Genetic Selection: Darwin’s Voyage | electro industrial on Ant-Zen

One of the great thing about art you love is how you can interpret it in your very own and highly personalised way.

One of my most prized paintings, for example, depicts a scene on the surface of an unknown planet, stars and interstellar space behind it, with a few streaks meant to be space craft zipping by the distant sky.

This piece took less than 10 minutes to create and cost me around $20 from a street artist in Sydney. The medium? A couple of cans of spray paint on glossy paper, along with inventive use of spray can lids to create perfectly round shapes.

It’s a simple painting, made on the spot according to a formula. I also suspect the artist churned out several dozen of these by-the-numbers creations every weekend. Yet for me that in no way diminishes its artistic value.

Art is what you love. And art that you love is what you make of it. Indeed, over several years I have derived enjoyment from the fact that this piece hung on display in my man-room. At various times, when I found myself staring at the wall (something I did probably far more than I care to admit), I would occasionally imagine what was going on in that scene. What was this strange planet that was being colonised? What degree of technological advancement had this civilisation attained? And what else could be going on off the frame?

The artist who made the painting undoubtedly had no backstory in mind when he used the round bases of spray cans to create planetary shapes. Nor would his motive for creating it have been for a buyer to subject his work to serious intellectual evaluation. It’s just a space scene, churned out on demand for a tourist audience.

But that’s ok by me. Not all art has to be open to interpretation. If something can make you do that, then great, so much the better.

I suppose that’s why it’s called art, not science.

The same applies to music.

If you let it.

How good is the artwork? Absolutely stunning! Painted by Michael Hutter.

Imagination and artistic interpretation: Genetic Selection by Darwin’s Voyage

These very thoughts occurred to me after I began listening to the 2005 album Darwin’s Voyage by German electronic artist Genetic Selection.

Released on the experimental Ant-Zen label, it’s an instrumental industrial album that merges techno, rhythmic noise, smatterings of ambient, industrial (in all its wonderful manifestations), and other moderately dark and nasty sounds. And no, I hadn’t heard of Genetic Selection either until then.

Now I must emphasise that the sound and style didn’t blow me away. While I love all sorts of electronic industrial music, including the hard-hitting and stomping noisy varieties, I’m often drawn back to the EBM cheese and more synth-centric terror banana melodic stuff.

However, this album intrigued me. The hook was the album artwork, which you can see above.

“One thing music collectors learn over many years of accumulating physical media is to be wary of unfamiliar artists that bear exceedingly good artwork and intriguing names. Sure, it’s not an absolute rule, but in the imperfect world we inhabit it’s sometimes a sign of things being too good to be true.”

My copy of Darwin’s Voyage was acquired as part of a bulk purchase of EBM and industrial CDs from a mate. There was no pre-conceived sussing out of what this album sounded like. I did not look at it online nor (if like me you’re still into physical media) did I make some value judgement when holding it in my hands prior to acquisition. In fact, I only discovered that it was in my possession when I went through the collection after it had come home with me.

One thing music collectors learn over many years of accumulating physical media is to be wary of unfamiliar artists that bear exceedingly good artwork and intriguing names. Sure, it’s not an absolute rule, but in the imperfect world we inhabit it’s sometimes a sign of things being too good to be true.

After a first listen, my first impression was that my suspicions might be correct. Darwin’s Voyage is entirely instrumental and while it combines hard techno, rhythmic noise, EBM, electro-industrial and a whole range of other electronic music sounds that I generally approve of (plus minimal and generally very short use of samples) it wasn’t my cup of tea.

The album sounded kind of stiff. It’s hard to describe without listening to it (which you can totally do here on the official Bandcamp page). I guess it sounded to me like a techno album having a go at industrial. If that’s your bread and butter, then good for you. It wasn’t quite for me, and with something like another 100 CDs to get through, I was on the verge of passing this off as just another album that might get a few listens and then most likely never get aired again. Believe me, I own and have paid money for many such releases. Yet, I was captivated by that fantastic cover art. I’m a sci-fi nerd and that creepy, dark, human-alien hybrid was fantastic.

With that in mind (in more than one sense), I listened to it again. Thinking of the artist’s name — Genetic Selection, what a name — got me thinking, especially when I imagined the album title to be a reference to distant space travel.

Wonderful Alien, Aliens and It-inspired track names here. 

My interest really got piqued though when I paid proper attention to the track titles (I rip all my physical media to lossless but the actual listening occurs predominantly via my phone, where it’s easy to forget track names).

Now I found that I was getting really interested. I found that I was starting to ‘construct’ a story for each track, based solely on the titles.

There was the slow intermittent sound of the track Drop Ship, which in my mind could happily pass for mechanical processes of a descending vessel slowly floating to the surface of a distant planet. Or there were the somewhat wilder sounds of the opening track Xenomorph Attack, which in my mind (and I do mean, in my mind) could pass for the chaos of a violent confrontation with an alien aggressor.

I found I got into this imagination play so much that I was somewhat obsessively checking back on track names, which is not something I usually do with purely instrumental albums.

