"In the last few years... that future-rush
of exponential rhythmic complexification [that propelled the 1990s forward] has dissipated, reached a plateau or
impasse. The most popular dancefloor sounds of the last four years-
Big Beat, the "disco cut-up"/filter style of house, and the
Eighties-revisionist styles known variously as electroclash or nu-wave--are
retro-kitsch in flavor, imitating or directly sampling Seventies disco and
early Eighties electro i.e. the pre-rave ancestors of house, techno, jungle,et
al.
This wave of "technostalgia" is reflected in recent videos, like
the kitschadelic cut-and-paste of Cassius's "1999", where the pulpy
visuals match the period associations of the track's disco sources: Pop
Art/Lichtenstein style comic book appropriations, dated-looking typography and
graphics redolent of early Seventies teenpop music annuals and heart-throb
magazines, tacky sci-fi imagery, and so forth.
Similarly the video for Les Rythmes Digitales’ "Hey You
What's That Sound" (directed by Evan Bernard) is a fond, knowing and
immaculate parody of an early Eighties dancepop video (think the
pre-megastardom Madonna of "Holiday "
and "Lucky Star", or Shannon, or Bananarama). The primitive computer
video effects perfectly fit Les Rhythmes Digitales's deliberately
retro-futurist sound--stiff sequencer and drum machine rhythms, unwieldy
geometric synth-riffs. What was once state-of-the-art retinal intensity returns
under the sign of camp, signifying both bemused amusement that we could ever
have been astonished by these clumsy visual tricks, and a yearning to
experience once again that virgin amazement.
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