The German idealist philosopher J.G. Fichte wrote somewhere that nothing of value would ever wholly disappear, that we would all eventually find what would most inspire us. He probably would have felt his views confirmed if he had lived to hear the Nuggets compilations, but I can't help but think a huge amount of great music has simply fallen through the cracks -- especially before our current era of near ubiquitous ownership of basic recording equipment. Still, even with your own recording gear, getting your ideas etched in the vinyl (or bytes) with anything near the richness you hear in your head is very difficult. My own musical projects have borne this out.

Good thing that Of Montreal -- well, Kevin Barnes -- came along to inspire us, recording Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? on (I think) less than $10,000 worth of equipment and all by himself. Hissing Fauna was probably the first blow-your-mind-great album to be recorded like this. "Suffer for Fashion" is the anthem, opening the album...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBYGjC_hJ9A

But perhaps it's been done before. I hear that "Street Fighting Man" was recorded on a 2-track at Keith Richard's apartment with Charlie Watts playing a toy drum set he'd found at a pawn shop (each of the smaller drums fit inside the bass drum, which served as a convenient carrying case).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibjtq3LSm4Q

So, it pays to play, to play with weird instruments and sounds, and to play seriously with them. I think that much of the best music coming out today involves this sort of extremely creative sound-forging. The palette of sounds is basically infinite now that samplers and synthesizers have become so sophisticated. The norm of having a producer who is not really a member of the creative unit having the last say on the sound of a record or a track may be going by the wayside -- but on the other hand this may only apply to the more emphatically original artists working today...

Labels: diy, of montreal, producers, production