When Phuture’s Earl Smith Jr messed around with a Roland TB-303 synth one night, he helped create acid house – and his legacy lives on in basements the world over
Once you hear certain sounds – really hear them as they’re intended to be heard – they seem to rewire your mind and body. Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, Aretha Franklin’s voice, James Brown’s locked grooves: their effects aren’t just aesthetic or hedonistic, they physically alter listeners who surrender to them, change their stance, attitudes and actions for good. Never was this more true than for the churning modulations of the Roland TB-303 bass line synthesiser, when locked into the relentless four-to-the-floor patterns of acid house. In thousands of dark, strobe-lit basements, millions of people have given themselves up entirely to the sound, and been irrevocably altered by it. And when people change, the world changes, for better or worse. All of which is to say that the music made by Earl Smith Jr, AKA Spanky or DJ Spank-Spank – whose death was announced by Phuture on Wednesday – is among the most important ever made.
Continue reading...by Joe Muggs via Electronic music | The Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment