Remilia Scarlet

I'm listening to the CD I got by The Martian a while back right now. It's in the style of Detroit Techno, which is extremely hard to come by. One thing I'm noticing is how complex this music is, while also being quite beautiful. The song I'm listening to now specifically (Sex in Zero Gravity) has some rather complex layered polyrhythmic parts. We have the traditional 4-on-the-floor kick drum with a slight frill here and there, standard high-hat pattern for techno, snare hits on 2 and 4, 808 toms, a background arpeggio part, another background countermelody, bass part, pad, an odd rhythmic part, a melodic xylophone part, an odd thin synth, and a xylophone-like part that's almost soloing over this. Each of these parts has a different rhythm, yet all of them fit together seamlessly and perfectly. At the same time, the song is presenting itself in a light mood, one that is upbeat and lively, while still retaining its techno roots.

These dichotomies are apparent all through the genre. The more I listen to it, the more I realize how important it was to the development of electronica. Another interesting dichotomy I noticed straight away on the first track, which has no percussion track, is the combination of nature meets technology. It reminds me alot of Turok (or at least what I played of the original). These dichotomies are something I think I would like to look into as I write music more. I'd also like to look more into polyrhythms.

Given that I just started a new song in Reason, perhaps I can flesh it out with these...I hate to have to use a software synth, but since all my hardware's back home I have no other choice.

Anyone else have any ideas on this?