I recently saw a documentary called PressPausePlay. The documentary followed various artists in discussion of the implications of technology on music and art. On the one hand, increasingly cheap and powerful technology, plus the distribution capabilities of the internet, democratises art, makes it accessible to anyone, on the other hand it with everyone creating art, there is a great wave of very average music, art and film flooding the market.
Nowhere is this debate more relevant than in the world of electronic music. Electronic music is necessarily governed by technology. It is mostly made by individuals, in their bedrooms or studios sitting at a computer. This is an excellent thing. Any person with a musical idea now has the tools they need to make that idea a reality. One doesn’ need much money, any other help or even a particularly honed craft to be able to create something interesting. The other side of the coin, however, is that anyone without an idea has the same tools available.
Which brings me to Mund und Ohr gefesselt by Dorn. Dorn is the production moniker of self-described “ambitious electronician†Wolfgang Dorninger. Listening to the album there is an uncomfortable feeling of music made without any real consideration as to what the effect of the finished product should be. The album leaps through a variety of genres from early techno beats to more left of field experiments with sprechstimme vocals. Whilst this kind of genre hopping can bring a real sense of excitement to an album, in the case of Mund und Ohr gefesselt the lack of any stylistic throughline makes for awkward listening.
For all his wide selection of genres Dorn doesn’ really bring much to any of them. The arrangements lack inspiration and the production is unexceptional. Even as someone who listens only occasionally to dance music there was a feeling of having heard it all before. Good dance music has a topography of drops and build ups but this album operates on a flat plane.
Mund und Ohr gefesselt is not completely without merit. The inclusion of Tristan Tzara-esque vocal sounds on the title track was genuinely suprising and points to a potentially interesting avenue of exploration for Dorn. A quick look through Dorninger’ website reveals that he has had a long music career in sound art, solo production and as a member of various bands (Wipe Out, Smiling Buddhas, Monochrome Bleu). For the last three decades, he has created a prolific output of varied and often interesting music but Mund und Ohr Gefesselt is a definite drop in standard.
I once had a friend tell me that technology like Cubase means that anyone can make dance music. I would conjecture that anyone can make bad dance music. The sentiment from PressPausePlay that stuck with me the most was that of Lena Dunham who said something along the lines of “it’s easy to get worked up by technology without thinking about where everything is artistically.†Technology, itself, is not art. Just because something can be done does not mean that it should.
Henry Andersen
