ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

BY CARY DARLING | SEPT. 2 1998

http://www.ocRegister.com/entertainment/mod002w1.shtml

New projects step into the world of techno

CULTURE: The documentary 'Modulations' and book 'Generation Ecstasy' explore the growth of electronic dance music.

One way to tell when a subculture is bubbling to the surface of the mainstream is when movies and books on the subject start flooding the market. It happened with rock in the '60s and '70s and rap/hip-hop in the '80s, and it may be starting to happen with the techno/dance music world in the '90s.

While it's way too early to call it an inundation, two relatively high-profile projects are hitting the streets. One is "Modulations," a feature-length documentary (opening Friday at Edwards University 6 in Irvine and the Nuart in Los Angeles) tracing the history of electronic music from its first appearances on the fringes of classical music to its current explosion on the dance floor. The other is a book from Little Brown Publishers, "Generation Ecstasy," by English journalist Simon Reynolds, a studious, 453-page examination of the music, style, politics and &emdash; on the down side &emdash; the drugs of the techno-drenched rave culture. In a bit of synchronicity, Reynolds appears in "Modulations."

"I told Simon, 'My film is the film version of your book and vice versa,' " said "Modulations" director Iara Lee by phone from her office in New York City. "It's kind of cool that we're paralleling each other. I think that one complements the other."

Reynolds concedes this may just be the tip of a techno iceberg. "People are doing screenplays. There are quite a few films in progress in England," he said in a separate interview. "I know there are academic books in progress. There's 'rave fiction' from people trying to come to terms with it and write narratives about it."

BIG BEATS ON THE BIG SCREEN

For the average American pop fan, this may seem like a lot of brouhaha over what some consider a trendy, passing phase. While dance music in all of its forms is popular in the United States, rock and hip-hop have far more cultural reach. That's not true overseas, where dance music and rave culture are much more prominent and mainstream; Berlin's Love Parade annual outdoor rave attracts a million people. Techno/dance tracks regularly reach the Top 10 in Europe. With those kinds of numbers, it's no surprise that movies and books are boarding the bandwagon.

Of the two projects reaching the United States right now, "Modulations" is the more accessible, skimming over musical history to present a solid introduction to the styles of electronic music &emdash; Detroit techno, house, jungle &emdash; that have weaned a large proportion of young people from guitar-dominated rock 'n' roll. It features appearances by such performers as Afrika Babaataa, Autechre and Future Sound of London, among many others.

For filmmaker Lee, a Brazilian immigrant whose previous film, the documentary "Synthetic Pleasures," concerned artificial environments, exploring this world as a way to tap into an often maligned or ignored youth subculture. "I didn't have any preconceived ideas about how to approach the subject. I knew I wanted this to be an exploration," she said. "It's not only for those who aren't exposed to this culture but to those who are deeply involved. I'm happy that it pleases the young ravers and the high-brow scholars of electronic music.

"I'm very interested in the '90s and technology's impact on society," she continued. "It has been my obsession for the last few years. My first film was about artificial environments, and music can't escape the technological impact either, and the impact on youth culture is big."

Though she had some knowledge of the subject &emdash; her dad ran a disco in Sao Paulo and often brought home records by Donna Summer and groundbreaking German techno act Kraftwerk &emdash; she wasn't quite aware of how big a universe she was peering into.

"I was naive about what it would be. I'm kind of happy I was naive. If I would have known, I would not have done this movie.

"When I decided to make this movie, I thought I was going to start with Kraftwerk, but I got involved and realized it goes back forever, to the Futurists and John Cage (in the early part of this century). It's interesting how classical music has influenced the kids. It's going full circle. The beauty of the project is the counterpoint between the early pioneers with the young kids and how everything interacts with each other."

Lee got her start in 1991 with the short film "Prufrock," completed while she was a student at New York University. She did a couple of more shorts before tackling "Synthetic Pleasures," a film inspired by a huge indoor beach in Japan. Her next film, "Dom Casmurro," is fiction, based on a 19th-century Brazilian novel by Machado de Assis.

"The only way to get closer to my country is to develop a project on my country," she explained. "I feel like I'm the publicist for this writer; he's one of (Brazil's) important writers. All the writers who wrote in Spanish got their props (respect) but Portuguese is a language that doesn't have the international penetration."

