MTF WEEK 7 PRESENTATIONS AND MASH-UPS

This week we began the assessment presentations on Music Technology professionals. Sam chose to research one Mick Launay, and gave a good overall view of his work in the context of his background and history (growing up in Spain with hippy parents etc). It was an interesting co-incidence that he played an excerpt from a Mick Launay production of a Nick Cave song, given my choice of Tony Cohen as my presentation subject and Tony’s long association with Nick Cave and all his bands. I enjoyed listening to the difference in production style between the 2 engineers recording the same subject. Then there was me… what can I say? On to Seb who chose Dave Bottrill and gave a good account of his work and influences. Seb was stuck without visual material because of a lack of the right connection but he made a good job of it regardless. The second part of our session was spent with Dave L discussing remixes, mash-ups and the like, and what we thought of them. I got the impression that Dave was suggesting that, with the advent of specialist software today, this process has become little more than an academic or technical exercise rather than an artistic endeavour. I don’t think I agree as a whole but I there are definitely some people who take a VASTLY more creative approach to this type of work than others. One reference I’d like to make is to the Fear Factory album, “Fear is the Mindkiller” – I enjoyed these remixes for years until I heard the original (un-remixed) album and realised how dull it was. I’ll try to bring something along next week that demonstrates my point.