As someone who writes about music, I feel like I have to keep up with everything that goes on within that realm. Sometimes it’s very taxing and often it is very frustrating, especially within the sphere that I have chosen to examine, which is usually the lesser-known, more independent brand of music. These days, there is just so much that it’s hard to keep up with.

Gone are the days that discovering new indie acts consisted of going down to the record store to see if any new artists had dropped anything off, or heading out to an underground music club, usually a hole-in-the-wall in an undesirable neighborhood, to see if there was anything worthwhile happening that night. Within this new digital realm, there is a constant influx of new independent music all the time, especially now that artists are shedding the harsh restrictions brought on by big record companies, allowing themselves to self-release their albums via the Internet. In addition to these new distribution tactics, there has been a tsunami of young DIY-ers out there, with no previous exposure, pumping out their latest creations into the digital airwaves as well. New media allows for new art, thus we should embrace these new artists and techniques. But even in this time of musical revolution, there seems to be a hint of nostalgia twinkling amongst it, trying to keep up with the pressured deluge of new technology, as we try to hold on to some aesthetic aspects of the past.

Nostalgia seems to play a large part in music. Memory is a powerful thing, and can be a powerful aspect of musical emotion. Our memory is basically encoded into our brains, in some ways that are not completely understandable. Daniel Levitin once wrote: “Memories are encoded in groups of neurons that, when set to proper values and configured in a particular way, will cause a memory to be retrieved and replayed in the theater of our minds. The barrier to being able to recall everything we might want to is not that it wasn’t ‘stored’ in memory, then; rather, the problem is finding the right cue to access the memory and properly configure our neural circuits.”

In this way it is clear to see that music can be encoded in these memories, bringing out certain memories we may have forgotten by just hearing one song or even one phrase.  This happens with all senses, including smell and taste, but sound, and namely music seems to be one of the most powerful “cues” in retrieving memories and invoking the powerful emotion of nostalgia. Beyond music accessing our individual memories, however, is a more communal sense of nostalgia, in which we as a collective human entity are yearning for the past—our youth—where simplicity reigned. Especially in times of such technological eruption, we spend so much time trying to keep up with what’s new that what we grew up knowing and loving seems fleeting at times. Sometimes we may not even notice that it is happening but it’s happening all the time.

So we try to latch on. Photographers have done it with the resurgence of Polaroids and Instamatics within the Impossible Project. It’s done in fashion everyday with nods to classical styles being tied in to modern concepts of glamour. In music, it is almost a synthesis of those two ideas, as music is being re-inventing stylistically and aesthetically, using refreshed ideas from the past to both move forward and also hold on to our roots.

Aesthetically, we find that many of the young music lovers of our time have been turned onto the virtually ancient medium of vinyl. Vinyl not only allows for sound quality that is far superior to CDs or mp3s, but it also adds a tangible value to a music collection. Now that all our music collections are contained on our hard drives, or our iPods/mp3 players, and now they can even be stored online in some “cloud.” Vinyl gives us something to feel, to see, to touch, to hold in our hands. The album art is usually magnificently displayed throughout the entire package, and sometimes even on the disc itself. It’s a tactile memory that connects us with the actual art itself, and connects us to our past.

In the same effect, it has brought us back to the age of the single. Music singles were virtually eliminated in the age of the Compact Disc, and the B-sides were lost in a sea of archives, unless a pricey Japanese import, or something along those lines, was purchased with the original B-sides included on it. More recently, amongst the veritable ocean of EPs floating around, artists have begun releasing limited edition 12” vinyl records, usually for some sort of special collaboration, or even to just have something special that is only available on a physical medium. Either way, it is a welcome intrusion into this technological mayhem by something from days gone by.

Stylistically, modern music has drawn much influence from older techniques within the past few years. Many artists have embraced older recording methods and styles in their newer endeavors. A lot of people are utilizing lo-fi methods of recording and production to add a certain old-world, nostalgic tinge to their pieces, while some other artists are using older, sometimes almost out-dated genres as powerful influences for their music. There has been a recent explosion in disco-influenced tunes, especially with acts like French electronic duo Justice, whose two albums blend disco flawlessly with modern house music and arena rock. New genres, like chillwave (made popular by acts like Toro y Moi, Washed Out, and Neon Indian), combine newer styles with the aesthetics of the synth-pop and new wave movements that were very prevalent in the 1980s, the result being a hazy, sometimes sultry fusion that glides silkily along, peppered with heavily reverberated vocals and detached, echoey drumbeats. As independent music caters to an audience that can be, at times, extremely critical (i.e., Pitchfork), these new strides in creativity are crucial to the survival of independent music.

Sometimes time feels like it’s moving too fast. I’m only in my mid-twenties, and already I feel so old. I see the things that I had as a child fading away so fast, so yeah, I try to hang on to them as long as I can. Even if there is just a hint of something that brings back fond memories I want to hold on to it. Music is fascinating in such a way that I can find these old glimpses in new ways. I feel, like many things, music has cyclical tendencies. I’m not saying that it keeps repeating itself, but there are definite elements that I keep finding that are recycled and reproduced, and that’s fascinating to me. I also think its important to hold on to the tactile things. The Internet is great and vast and has endless possibilities, yes, but at the same time, it’s completely intangible—we can’t touch it with our hands, we can’t smell the shrink-wrap of a new CD or vinyl through Amazon.com or iTunes. Because, truthfully, one day it could all just be gone, and then we would have nothing. Technology is wonderful, but let’s not race to get ahead of ourselves. There are still many things that have come before it that garner the same, if not more, excitement and appreciation.
At least, to me there are.

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