NEW OR IMPROVED?
When you’ve been around for a while, it’s easy to become cynical about new music. Aren’t today’s guitar bands just bad copies of such and such a group from the late ’70s? How can anyone possibly prefer trap or drill to the golden age of hip-hop? Surely all those trendy composers with vaguely Scandinavian names are simply reinventing minimalism? It’s a matter of perspective, but one quality that marks out the really great producers and engineers I’ve met is that they don’t give in to this cynicism. They’re still genuinely, even naïvely excited about new music, and they’re always focused on the positive. At the same time, though, even the most optimistic fan of new music would have to admit that novelty is rare in a world where we seem to have…