Due on the 17th October...
 
Who needs genres? Philosophically speaking, no one does, yet they are a fact. Just like you can’t help but notice the green in the myriad of colours with that name, certain musical expressions share certain things. Jazz, the will to challenge rules, rock, the will to tear things apart, black metal, the inviting of the darker parts of the human soul into the world of sound. Genres are there because nothing lives in isolation.
 
Analog dance music is music that arises when you can’t help but notice that you live in amazing times and that the opportunities laid out before you are greater than those enjoyed by any previous generation. This calls for a certain celebratory quality which could easily be mistaken for complacency. Oh yes, the good in the world is seriously under pressure, but when there are too many things in your own life that lift your spirit, the sounds that come out when you start singing and playing will have a certain smoothness.
How can you sing and dance when the ice sheets are melting and hatred is on the rise? Well, let’s turn it around. How can you not? We all work better when we treat ourselves well. Whatever you are fighting for, allow yourself some well-being and you might excel. Like the champagne Winston Churchill was sipping when he was struggling with the military machinery of nazi Germany, songs that are born from feeling the good in life can sometimes be helpful.
 
Unlike pop music, where every song is three minutes long and has a bridge and a chorus, ADM lets the band play on if the groove is good and the harmonies are intriguing.
 
ADM is about played instruments, so that every time a pattern is repeated, everything is slightly different. An electronic signal is a mathematical representation of a sound, allowing the exact same note to be repeated several times during a song. An analog signal is, well, analog to what it signalises, and whether it’s a drum beat or guitar riff, every element of a song is a performance. ADM is about musicians and a lot of studio hours to get a good take.
 
Where funk and disco take a certain beat and bass groove, and write music around it, ADM allows any rhythm that’s appealing and danceable, whether it’s house, samba, rock or whatever. There are no rules. The limitations are whatever a band is capable of playing with the instruments at hand.
Hand made, home made, handcrafted, tactile qualities. Surrounding yourself with objects that smell good and feel good in your hands just feels better somehow. It takes a lot of time and effort to build stuff yourself, practise an instrument and record songs yourself.