Music’s Retro-Futurism In The 2000s: 11 Compelling Albums

Trying to pinpoint the zeitgeist of the naughts, just after that decade has ended, is a challenging if not ultimately misguided task. Our interpretations of history shift and evolve with our present day perspectives. In fact, our discernment of the past tells us more about who we are now and where we are going more so than determining the meaning of some earlier event, fixed and deadened in the pale dust of history. But, that very fact is what makes the creating of a curated list a worthwhile past-time, not only as a moment to reflect tentatively yet affirmatively on where we have been, but an effort towards imagining where we have yet explored.

History lives within the the existent moment, fueling oftentimes hidden mechanisms that generate our aesthetic values–our inclinations and sensibilities, our sense of what looks or sounds good, and with the regards to music, the way certain sounds and melodies and rhythms inspire our emotional responses and strike us with specters of their meaning. While we may imagine we are moving forward in a linear direction towards a stable horizon, we constantly wander through the past and the present, pulled in an outwards direction which we believe might help it all make sense—that is, until it doesn’t again.

A considerable number of records from the past decade reflect this spirit of temporal meandering. I’d like to usurp the term “retro-futurism” to point to the music–a wide array of styles spanning various genres and objectives and backgrounds–that pulls from past forms and concepts to carve out new styles of feeling and narrative relevant to who we are now becoming. Whereas retro-futurism typically refers to the way the future was envisaged in the past, I hope the reader may forgive me for redefining the term as futuristic forms fully grounded and necessarily established within past methods.

The French novelist and innovator of the nouveau roman, Alain Robbe-Grillet, once described the goal of his writing, and the general project of the French new novel, with a simple aphorism. A man walks across a beach, leaving his footprints in the sand. Three men and women then walk on the beach leaving their own markings, curving in and out of the previous man’s footsteps to create a weaving pattern. Days pass and more people walk around the beach, leaving their paths, obscuring the old footprints and patterns. Eventually, so many people walk on the beach that all the prints become obscured and scattered, a cacophony of meaningless noise and chaos. We no longer can trace anyone’s path. The next day, a bike rolls over the cascading surface of the sand, leaving tire marks in its wake.

11. Zomby -Where Were You In ’92 (Werk Discs, 2008)

Outsider Zomby continues to surprise with his unmanageable productions. In his 2008 breakthrough EP, Where Were You In ’92, the South-Londoner borrows generously from early 90s jungle breaks, off-centered house rhythms, and video game clips to inject some vitriolic thunder into contemporary dub ridden madness. The songs play hopscotch over twenty-five years of electronic music, skipping from one style to the next, flittering on the other side of the familiar. The effort resonates with a guttural soulfulness, something of an earthy bile, which defies the work of all of its composites. And somehow, Zomby soaks you with nostalgia for a place and a time you may have never known personally, or more exactly, he taps into our collective nostalgia for a fantastical space and unregulated energy outside of time where life lives with an unparalleled intensity.

10. Shafiq Husayn – En’ A-Free-Ka (Plug Research, 2009)

One third of Los Angeles cohort, Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Shafiq Husayn finally made his retro-futuristic soul vision work with this debut solo project, En A’Freeka. At first, the arrangements strike expansive and even cluttered, as if Husayn tried to fit too many ideas into the sort of music that typically relies on a stripped down minimalism to let its feelings show. But, as the interweaving compositions settle in, attuning our ears to their multi-layered patterns and hefty vocals, the soulfulness rises above the chaotic groundwork. Husayn has a talent for creating an unstable harmony among sometimes conflicting elements and seemingly incompatible aspects of black American musical traditions. The record coheres like a contemporary spiritual jazz record, or Sun-Ra in his more pop centric moments, where he imbued the compositions with synth heavy keys and electric drum slaps rather than experimented strictly with the possibility of space noise. It’s certainly a liberation record, but one that avoids anachronism and fortunately bypasses Husayn’s somewhat rigid ideology of oneness by incorporating different voices (in the guise of many singers), who infuse the record with a diversity of mood and perspective on just what that liberation might sound like.

9. Raekwon  – Only Built for a Cuban Linx Pt. II (EMI, 2009)

Few musicians have immersed themselves as deeply into their own written stories as Raekwon. If authenticity in hiphop is not so much rapping about who you are but rather, that knowing how to stay true in your raps to your own mythology, then Raekwon is among the most legit. Perhaps that’s why it took the Wu-Tang member 14 years to produce the second chapter to his street hustler, Mafioso saga, Only Built for a Cuban Linx. He needed time to let his own life unfold in order to unravel the next moves of the Cuban Linx.

