube vloggers and interviews with a mentally disturbed child to Am I Supposed to Let It by Again by Roger Rodier and Hans Reichel’s Return of the Knödler Show. To me this record exemplifies a beautifully dense and chaotic world filled with both respect and disrespect for time and itself. I knew for this project; this record would be somewhere where I would draw a fundamental inspiration.
My fellow collaborators presented artists I had not heard about before, such as the north American record producer Daedelus. Daedelus mainly produces IDM and Hip Hop fused with samples from the music of the 20’s / 30’s (Mainly swing and Ballads). Personally, I really did not like his work – I appreciate how he treated the concept, but – to me – his work felt like putting a 1920’s film distortion effect over a shuffled Hip Hop beat.
As the meeting concluded, we now had a solid concept to work with as well as musical references to draw inspiration from.