Why are there so many Sci-Fi References in 'Techno'/'Electronica' Muzik?

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...especially from Frank Herberts Dune
An entire band named spice who seem to compose songs about fremen.
Another techno song I heard recites 'The Litany Against Fear'
Numerous samples taken from both the 1985 David Lynch movie and the 1998 Sci-Fi Channel version.
Most famous example: Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice" advises you to "walk without rhythm/ and it won't attract the worm."
I suspect Norman Cooks weapon of choice is a weirding module.

― Lord Custos III, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Anyhow, Why does Dune pop up in techno/electronica so much? and a sub-question: Is this the will of the Great Mother of Space or should we have a Butlerian Jihad and expunge the universe of these Abominations who make music with their accursed "thinking machines"?

― Lord Custos III, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Klaus Schulze also recorded an alb called 'Dune'.

― Andrew L, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well this sort of stuff can be traced back to the incipient electro scene.....Cybotron, Zero Hour, Jonzun Crew etc all used spacey sci-fi references in their trax. I suppose that because the music is, in essence, rather 'other- worldly' sounding, it lends itself to sci-fi imagery rather well. Being full of synthetic sounds and robotic machine rhythms it seems fitting....maybe thought it's just a lack of imagination, perhaps.

― Microkomputer, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

See: Kodwo Eshun _More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction_ [Quarto 1998]. Fantastic writing about fantastic music. In every sense of those words.

― alext, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sci-Fi: Because being based on invisible Elastictrickity instead of hitting things with sticks or twanging bits of string/metal made it all so Futuristic
Dune: Pharmaceutical smiley ravedrugs + shaman-archy/sham-anarchy + trancey graphics/lightshows = resurgence of psychedelia and hippydom: Dune = 'mystic' sci-fi.

― Ray M, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Dune = The Hobbit

Bad Electronica = Emerson Lake and Palmer

― mt, Friday, 2 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Another techno song I heard recites 'The Litany Against Fear'

'Fear is the mindkiller' by Eon. Total rave classic.

― Omar, Saturday, 3 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Okay, I see I'm not the only one whose noticed the Dune connection. But are there other Sci-Fi references in techno that aren't related to Frank Herbert and I just haven't noticed them yet? One would think that Phillip K Dick or William Gibson would show up alot more often....or maybe a few winking allusions to the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?

― Lord Custos III, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Now if only Toto hadn't done the music. But there was the one Eno track where Paul is tripping out in the desert staring at the moon, which I think had to be the inadvertant founding of the whole Moontribe deal here in California.
Well if I might theorize a bit. There were three attempts to turn The Lord of the Rings into a movie, and only the third attempt really amounted to anything.
There has been two attempts to make a movie out of Dune, and both have been....um....problematic. Maybe third times a charm with that story as well. And this time Toto will not be in the soundtrack!; it might have decent music that fits the story.
I blame Dino De Laurentis. (Thats the same guy who hired Queen to add music to that cruddy Flash Gordon movie.) Maybe seeing Toto's name in the credits in what made David Lynch take his name *off* the credits.

― Lord Custos III, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

sorry. but theres been three attempts to make a movie out of "dune". back in the seventies, some french director hired moebious to design costumes and h.r. giger to make props, but thats as far as they got

― shlongdong, emporer of the known universe, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I didn't count the Mobius/Giger version, because that one was never scripted, filmed or even fully funded. If you can't buy it at a video-store it doesn't count.

― Lord Custos III, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

it might have decent music that fits the story.

who would you put on the soundtrack of a new "dune" movie?

― shlongdong, mentat master of assassins, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well, for all the "fremen-ish" scenes, you'd have to have something that sounds both middle eastern and zen buddhist (Zen-Sunni Muslims...), like Ofra Haza singing over a samisen.
For scenes involving the Bene Gesserit, you'd need something that sounds very grand and Catholic. Or maybe just bootleg the 10,191th Annual Lilith-Faire
For Sardaukar scenes, hardcorish industrial with lots of military style drumming.
For Harkonen Scenes, i dunno. Something nu-metalish prog (but maybe with cheesy trombone blasts at improper intervals.)
For Atreides Scenes, something that sounds bold, heroic and anthemic.
Hmmmm. Can't think of anything else.

― Baron Lord Custosken III, Overlord of Geidi Prime, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

what about the part when the harkonen soldiers come into the castle and kill all the atriedes?

