Tuesday 23 July 2024

horsemouth: a retrospection (this being a certified head-nodder)

an entirely written in the morning blogpost (excepting the title - the title horsemouth found last night in sir arthur conan doyle's the hound of the baskervilles, well, the 'a retrospection' part).

horsemouth has been reading some sherlock holmes. the adventure of the boscombe valley mystery is believed to be set in 1889 or 1890. it is one of 12 sherlock holmes short stories in the adventures of sherlock holmes, it is set near ross-on-wye (and hereford gets a mention). the gazetteer identifies some likely sites. 

it's a greyish morning but not cold. 

today is the anniversary (52nd anniversary) of alice coltrane live in berkeley an amazing recording.

it was the anniversary of the release of super session yesterday. horsemouth once sampled the guitars and the break from the start of season of the witch - it ended up on a friend's tune in the days when the rules around sampling (and the ability of record companies to detect sampling) was much more lax. it's an almost perfect breakbeat for that era, funky and relaxed with a nice firm 'one', a certified head-nodder. 

when the 'free for all' era of sampling was over horsemouth became much less interested in the music (and the music became much less interesting). a colourful sampledelica was replaced with a penitential and copyright compliant lent. 

and then music production changed again. 

but it is the changes in the consumption of music (unlimited free streaming) that have most profoundly changed the music and the way we listen to it. in the attali scheme of things we are out of the era of repetition  and into an era of composition where everyone is involved in an improvisation of music. look at reaction videos - the presenters are being paid (via a share of the advertising revenue) to listen to the songs viewers recommend, the listening to of music has been commodified and become a spectator sport (nearly).

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