"From the age of the ancient empire to the accelerated present, cultural movements have spread the globe with increasingly complex webs. Evolutionary entities are created everyday, fusing memories of folk + ceremonial musics of the african diaspor; asian classical, religious + rural traditions; european art music + folk song; rituals of the Pacific and Amazonas, all whirling in a primordial soup o
f barely understood technological innovation. The electronic listening music of today is a prime example of an art form derived from + stimulated by countless influences. Partisan analyses of this music claim a baffling variety of prime sources (Detroit techno, Chicago acid + New York electro, Eno + Bowie, Cage + Reich, Gary Numan + Tangerine Dream) but this is beside the point. To claim ascendancy of the one source over another is to deny the labyrinthine entwinements of culture : rooted in political history + the development of science and technology, yet tilting at the boundaries of society and language"
David Toop