― shlongdong, um, jedi knight, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Battle of Arakeen music: The elektroviolent industrial techno-marchmusik of the Sardukar intermingled with choruses of Harkonen nu-metal cheese. Cut to glorious Atreides heroes with their anthemic good-guy music.
Cut to bad buy industrial nu-metal kicking their sorry Atreides asses.
Cut to Atreides falling back, the music shifts to a sad minor key.
Harkonen music gets louder and louder and louder and more obnoxious.
Cut to scene of decimated battle field with lots of dead Atreides. Music low and in a verrrry minor key.
Harkonen music lurches to a sickening creshendo and drowns out the good-guy music one final time. Ta-dah!
Then Limp Bisquik comes out and does a crummy cameo as the Emporers personal band called "The Imperial Turdsicles!"

― Lord Custos III, Reverend Mother of Hidden Rank, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

'Fear is the mindkiller' by Eon. Total rave classic. -- Omar (omar@kindamuzik.net), August 03, 2002.

same sample, i think, is used in the recent 'mind-killa' by tech itch (available on mp3.com).

lots of sci-fi samples in drum and bass too, mainly distopian imagery that gives it a feel reminiscent of goth but without the death. current favourite is the bodysnatchers (the 1993 version) sample on side one of first killabites compilation (the skab alliance track):

"steve, this is important: Go where? ... where you gonna go? where you gonna run? where you gonna hide? nowhere. cos there's no-one... like you... left"

kinda menacing.

andy

― koogydelbbog, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Okay. Subthread:
What music would you put in the soundtrack to a hypothetical remake of Dune?

― Lord Custos III, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Dune? I think Blade Runner easily takes the techno crown for the single most sampled scifi film. The Vangelis soundtrack is pretty influential on alot of Detroit techno with the big swelling synth tones.

It used to be that 1/2 of the releases on Fax had at least one sample from Blade Runner.

― earlnash, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

True. True. But I've yet to see a song ABOUT Blade Runner, or a techno collective naming themselves after something from the movie. You'd think they're would be a bunch of different technotronic/industrial groups running around calling themselves the Nexus Six Series or Tyrell Music Corporation...or even the Funky Blade Runners or something.

― Lord Custos III, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Hey, if no-one claims those names, I will.

― Lord Custos III, Monday, 5 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well actually:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004SEED/qid=1028978926/sr= 1-8/ref=sr_1_3_8/202-9875878-1690236

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000057Y0M/qid=1028979009/sr= 1-9/ref=sr_1_1_9/202-9875878-1690236

And also there's a classic trance track from 94 that features the "Deep Thunder Roll" speech by Roy Batty. (Fires of Ork II???)

I'd say Blade Runner had a massive influence on early-90s UK rave, esp. the more darkcore elements.

― Dan Byron, Saturday, 10 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Why are there so many love references in 'rock'/'R&B' music?

― Andy K, Saturday, 10 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

sometimes i think lord custos beamed down from another planet.

― jess, Saturday, 10 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Why are there so many love references in 'rock'/'R&B' music?

The word is out of copyright.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 10 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"Fear is the Mindkiller" is great (especially the Freebass mix), but Eon's best Dune sample is "The Spice Must Flow!" That is my favorite rave track, evah.

― Spencer Chow, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

sometimes i think lord custos beamed down from another planet.
Thats an ugly rumor. I am NOT the vanguard of an alien invasion fleet. And anyone who persists in spreading that rumor will end up in the dilithium mines so fast their bog-damned heads will spin!

― Lord Custos III, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well actually:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004SEED/qid=1028978926/sr= 1-8/ref=sr_1_3_8/202-9875878-1690236
Okay, Tyrell Corporation is taken.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000057Y0M/qid=1028979009/sr= 1-9/ref=sr_1_1_9/202-9875878-1690236
Replicant is taken.
And also there's a classic trance track from 94 that features the "Deep Thunder Roll" speech by Roy Batty. (Fires of Ork II???)
I think the line is "...attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion..."
I'd say Blade Runner had a massive influence on early-90s UK rave, esp. the more darkcore elements.
I agree. Thank you for your input.
Anyhow. Any more out there besides Dune and Blade Runner?

― Lord Custos III, Tuesday, 13 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Anyhow. Any more out there besides Dune and Blade Runner?

Oh lordy yes.
On the more 'Industrial' side of things (or at least, in the multiplicity of sub-genres that are described by that term by the young whippersnappers these days) you hardly EVER got any 'Dune' - it's FAR too soft and mystic-hippy. What you were getting for a while was a lot of the 'Alien' series (part 2 and later only though), a lot of 'Event Horizon', a lot of the 'Robocop' stuff......I don't hear as much of that/those genres as I used to, so don't know what the latest sources are.
My own favourite at the time was one thing involving use of samples from 1956's 'Forbidden Planet' (including the 'monster's footsteps' noise created by the Barrons)
I'd like to think it was a clever dig to reference this, but it probably wasn't. No doubt it would become one if they read this thread though.

