The Sound of the Future

I have long considered electronic beat music to be pretty futuristic, using technology to create sounds and arrangements that are unnatural and machinic, pushing the boundaries of sonic exploration in the dark area between noise and music and creating sounds almost impossible for human replication.

Many artists involved in experimental electronica, dubstep and techno talk of the influence of the urban and industrial landscape on their work, synthesised with science fiction and the desire to create a space beyond the city, beyond the here and now.

I have always tended to agree with this theory, believing that the best music is created through understanding and borrowing from what has come before, synthesising this with the sounds and emotions of the current environment and the vision and philosophy of the creator.

But listening to the birds today in Grosvenor Square opened up a whole new dimension to my thinking on electronic music. The intricate rhythms, indescribable sounds and unfamiliar arrangements that i associate so heavily with technology and electronic music making were being created by the orchestra of birds that surrounded me.




Short high pitched stabbing bursts interspersed with long, soft drawn out whistles. Mid range ratcheting triggers, like rounds of gun fire, interrupting melodic whistles and sharp grating screams. Distant warm low warble providing the sub bass over which a mid range call brings to mind the sound of snare drums stacked close together on a Cubase grid, stretched and clipped.

At times many of these sounds dispersed, leaving space for melody to chirp through, joined by soothing whistles and reverberant spacious calls, before gradually building again in call and response until i was listening to a complex layered arrangement coming together quickly and intensely as if the filters had suddenly been removed.

This was syncopation and polyrhythm as i have never heard it before, so many interesting sounds and movements, spaces and intensities, all fitting together intelligently and intricately, as nature intended, leaving me listening to the most enjoyable and cacophonous beat i have ever heard.

In our exploration of the possibilities of technology it is important not to lose sight (or sound) of the possibilities of nature too, because those complex futuristic sounds that many of us seek are already out there, you've just got to know where to find them.