Electronic music is one of the most state of the art forms of musical expression. Its range of musical possibilities is almost unlimited. Through out the past three decades, the growth of computer technology has skyrocketed electronic music from a hobby of physicists with synthesizers to a world wide culture with influences from almost every genre of music. Although the majority of today’s electronic music has deep hip hop influences,  noise has had a large roll in shaping what hear today. Japan has a wide variety of electronic music, but none is less understood by the outsider than noise. Noise, as most all music, is about expression. The key to viewing it as art is not in its rhythm, but in its raw power. Once you start to look at it this way the message seams to become a little clearer. This clip is of Masonna. The man seams to be screaming into some effects pedals or have something running in which to create the feedback. It is all pretty minimalist and highly expressive.

This is not to say that all Japanese electronic music is noise. There are tons of genres and sub genres of electronic music being produced from Japan. This track by Haruka Amami has extreme disco and hip hop roots for it’s beat and sample use.

The genre of noise is not exclusive to Japan, but the country has one of the largest noise followings in the world. Even within the confines of Japanese noise, the genre is incredibly vast. I have said it before, but what it really all comes down to is expression. Noise artists rely on power in expression however they can get it. Whether it is your voice as shown in the clip above with Massona or with some sort of electrical devise as shown bellow with the artist AUBE.

This project really isn’t about the history of noise or its relevance in the electronic music world. It is really about my quest to understand it and possibly be influenced by it. I originally had remixed files to put on my page and play for you, but unfortunately they were crushed along with my external hard-drive. There is a sort of irony in this because most of the noise I studied I found was played live as I am now forced to do. If you are reading this site without my presentation that hopefully I have uploaded something for you to listen to. If not your out of luck unless you can find me and I play a show for you. I looked around my house to see what I could be expressive with. I found a Casio keyboard, a midi keyboard, my computer, some guitar pedals, and my microphone. I connected and disconnected things until I found something useful, here it is.

Some other interesting electronic music.

Europe Dubstep

American electronic bands