― Ray M, Wednesday, 14 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

a lot of 'Event Horizon', a lot of the 'Robocop' stuff.
Hmmmm....interesting. Who woulda thunk it? What did the technomuso's steal from Event Horizon?
Does anyone know who made that 10 minute long techno/industrial song that uses a whole mess of Hellraiser|Hellbound samples (with an especially clever use of Pinheads speech about "Theres a secret song at the heart of the world and it sounds like razors through flesh....I'm just here to turn up the volume....") ?
Also, how long do you think it'll be before someone starts biting peices off The Matrix? Or have they already started?

― Lord Custos III, Wednesday, 14 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

wasn't there a tyrell corporation on warp? how are toto not to do with dune? this is millions of years in the future, when music is improved beyond imaginable measure, hence => TOTO

― alia s of the knife, Wednesday, 14 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Eeeernt! Sorry, Mark. But that answer is incorrect. TOTO only got into the Lynch Dune flick because DeLaurentiis wanted them in there (Queen was busy, apparently) even though Lynch would've perferred Eno. In the end, it was one more of a festering mound of reasons why he (Lynch) had his name taken off the project.

― Lord Custos III, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

dino de laurentiis is better than lynch and eno combined becos:

i. called "dino" = he is the original Dawnie Lizard = my mentor/sire
ii. double-i in name
iii. his daughter is called RAFFY
iv. haha he picked TOTO!! what a GOD!!

― mark s, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Mark, think about that last assertion. Do you not even feel a slight clutch of fear in your soul upon saying it?

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I demand a distinction be made between Sci-Fi and Space Opera! (see Sinker & er, Josh, I can do it too)

― Paul, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Sci-Fi == brand of Venusian "Peanut" Butter (pronounced "Skiff-EE")
Space Opera == Big Lady singing, but her Valykrie helmet has antennae instead of horns.
Hope that clears up any confusion.

― Lord Custos III, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

iv. haha he picked TOTO!! what a GOD!!
Kull Wuhad! What Heresy IS THIS!
The Toto-loving Infidels will be the first ones against the wall when the Jihad comes!

― Lord Custos III, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

pshaw, you are water-fat in the brain custos: life in arrakeen has made you soft, the scar from your noseplug is cosmetic

― mark s, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

THE CUSTOS HADDERACH INVOKES THE AMTAL RULE ON MARK S!,

― Lord Custos III, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

may your blade chip and shatter, custos

― shlongdong, Friday, 16 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

You are wormfood, Shlongdong. Prepare to meet your (little) Maker!

― Lord Custos III, Friday, 16 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

suure.... you challenge me to a cysknife fight and then run off to the new forum. miserable coward.

― shlongdong, Sunday, 18 August 2002 01:21 (twenty-two years ago) link

Lord Custos wd be rubbish in a fight and here's why:

http://www.duneinfo.com/arrakis/ronmill/dune6.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 18 August 2002 09:11 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well, that was me in my 'larval' form...

This is me now...

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm2_gallery/88268_620_52.jpg

Granted, this is me in 'leisurewear'; I don't have my adamantium exosuit or my atomic pod rockets in this picture.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Sunday, 18 August 2002 13:53 (twenty-two years ago) link

And isn't my pet "Mister Snuffles" so adorable in this picture?

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Sunday, 18 August 2002 13:53 (twenty-two years ago) link

which is mr snuffles?

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 18 August 2002 14:05 (twenty-two years ago) link

The extra-hairy one who waits slasvishly in the background.

― Lord Custos Alpha (Lord Custos Alpha), Sunday, 18 August 2002 14:08 (twenty-two years ago) link

i'll beat you up and use mr snuffles for toilet paper!

― shlongdong (Lord Custos Alpha), Monday, 19 August 2002 12:29 (twenty-two years ago) link

eleven months pass...

You're right -- this thread WOULD be more fun if the Dave Matthews Band, and their fans, were somehow involved.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 19:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

[INSERTING GOOGLE BAIT="ON"]
Dave Matthews band really stinks like poo and I wish they'd all die.
[INSERTING GOOGLE BAIT="OFF"]

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:01 (twenty-one years ago) link

"...and now we play 'The Waiting Game...'
....
.....
....
Oh, 'The Waiting Game' sucks! Let's play 'Hungry Hungry Hippos!'"

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

Howsabout "the Crying Game"
The Boy George Comeback begins HERE and NOW!

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Wednesday, 23 July 2003 22:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

enh. as long as you pony up the dough for his DJ fees.

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Thursday, 24 July 2003 00:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

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