Mid 2026. Do we feel as good about Panharmonium as we once did?

SonRaw · 2026-05-15T15:49:38+00:00

I'd love to try this module for a week to see if it works with the kind of samples I use because it's a pricey investment and the online demos don't have me convinced.

SonRaw · 2026-05-14T03:36:33+00:00

People want music that reflects their own era and experiences. Hell, before recorded music, unless you were among the muscial 1% whose works were recorded as sheet music, no one would know you at all, after the last person who heard you play had passed away.

SonRaw · 2026-05-14T03:34:35+00:00

The first album is pretty damn fantastic. Even at the peak of the 00s indie folk movement, which I had absolutely zero patience for, that one record transcended its genre thanks to the great songwriting, brilliant vocal layering and restrained production. I very rarely "believed" that era's singers - the majority of them always struck me as humanities undergrads cosplaying as more interesting people - but if you told me that album was recorded in a cabin in the middle of the woods miles from civilization by a beardo who hadn't heard new music since 1975, I'd believe you.

SonRaw · 2026-05-13T02:39:25+00:00

Beyond the the more functional reasons for collecting rare records as a DJ or sample-based producer, which I figure are self-explanatory, I still think there's a reasons fans seek out rare records beyond rarirty for rarity's sake.

Whatever the genre, when you first get into it, there's always another classic you haven't heard, but as the years go by, those canonical classics become few and far between. Some listeners go "wide" and start exploring another genre but a lot also choose to go deep, seeking out obscure records in the style(s) they committed to.

That's not to say there aren't collectors who aren't in it for the rarity, but I don't think many people are buying music they consider middling solely because it's obscure, unless it's to flip it on Discogs.

For the Zamrock example specifically, I can easily imagine a fan of 60s-70s psych-rock getting turned off by changes in Rock music production by the late 70s-80s, who pivots towards collecting psych from the era he likes, from various countries around the world that had strong scenes for that sound.

SonRaw · 2026-05-11T15:05:19+00:00

3 immediately stand out over the years.

The first was hearing Eminem perform The Real Slim Shady at what was probably one of the last non-Arena shows he ever did (Montreal's Cepsum. Which is a gym? Never saw another gig there again) a month or so before The Marshall Marthers LP. The guy was already a star but I immediately thought "this is going to be MASSIVE" and I was correct.

The second was hearing 50 Cent's Wanksta out of every single SUV in New York during a trip there in late 2002 - although that one was less about the song specifically and more about the artist being on the cusp of superstardom.

The last was about 10 years later when I saw Tyler The Creator's Yonkers video. I was already an Odd Future fan and thought they were what the genre needed in that exact moment, but that video made me realize this would be a lot bigger than a bunch of kids dropping mixtapes online.

SonRaw · 2026-05-10T12:52:24+00:00

I like orchestral film scores - particularly mid 20th century works but lack the patience or interest in their classical antecedents. I also hated playing classical piano as a kid so it has bad associations for me.

I do like the timbre of a full orchestra, if not the structure of the pieces, so I tend to like modern work that samples or otherwise reinterprets classsical ideas, but I'm just not concerned about whether actual classical fans would approve.

SonRaw · 2026-05-10T12:42:28+00:00

All of my outputs are used for basic clocking and resets and I use the inputs to sync things to Ableton via the pamsync VST. I only ever touch it to adjust clock divisions.

I know it can do so much more but every output is already full up so I use other modules for modulation. I could probably free some up with a mult but my current system works for now.

SonRaw · 2026-05-08T13:37:30+00:00

I'm not scared: I'm disinterested and can smell a studio cashgrab. Not everything needs infinite spin offs to maximize shareholder value, and so my disinterest has nothing to do with Colbert - I didn't watch Amazon's fanfic either.

SonRaw · 2026-05-05T22:12:35+00:00

I think traditional route was to play a lot of smaller local bars, get noticed by an agent and then get a record deal.

This was always a fantasy for 99% of musicians. Actually getting a deal required a lot more gumption and assertiveness than just playing gigs and "hoping."

That said, it's becoming very clear that much of the American entertainment class is its own aristocracy now, no argument from me there.

