A lot of people don't understand the way music has always been - they complain about Hip Hop, and Electronic Artists copying others - Let's be very clear - Mozart, Beethoven, and the rest ALL performed mostly music written by others in their own way, along with a few special jams of their own - (And any proper artist, and even scientist will admit they stand on the shoulders of giants they hope to become)
In this day and age, while many DJs do the same thing, few and far between are a group of musicians like Above & Beyond - I often hear a song on the radio and am surprised - oh - "this is the original" I think - wow! how cool!
A lot of artists remix other people's music, and some even remix their own - but WOW - realize what A&B does - They play all the instruments, sing, compose and are truly amazing! I had the pleasure to see these guys live, in an acoustic format and quickly realized - these guys are special -
"The production process for electronic music is often someone sitting at a computer with a mouse - it's a very inorganic, and impersonal process really - "
"We don't tend to just stick a bit of vocal over a track - we start with a song"
If you have a chance to see or listen to these guys, highly recommended - their weekly podcast is a marvel of dance music, and you can't hear much of a mix from a well known DJ without hearing an A&B original -
From my perspective I have never heard a song successfully "de-mixed" - the closest maybe is hearing something like metallica de-hardened with a symphony orchestra, but if you want to see the many face of music (Note that Oceanlab is a name for A&B With a particular vocal artist - Justine Suisse):
OceanLab - Miracle - Club Mix (They always do a club mix of their music....they are DJs!) - - WOW! Seriously up!
Wow!
If you want to experience end to end, and amazing journey check out this recording of their original Acoustic performance!
It's awesome and has commentary that really helps you understand these guys - I was blessed to seem them with a few close friends this year in the bay area and it was AMAZING!
Cheers, and much love to my group therapy family!
-Tom