Pt. II begins where the first left off, letting the two albums virtually play side by side in a continuous narrative. The transition between the two records recalls a cinematic jump cut in a kung fu film, where all of a sudden the screen goes black, we fade slowly into a grizzled monologue from a master teacher warning our pratagonist of the jealousy that follows increased status, and the “14 years later” scroll on the bottom of the screen. Pt. II builds on the building momentum and multi-patterned story line of Cuban Linx, not only sounding just as fierce but also adding refinements to the old story. Raekwon’s voice resonates with the same weathered tone, albeit a bit more aged. He demonstrates a sprawling ability of style and sentiment not heard in the first, as for instance in his heartfelt tribute to fallen companion Ol’ Dirty Bastard, in “Ason Jones”. The beats also take on a more expansive character, thanks to an arsenal of contributing producers (Dilla, Dre, and yes RZA), who flip a psychedelic funk that pushes Raekwon to look forward, even beyond the pinnacle, the all so vulnerable mountaintop, of his current bottom to top success story. With Pt. II, Raekwon has cemented one of the most gripping concept albums in the history of hiphop, one which doesn’t seem to have an end, but calls for us to imagine where else it might go.

8. M.I.A. – Kala (Interscope, 2007)

Little did we know that M.I.A. would galangagang herself into worldwide, subterranean stardom with the 8-bit politicized grime of “Paper Planes”. The record which birthed that song, Kala, represented for a broader audience an acute awareness of a whole new style of pop music, one that broke down regional, thematic, and genre barriers with a flipped out version of old school breaks meets globalized subversion.

But those politics, an abstract and loose rebelliousness, takes advantage of its vagueness to voice a young generation’s disillusionment with the sterilization fueled by the globalizing economy. Completely immersed in just those conditions and effects of pop culture, Kala finds empowerment from within the iron cage. The major producer of the record, Switch, takes influence from Brazilian Baile funk (itself a product of 80s Miami Bass) and the past three decades of dance music, from electronic breaks to boom bap hiphop and UK’s own spin on garage and grime. The London-based and of Sri Lankin heritage, M.I.A., fully suited as the ambassador of this cross-cultural and world-minded generation, effortlessly rocks skittering flows and fresh patterns with her singular patois. At its heart, Kala represents the possibility of originality and idiosyncratic identity construction in the face of global normalization. Forms travel, generalize, become stagnant, and break down into little pieces of grassroots power once again.

7. Roots Manuva – Run Come Save Me (Big Dada, 2001)

The followers of early Roots Manuva, who adopted the heady, underground hiphop styles of the 90s like a new religion, were a bit taken aback by Manuva’s leftfield 2003 effort, Run Come Save Me. While some fans reacted with a horrid anger against what they saw as the signs of a fallen prophet and sold out aesthetic, others listened a bit more carefully. Manuva’s second full-length blended together future-minded electronic bass with gritty flows and overstanding word play far before anyone thought it fashionable to do so. Fully committed to the rawness of the roots, Manuva was able to instill a hard faced soulfulness and a hood potency in sounds typically associated with a privileged class of sonic territory.

In a way, Manuva was able to channel the same unhinged muse that allowed reggae heads to transition into electronic experimentation–without employing a conventional and predictable system of formulas–over two decades prior with the advent of dub in Jamaica. And, Run evokes much of the same broad-minded creativity and bridging sensibility as DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing did for beat heads and rave fiends in the 90s. Manuva is strikingly aware of the effects of new technology on the lower classes in post-industrial England, and ultimately, works to find mechanical and lyrical empowerment within the poverty.

6. Kode 9 & Space Ape – Memories of the Future (Hyperdub, 2006)

UK producer and label head, Kode9, is largely responsible for drenching the world in South London’s dub-step phenomenon. He infuses his music with the dark, enigmatic fears loosely associated with post-industrial anxiety and despair, the all too biting moods we daily try to suppress. A ghostly panorama of shifting drums, maniacal bass slaps, laser zips and zaps, blanketed clips of synth heavy cinematic horror, and Space Ape’s locomotive voice–searching for an inkling of something to hold onto–paint a macabre picture of technological destruction, mass alienation, and frustrated idealism.

The record’s title, Memories of the Future, points to its underlying retro-future character, one of imagining the terror of seeing a future, which already echoes familiar, one that no longer opens up possibilities but rather closes in on us—an unsurprising and foreboding future, one for which we already feel an uncanny nostalgia. It’s a modern dirge, mourning the death of old forms of spirit and meaning, and the impending languid eulogy of life yet to come. Still, a resemblance of steel lined enchantment weaves its way throughout Memories, unraveling a strange, robotic mysticism—coded and hidden cryptically within distant machines and substances, forever escaping our hard pinned sciences.