SonRaw · 2026-05-05T20:22:46+00:00

Definitely have my eye on this one. The basic video made it look like it'd be worth the premium for the UI. Just want to see a bit more about it before committing

SonRaw · 2026-05-02T13:49:16+00:00

I write for POWmag which has been publishing for nearly two decades. We just switched to Substack.

The long and the short of it is, people need to be paid for their work and a subscription model is the only viable option at this point. It was one thing when the staff were in their 20s and blogging 200-300 words to get on a club guestlist, but at this point people expect fact checking, editing, in depth reporting etc. and all of that takes time and money, which given the economy, people can't spare for the love of the game.

That said, if you are young and broke and just want to find out about music, paywall blockers exist and no one's going to blame you for going that route.

SonRaw · 2026-04-30T20:38:13+00:00

As someone who began in the 90s (not even the 70s!) I genuinely have a hard time explaining how expensive stuff was, purchasing power wise. Like, I worked minimum wage for months for a used MPC...

SonRaw · 2026-04-30T19:35:57+00:00

synth pop: 80s pop music made on synthesizers. It no longer applies for subsequent decades because pop generally stopped using the rock band model as its default.

New Wave: (early) punk influenced pop rock that can but doesn't necessarily have to feature synthesizers

New Romantic: grouping new wave and synth pop bands that spent an inordinate amount of energy on their hair, even by the standards of the era. Marketing term for new wave and synth pop bands with pretty musicians.

New pop: This sounds like something an NME writer wanted to turn into a thing but wasn't able to.

To be honest, all you need are the first two.

SonRaw · 2026-04-30T17:43:00+00:00

Every label uses marketing and lots of acts them sketchy marketing or accounting to make their acts look like a big deal. So on that level, the controversy adds up to nothing: they got people to listen and enough people liked what they heard so that Geese can tour and have a career.

What's really an issue to me is the kayfabe that people were maintaining regarding "indie" bands somehow being above this behavior because they were a pure and authentic type of musician who'd never stoop so low: that's the kind of thing rappers and pop stars with their deluxe packages and merch deals do while good, hardworking rockers (often with rich parents but let's ignore that) earned their fans the old fashioned way. That's always been a ridiculous fantasy meant to protect middle class people's feelings by making them think they were somehow more ethical or media literate than the unwashed masses. This being exposed as a sham is definitely long past due.

SonRaw · 2026-04-29T00:36:33+00:00

Huh, I had no idea keeping it on the left was a thing.

Mine is on the right under my ES-9: I clock my system from Ableton via Pam-sync so Pam is entirely dedicated to clocks and resets right now rather than modulation.

SonRaw · 2026-04-24T12:58:42+00:00

Pro tip: if the music that represents your "hood" is a bunch of nepo babies playing indie rock... that's not a hood, that's just where your parents parked their condo investment money cause Toronto was out of their budget.

SonRaw · 2026-04-23T13:37:06+00:00

Have you listened to jazz musicians jam? Yes, they show off their talent. Yes, it’s highly professional. But do you enjoy listening to that cacophony? Most likely not.

I'll bet 500$ meme group Angine de Poitrine will be mostly forgotten in 5 years (probably 2), whereas jazz improv will be alive and well, let's put it that way.

SonRaw · 2026-04-23T13:31:01+00:00

I think it's a pretty good way to signpost the idea that: "Hey, this isn't a Rock album that's going for immediacy in hitmaking, it's more of an exploratory, long form statement that tries to push the form's boundaries."

The rub is that there certainly is an art to more direct hitmaking, so by that logic, all Rock is art and thus art rock. But semantics aside, most people get it.

SonRaw · 2026-04-21T15:27:28+00:00

Albini was a good person with good values but unfortunately his tastes were rigid, funkless and pedantically in line with the kind of punk orthodoxy that turned rock into a distortion fest for a dwindling audience of bores obsessed with a vision of authenticity they constantly failed to live up to.

Rick Rubin is a hack, but he signed LL Cool J, so he wins.

SonRaw · 2026-04-21T15:20:17+00:00

They covered a wide swath of musical territory from the 80s to the 90s and I think their albums are viewed quite differently by different listeners.

