Modulations (1998)
Less a documentary than a primer on all electronic music. Featuring interviews with nearly every major player past and present, as well as a few energetic live clips, Modulations delves into one of electronica's forgotten facets: the human element. Lee travels the globe from the American Midwest to Europe to Japan to try to express the appeal of music often dismissed as soulless. Modulations shows that behind even the most foreign or alien electronic composition lies a real human being, and Lee lets many of these Frankenstein-like creators express and expound upon their personal philosophies and tech-heavy theories. Lee understands that a cultural movement as massive and diverse as dance music can't be contained.
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Smash cuts! Hardcore coverage! Dozens of dizzying locations around the globe, get ready to enter the world of electronica and meet its makers and mad doctors, blending the sounds to breathe electric life into the air injecting culture breeding a living being with a generation riding the tide of true music and electric emotion.From filmmaker Lara Lee comes this epic, documentary examining the electronic music scene on a global level. Spanning its history in culture from its earliest beginnings, get the music, slamming dancefloor footage, and interviews with all the exotic experts who exist within the electronic universe where all minds may enter!
Modulations attempts to cover too wide a subject area in too little time. Electronic music is an all-encompassing label that is applied to musicians as diverse as Can, John Cage, and the Prodigy(!!). There are great segments here with pioneers such as Cage, Robert Moog, Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Henry. There are too many segments of talent-short and ego-long knob twiddlers. And there's an inexcusable total lack of Kraftwerk or Cabaret Voltaire, the two groups who pioneered the crossover of 'electronica' from fringe to pop. And why no interview with Afrika Bambaata? He made it onto PBS' Rock n Roll Series, and he should have been talked to here. The lowpoint is reached when a German techno artist says that techno has absolutely no revolutionary potential....except for his own special brand of hardcore jungle!! Modulations is a fascinating but frustrating once over lightly look at this ever evolving music scene.
If you are at all interested in electronic music - in just about any form, but especially techno/jungle/acid/dnb/house/etc. make sure you see this movie. "Modulations" is a brilliant little (73 minutes) film that is a perfect visual complement to the subject matter - including trippy graphics, beat-synched cinematography, thought-provoking interviews, live shots of wired-up ravers, and of course, a ripping soundtrack.Get your head together and check it out - you'll be glad you did.
This documentary film takes a look at the electronic music scene all over the globe. Loads of great music, picture material from big venues, parties and of course great interviews with experts like Derrick May, Frankie Bones, Squarepusher, Mixmaster Morris, Carl Craig etc etc. This documentary is huge, it covers the whole electronic music era from the beginning of 19th century. Essential!