Elsewhere

Oh what a lovely summer. New releases from three of my most favorite electronica artists.

BT is releasing a new album at the end of August entitled This Binary Universe. His MySpace page and blog have a teaser video and hint at some details: a musical and spiritual epic masterpiece accompanied by abstract artistic visuals of some sort. You can pre-order it on Amazon and supposedly also on iTunes, although I don’t see it listed there yet. Some people don’t care for BT because he’s straying too far beyond straight dance music, but that’s why I like him.

Hybrid’s new album, I Choose Noise, will be released in early September (info also culled from their MySpace page). You can download a free track from the new LP off of their website. Like much of their previous work, it is sweepingly cinematic and orchestral; good, but it didn’t blow me away. I expect some new tricks from artists of this caliber — then again, anything of similar quality to the seminal Morning Sci-Fi would be just fine.

The Crystal Method have released a new 45-minute mix; that’s the good news. The bad news is that it was developed exclusively for Nike to promote their new Nike+ iPod shoes, and it can only be obtained via iTunes as a single monolithic track (for ten bucks!). Although TCM is promoting it as their latest release, some of the reviews complain of recycled material, so I ain’t buyin’ it (literally or figuratively). Maybe next year? Until then, the London soundtrack will tide me over.

I’m also hoping that Tiesto releases a new artist album sometime to follow up his much-beloved (by me) Just Be. But for now he seems content to keep releasing DJ sets ala his In Search of Sunrise series. I like DJ mixes, but I don’t buy them; I prefer the creative and thematic qualities of artist albums (although Sasha’s Involver album interestingly blurs the line). A good DJ does not a good artist make, contrary to what some DJ’s might mistakenly think of themselves. (Apparently BT agrees with me on this one.)

Here I use the term technology in a very broad sense to mean any skill, technique, or body of knowledge which is intellectual rather than instinctual and improves human productivity; for example, language, religion, and agriculture were some of the earliest technologies; internal combustion engines, democracy, computers, psychology, and quantum physics are some more recent examples.

The promise of technology is to give us the tools we need to transcend mere physical survival so we can focus our time and energies on higher purposes (which are, as of yet, undisclosed to us, except in subjective beliefs).

We are in a race against time, however, to improve and refine our technologies to the point where they are indefinitely sustainable. The resource consumption and infrastructure necessary to support our current technologies cannot be sustained — and we are already feeling the negative consequences in very tangible ways (hurricanes, heat waves, etc.).

But this is not to say we should abandon technology; in fact, we couldn’t even if we wanted to. We’re simply wired for it. We passed the point of no return when we developed opposable thumbs. The trick is to advance to the point of sustainability before we burn ourselves up.

What should we be working on to reach true sustainability? Art, spirituality, politics, science, culture? All of the above, of course, because they are all technologies with complex interactions.

Personally, I’ve got a special preference for information systems and digital media because I think it’s the most unique tech of our time with the highest return on investment as it accelerates improvement in all other technologies simultaneously. I also have a penchant for spirituality and personal growth technologies that allow individuals to maximize their positive contributions to the world.

“Life in the so-called space age“, the semi-ironic sub-title of this blog (and lifted from a rather good and underrated album by God Lives Underwater, who apparently lifted the phrase from the booklet of Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration — fun trivia!), reflects this theme of a technology-centric life, working to get us a little closer to technology’s ultimate promise — while trying not to kill ourselves in the process.

I heard someone mention it on TV the other day — “Youth is the engine of the world.” Apparently this phrase can be credited to Matisyahu, though I haven’t heard his music yet. (Just added it to the list of things to check out, though.)

The truth of the phrase has stuck in my head. Teenage angst is not just a hormonal thing, it’s also the result of innocent idealism crashing into the vagaries of the real world. It’s the purest reflection of the values we teach children conflicting with the values we are actually living, before “maturity”, with its practical goals and responsibilities, catches up to them. It’s vitally important to pay attention to teenage culture as it’s often a truer commentary on the state of our society than anything else. (Marilyn Manson understood this too well.)

Just want to give a shout out to whoever bought me a home subscription to Ladies Home Journal for my 30th birthday last month. Mad respect.