Eventually, by the time I had ‘learned’ this album, I’d constructed my own story. While it was nominally a concept-album, I allowed my imagination to fill in the blank spaces.

Incidentally, the liner notes do contain a short description (in German) of the album theme. It details how colonists are attacked on a distant planet by an irresistible and predatory alien creature. It differed slightly to the way I imagined it, but I wasn’t too far off.

Imagination and track selection

I have since listened to another Genetic Selection album: Orbital Ground Attack. This second on was the Genetic Selection debut album

It too is an instrumental album and while its songs bear titles that are entirely hard sci-fi themes (which I love) — earth under attack, interstellar combat, human resistance — it was much more ambiguous. I couldn’t quite spurn my imagination in the same vivid detail that I did for Darwin’s Voyage.

Perhaps Orbital Ground Attack wasn’t the artist’s best work, what with it being his debut work? I felt it was a bit different, but I didn’t regard the quality to be any different.

More likely, I feel that I preferred one over the other their entirely instrumental nature meant there was a ‘gap’ that could be filled with imagination and personal interpretation. Let’s be honest with the fact that the track names could have been anything. Yet, the artist chose to call them Xenomorph Attack, Through Hyperspace, Drop Ship, The Creature, etc.

The song names on Darwin’s Voyage are clearly inspired by Alien, Aliens, It and other sci-fi-horror greats. I love that stuff and I allowed myself to imagine things accordingly. Orbital Ground Attack, with its ambiguous track names, is not inferior in any way musically. I just couldn’t get my imagination to envisage things on this album in the same way.

And with less imagination, there was less enthusiasm.

Art is what you make of it

I’m apprehensive when it comes to talking about an artist’s ‘vision’ or intent. We live in a time where, more than ever, art and culture is arguably seen as more consumable and about immediate gratification. From the nature of music streaming to what passes for pop music, it’s easy to lose sight of the intention of art, and how we value it.

And yet, as I said previously, good art is what you love.

Art is not rational. It’s not a scientific experiment with measurable results. It’s not a definable or quantifiable. There is no art without imagination (except perhaps in the machine-learning art sense).

Art is what you love. And if that fires your imagination in a fulfilling way, then it’s art that is worthwhile, regardless of whether it’s a masterpiece that took years to create, or a painting made with spray cans in a couple of minutes.

Awesome club moment #2 | I discover what hardcore is about with the DJ Producer and friends

Here’s one about a DJ who toured Australia. The occasion was the DJ Producer (read the comments behind that link to get an idea of what many hardcore techno gabber types think of him) and while musical instrument-playing purists may argue one particular old chestnut — that to play pre-recorded music is not a ‘proper’ gig — this was a monster occasion in every sense other than the fact that there weren’t a bunch of people on a stage playing stringed instruments. On the other hand, it was a club venue (Inflation), so I’m counting it as a Memorable Club Moment.

The DJ Producer smashes Melbourne

The DJ Producer. Not actually in Melbourne in this photo. Pic: Discogs.com

There are a couple of reasons why this night remains memorable, despite the grandiose volume of alcohol consumed and the fact that it occurred almost10 years ago.

In 2007 (yes, it was that long ago) I had kind of started to get into hardcore techno, gabber and breakcore. I had genuine dreams of DJing this kind of music at actual club nights and (perhaps somewhat naively) I made a point of purchasing a whole bunch of this music on vinyl. I was determined to somehow be the real deal, whatever that was, and, as this still the pre-streaming-everything or even pre-everything-is-on-YouTube era (remember, YouTube only started in 2005), I refused to torrent download any music. I would build up my Totally Awesome DJ Collection one record at a time, learning Mad DJ Skillz with each new acquisition. Because vinyl records.

As a direct consequence, my general knowledge and understanding of gabber and hardcore techno remained extremely limited. Specifically, what I knew of gabber and hardcore was mostly on the relatively few vinyl records in my collection, which usually got listened to while actually DJing in my bedroom — in other words, only two thirds of each record would actually be heard, since the rest of them had to be cued up. On the other hand, I had an unsurpassed knowledge of all the first 32 bars of some bangin’ electronic tunes.

As a mid-20-something on my first full-time income, any lack of common sense was made up for with boundless belief and enthusiasm. And since I actually owned releases by at least three of the people on the bill, I felt I had totally found my calling.

Why was it so great and memorable?

It’s a terribly clichéd pursuit in post-show accounts to rattle off DJ names and smother each one with slightly different but otherwise indistinguishable dollops of saccharine adulation. Instead, I’ll list the acts I had looked forward to seeing and explain what was truly great about each one.

PaulBlackout

Yes, PaulBlackout is apparently the correct spelling (as compared to Paul Blackout).

He plays heavy and dark drum n’ bass — and at this gig it was like nothing I’d ever heard before. I’d never been to a drum n’ bass night, let alone a hardcore techno gabber night, and here was a guy who played the former while not shying away from the latter.

It was on this occasion that I discovered that drum n’ bass — when it’s good — is wonderful owing to the fact that it’s bizarrely accessible. If you want to dance, anyone can move at whatever speed works for them — and if you add an entire new level of crashing heaviness on top of it is becomes music that anyone can headbang and mosh to, at whatever speed works for them. I’m a metal head at heart (and so is Paul apparently) and this was unequivocally an immensely heavy set.