Two pivotal figures in electronic music, Kraftwerk and Brian Eno, don't appear in "Modulations," though it wasn't for Lee's lack of trying. "Eno had some family thing going on. He was trying to be reclusive at that particular time. With Kraftwerk, their campaign is to be inaccessible. They figure, 'If we are inaccessible and mysterious, people will want us more.' "

Distribution of the film is unique. In addition to opening in such major American markets as New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles on Friday, it is being shown in clubs, and a "loop version" of the film &emdash; featuring many of the visuals and not the music &emdash; is also being used as part of the background visual mix in clubs. The movie was used as an "opening act" for a Danish Kraftwerk performance.

But whether any of this will help electronic dance music move further into the mainstream remains to be seen. Americans have not embraced the form as lovingly as their European counterparts, where it's considered part of the status quo.

Lee says Americans have a more innate inclination for rock 'n' roll, and even she can recall going to a show by the techno-ambient group The Orb a few years ago and standing around, waiting for a more traditional rock presentation.

"My friends took me to this gig and I asked them what time it was going to start. They told me it had been going on for an hour," she recalled with a laugh, underscoring the blurred line between audience and performer at techno shows, in which the performer is often nearly invisible. "It's about the music. It's not about staring at the DJ and staring at the musicians. It's a very different culture."

CHRONICLING A CULTURE

Reynolds' book, "Generation Ecstasy," delves deep into this different culture, examining how it evolved from both the fringes of American black pop culture (Chicago house, Detroit techno) and of classical/European art culture (the Futurists, John Cage, musique concrete). But those fringes have come together in what has become a major artistic movement and an industry.

"I was astounded by what a huge thing it was," said Reynolds, a senior editor at Spin magazine, of when he got the idea of doing a book in the early '90s. "The thing I was trying to do with the book was, in addition to talking about the dark side of the culture, to celebrate the music and all these amazing records that came out. Even stuff that was transient and disposable is worth remembering in some way. The first thing is the music, and the other stuff is what affects the music."

Yet, as the title indicates, Reynolds doesn't shy away from the drug culture that grew up around the rave scene. Without being alarmist or anti-techno, he pinpoints how, in the movement's early days in the '80s, there was a bouyant, "summer-of-love" optimism, sparked in part by the proliferation of Ecstasy, or MDMA (methylene dioxymethamphetamine), a synthesized drug that was put in the U.S. government's "most dangerous" category in 1988.

However, the "benefits" of Ecstasy &emdash; a reported feel-good, peace-and-love vibe &emdash; would disappear when fans began taking multiple doses or mixing it with other drugs such as nitrous oxide, crystal methamphetamine, GHB, heroin, ketamine or LSD. Just as the original summer-of-love Woodstock nation devolved into the rage and bad trips of Altamont, the rave generation in the early '90s was finding itself coming down hard.

The music changed, becoming darker and faster, sparking nostalgia among old-line ravers for the "good old days," as reprinted from a flier in Reynolds' book. "What's truly poignant about this leaflet is that the golden age being lamented had occurred only nine months earlier &emdash; an indication of just how swiftly Ecstasy burnout and poly-drug mind rot can set in," Reynolds writes.

"You get people in the scene who like to make out that drugs don't have a thing to do with it. They want to argue for it as an art form that isn't tied up to the drug culture. Then you get those who are evangelists for Ecstasy the way Tim Leary was for LSD. When I got involved, it was at the tail-end or peak of the happy phase but it seemed very swiftly it changed," he said. "I began to search why this happened and a lot of it had to do with drugs being adulterated and the mixing and matching."

Ironically, Reynolds likes a lot of the music that came out of this tortured time, including jungle and gabba, as opposed to the more laid-back and uplifting ambient-techno and happy hardcore pursued by those who didn't want to go down that dark path. "People complained that it was techno heavy metal. I like that rock aggression with the techno, and the funk coming through from hip-hop. It's a fantastic composite."

As for where electronic music goes from here, Reynolds isn't sure. While black and white audiences in Europe have embraced various factions, here in the States rock and rap still are dominant. But even in Europe, the style is finding itself at a crossroads. "It's like all the extremes have been reached," he said. "It's hard to conceive where it can go next. That's probably a sign that something really strange will happen."

Cary Darling is an entertainment editor for The Orange County Register. His column on dance and world music appears in Show on Fridays.