I was listening to late junction on radio three last night. lots of ambient twiddling, mixed with ethnic field recordings. you know the kind of thing. pleasant but backgroundy.
it reminded me of what we used to call the echoes dilemma. why? a longish story.
i used to live in portland, oregon and echoes used to be on NPR late most weeknights, just as we were going to sleep. it was a 2 hour programme of new agey ambient twiddling. and every night I'd be kept awake worrying whether each piece of music was any good or not. was the ambient twiddling interesting and evocative in an eno stylee, or was it undemanding new agey bollocks. there's a very thin line between the two.
and i think the echoes dilemma is a very pressing 21st century issue. so much of what used to be bad has got a lot better. and so much of what used to be good has been flirting with kitsch and rubbish, that it's hard to know where the good/bad line is any more. especially with all the so good it's bad stuff going on.
of course, just thinking about this stuff makes me a tosser. but never mind.