Incidentally, I love the Desolate Ways EP, especially the monster first track.

Mark N (i.e. Mark Newlands)

Mark happened to be the person that sold me most of my vinyl and I can genuinely say that, if asked, I never got a bad recommendation. I’d seen him play two or three times prior and came to realise that no two sets were ever the same.

What got played was what someone else at a later and unrelated show once described (are you following me?) as “the definition of breakcore”. No doubt Mark would cringe at such an epithet (and possibly say something acerbic), so allow me to clarify first.

The conversation I’m referring to occurred on another occasion with someone I met, at another venue, after a breakcore gig at which Mark happened it play. At one time, after talking about music we liked, this person mentioned how breakcore at its best was when everything got thrown into one ugly mix — techno, drum n’ bass, hip hop, pop mashups, ‘humorous’ samples, turntablism, and everything else.

And that is what got played. Savage, dark and heavy drum n’ bass one moment, rave-speed hip hop the next, dropped on top of something filthy and nasty and terrible doing near 190bpm if not more, and many other things in between.

The DJ Producer

Up until I attended this gig, most of the industrial music I’d seen played out relied heavily on the audience knowing how and when everything went together. These 4 on the floor dance tunes generally had a start, a middle bit, and something at the end to tell you what to do next. Not so with the DJ Producer.

It was hard. It was fast. It was intense, crazy, and it took heavy music to a whole new depth I never realised could be reached. There were breaks, there were thunderous passages of fist-bashing techno, there were moments where it was toned down just long enough to let you catch your breath, before it resumed once more at full attack speed.

This was electronic music and it was heavy like I’d never known. And when it was over I clapped and cheered with the rest of the audience, breathless and sweating from such a roaring set. I was overjoyed that I’d found something that spoke to me so darkly, yet I was also saddened, for “heavy” for me would never quite be the same.

So this is what this music is really about, I thought.

Then some time afterwards, I was told, on good authority, that the DJ Producer’s set was comparatively tame.

Wow.

• Previous awesome club moment #1

• Next awesome club moment #3

Polyamorous DJ devastated at suggestion he has only one girlfriend

A polyamorous DJ has decided to speak out after being wrongfully accused one too many times of having “just one girlfriend”.

DJ Sasquatch X says he finally decided to make himself heard after insensitive comments spoiled what would otherwise have been “a bangin’ party”.

“I was standing there at the bar, getting ready for my set, with my arms around two very good looking female companions. One of them left to grab a drink, so I was alone with the other. It was only for a minute, but someone then came up to me and started a conversation. That’s when I was asked if the beautiful lady by my side was my girlfriend,” says DJ Sasquatch X.

“Now, when someone asks “is that your girlfriend?” they’re making some pretty strong assumptions. If I don’t say anything they might leave the conversation thinking I wasn’t here with multiple gorgeous women,” he says. “So, I find myself in this strange situation where I have to constantly tell people that “it’s girlfriends”.

“I used to just ignore it but it’s gotten really bad lately. So that’s why I decided to speak up. If you keep quiet, people are going to blindly assume you’re with just one partner.”

Despite the frustration, DJ Sasquatch X says he doesn’t begrudge people who assume he has “just one girlfriend” because he realises that monogamous non-DJs were usually brought up differently. He acknowledges that it’s not out of malice that people make assumptions and he believes the key is education.

Pic: divorcecourt.com

“I used to get really angry about it but I’ve learnt over the years that the best thing to do is to remain calm and explain things rationally. That usually gets the point across,” he says.

Even so, he admits that it can still get a bit much on some days.

“It usually happens when I’m DJing in the booth and only one of my many super-hot female partners is standing next to me. That’s when I find myself having to constantly explain to people that no, I’m not monogamous, I’ve actually got more than one girlfriend, it’s just that the other one is probably at the bar or something. Nights like that can get really tiring and it’s in those moments that I wish monogamous non-DJs were more considerate.”

Not one to concede defeat, DJ Sasquatch X says he still believes he can change the way people think. His latest strategy, he reveals, is to spread his message via social media.

“Like so many great ideas, the social media thing started by accident. I was at this house party and someone took a photo of me standing with my arms around several of my partners. It went on Facebook and got an amazing response. That’s when I realised, hang on a second, I’m onto something here,” he says

“Likes and comments just went through the roof. Here was a photo of me with my arms around three or four exceptionally attractive and alluringly dressed young women. I thought, wow, maybe I’ve finally found a way for everyone to finally see that I’m a guy who has multiple partners.”

Unfortunately, concedes DJ Sasquatch X, his message didn’t reach as many people as he first thought. Although his message was viewed by thousands of people, most of the responses turned out to be from other non-monogamous DJs.

“While I was hoping for a wider response, it’s comforting to at least know that there are people who support me morally,” he says. “Even if they don’t share or comment on my photo, it’s enough to know that they saw me with two or more pretty young women. That really warms my heart. It’s what gets me out of bed every morning.”

Yes, this article is satirical. It is not real.