It's all so clear in retrospect. The electronic music revolution of the 1970s empowered artists to explore a new palette of ethereal sounds and unnatural atmospheres. In less than 10 years, a new musical language emerged in Europe, the U.S., and Japan, and spread around the world. By the 1980s, they looked around...and it was good.
But it didn't take long before a few of these artists realized that something was missing: the vital, rhythmic foundation of ethnic and primitive music, famously built into rock from the African roots of Rhythm & Blues. So just as early 20th century painters looked to Africa, Polynesia, and other ancient cultures for vitality and connection to the archaic human experience — electronic musicians "went tribal."
The moment was marked by STEVE ROACH's famous trip to the Australian outback and his 1988 album "Dreamtime Return," a title that wraps up the idea in two well-chosen words. But other artists were already moving in this direction, first crossing cultural barriers and then heading back in time, to the roots of music and sound itself.
The genre that emerged was called "techno-tribal" — a psycho-acoustic, trance-ambient music that combined electronics, atmospherics, ethnic percussion (rainsticks, rattles, drums), and didgeridoos. The combination possessed some of the psychedelic powers of its shamanic forbears, and it lives on today. On this transmission of Hearts of Space, a techno-triba-delic journey called READING THE BONES.
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