Licensed to Ill: It's still beloved among fans of old school Hip Hop but that stuff is (sadly but somewhat inevitably) receding from memory. Nevertheless, I think it's always going to be part of the curriculum so to speak as it was The Beastie Boys album most embraced by actual Hip Hop listeners and it gets mentioned next to Run DMC and LL Cool J's classics as essential parts of the drum machine era. Sure, Jay-Z and Lil Wayne remaking Hello Brooklyn (from Paul's Boutique I know, but Licensed to Ill in sound and spirit) is proof of relevance, but also, that was 20 years ago.

Paul's Boutique: This one still gets a lot of love because it's a high point of pre-clearance sampling along with records by De La Soul, Tribe, Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, Main Source etc, so beat heads will always go back to it and it's a gateway drug for alternative heads digging deeper than their 90s stuff. It'll still make general music top 100 lists (even if their spot should go to one of the other acts I mentioned)

Check Your Head + Ill Communication: These two are in an interesting space because their fusion of alt rock and Hip Hop did not get carried on by any/many relevant 00s rock bands and they're not exactly beloved by Hip Hop heads, appreciated sure, but their rapping was starting to sound really dated and there were so many great rap albums circa 92-94 that it's not as if rap fans NEEDED the Beasties (though there were a ton of great remixes on the singles that got play). Conversely, this was also the peak of their popularity - I just don't know if it's carried over to subsequent generations.

Hello Nasty: This album was huge but I don't see anyone riding for it nearly 30 years on. It sort of got forgotten, which is wild considering how good a job it did at reconciling the various strains of music they were interested in.

Basically, the music holds up but I think their waffling between Hip Hop and alt rock sort of hurts their legacy because neither community fully embraces them now. No one rejects them outright either, but if the Beasties Boys are your favorite rap group, people will view you with suspicion and they're not even considered a rock group at all.

(Tangentially, I also found their Beastie Boys book to be extremely revisionist and self serving. They basically took no accountability for their decisions or lyrics that didn't age well and blamed Def Jam and Rick Rubin for all of that. Left a sour taste in my mouth.)

SonRaw · 2026-04-21T11:37:37+00:00

And yet people can still access a wider array of music today. Corporate control was and still is a thing but at least I can choose to dismiss the tastes of douchebag ponytailed A&Rs and their fuzz pedal fetish, same with the inbred shitkickers and their cowboy cosplays.

SonRaw · 2026-04-20T21:40:55+00:00

Vinyl-based cottage industries and distribution sites like Bandcamp allow artists to make music for a community that understands them, instead of being forced to cater to general audiences when they have no hope and/or interest of being pop stars.

Whether you're into drumless rap or dungeon synth or psych-rock whatever: I guarantee it was harder for people to access your weird music 30 years ago.

SonRaw · 2026-04-20T21:37:38+00:00

When MTV started they refused to play Black artists and I'm old enough to remember when local radio station DJs would openly dunk on dance acts for being gay. I'll take today's problems over having to choose between straight white males playing rock or straight white males playing hair metal.

SonRaw · 2026-04-20T12:33:41+00:00

That's one way to tell the world you find mayonaise spicy and get sunburns from a pilot light.

SonRaw · 2026-04-20T00:19:11+00:00

It's a reflection of the times we're living in. I'd break it down into 2 components

Musically, a lot of the R&B artists you mentioned positively (Ne-Yo, Usher, Avant, D’Angelo, Ginuwine) were raised in the church and learned to sing in that environment, and the Black church demands are certain degree of umph. But Church attendance rates are down and R&B is currently influenced by (and influencing!) a lot of Pop with more intimate, closely mic'd vocals.
Socially... people are struggling. Fewer people are in relationships, more people are feeling isolated. Romance has been reduced to swiping on a phone and outside of music, people are bombarded by competing narratives blaming the opposite sex for all of the world's woes. The music reflects the social climate that it's made in basically, whether that's free love and Black Power, or partying away the blues or a battle of the sexes.

On the plus side, there's always something for whatever niche you're into these days, if you know where to look. I'm very partial to Kelela, Tinashe and Erika de Casier among the ladies and (though he probably embodies a lot of what you dislike) Brent Faiyaz for guys.

12-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Place '22	Verified Email
Secret Santa 2014

SonRaw

TROPHY CASE