5. Dam Funk – Toeachizown (Stones Throw, 2009)

It’s somewhat ironic that the gangsta funk sounds of early 90s hiphop sampled bump and grind, baby making jams from their parents’ generation, chock full of synthesized love and spacey planetary rock. Dam Funk, who played keys on some of just those G Funk records, brought us full circle with last year’s Toeachizown. The 5 LP record looks to the future of funk, beginning once again where Parliament, D-Train, and a score of other boogie heads left off before hiphop’s rise to global stardom. Dam Funk couldn’t have happened until the concept of post-hiphop actually made some sense, where sampling old school breaks and snippets has given away to a committed effort to future-shock familiar rhythms and melodies into a whole new musicality. Toeachizown builds off the free-spirited pathos of that cosmic funk, taking us higher with the music, and grounding our bodies fully in the earth tones of grooves ad infinintum carried along by a pummeling bass line.

4. Daft Punk – Discovery (Virgin, 2001)

Daft Punk’s breakthrough effort, Discovery, brought in the new millennium with nearly the opposite set of values as Kode 9’s haunting work. Ebullient and optimistic, Discovery magnified 80s house bass lines within an irresistible pop formula, pilfered from electro innovators like Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambaata, and even Dr. Dre’s minimal bounce.

Yet, Discovery is not a simplistic effort, completely ignorant of today’s widespread decadence and profound vanity, brought on by technological advances and an ever increasing gap between rich and poor. In the face of the modern world’s coldness, Discovery aims to rejuvenate that primitive human spirit for celebrating life, even in times of world damnation (watch the video for “One More Time”). Whereas some might accuse Daft Punk of glorifying a nihilistic vision of Dionysian pleasures, I would argue that they uphold a different paradigm of values emphasizing the potential of human intimacy and love aided by, rather than antagonistic to, the contemporary technological renaissance. In the face of violence and destruction, war and desolation, and the always vulnerable presence not only our own mortality but possibly the whole world’s, Discovery gathers a secularized (and musical) faith in life, one not so distinct from its biblical manifestation, in believing in life’s eternity within time. It’s a fundamental ideal that pop music, among many other art forms, has continued to elaborate on and make a reality for the past 50 years.

3. Madvillain – Madvillainy  (Stones Throw, 2004)

Some works of art embody not only a spirit of the time but also a spontaneity where formula breaks away, and the immediacy of the moment shapes the work into a thoroughly idiosyncratic artifact. Madvillainy is one of those artworks. When LA beat conductor Madlib and New York’s reclusive MF DOOM got together to a produce the record as the duo Madvillain, they did very little talking. Their shared love for off the cuff jazz and cipher-minded hiphop guided their passions to disclose a captivating world of a masked villain unlike one we’ve ever seen before.

Despite its origins in the method of the freestyle, Madvillainy is organized much like a comic book, where the division between low and high art no longer carry any weight, such that references to commercials and mystical abstractions exist without shame. Madlib put together a good portion of the beats used for Madvillainy while on a trip to Brazil where he sampled loops and cuts directly from vinyl onto a tape deck. The lo-fi crackly buzz fizzles in and out of Doom’s lyrical gymnastics, where he meanders forwards and backwards from internal rhymes schemes to free flowing word associations. Through a blunted pastiche, Madvillain parallels the barrage of images, conversations, and media messages we receive everyday in modern life. It draws a jumbled narrative from it all, abandoning the linear coherency we are all too used to in conventional messages, in favor of a sketchy juxtaposition of patterns, styles, and egos that all stick together, seams and borders intact, in one patchwork fabric.

2. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver (DFA, 2007)

Once mass culture took hold of punk and disco nearly 30 years ago, a barrage of commercialization obscured their largely unbounded origins. Not that the beginnings of these genres have any more authentic hold to their meaning than any subsequent temporal developments. But, there just seems to be this all too common tendency in the American market system to appropriate original forms of artistry, generalize the unhinged expression into rigid formulas, and then package the music into bought and sold products of culture. Nonetheless, as perhaps the saving grace of the very mechanism of our ingenious economic system (or a factor that allows it to continue heedlessly making revolution obsolete), the underground, the grassroots, the people who push against the grain, can always fight their way into genius against the most harrowing repression.

In LCD Soundsystem’s second effort, Sound of Silver, James Murphy gathered the corroded spirits of disco and punk to reestablish the old rituals of adventurous music set to not just make you feel something but actually take you to a different realm of emotional possibilities. Fighting against a neutralized hierarchy of a generation stuck to their shoe gazing, arms crossed, self-critical, and ultimately depressive lifestyle (hipsterism?), Sound of Silver works towards undermining our sickly attachments to our egos. And we’re damn grateful for it. What else could you ask for in a record that is equally rock and dance?  In losing ourselves in the trance we seem to come out of the record feeling rejuvenated and empowered, ready to smack some hypercritical skinny jeans in the neck or snap a cornball’s head off, or maybe just feel good and be nice to our friends, lovers, and family for a change of pace.

1. Radiohead – Kid A (Capitol, 2000)

It practically took me the whole decade to catch up to Radiohead’s Kid A. My initial love for hiphop had to first take me down the spiraling road of its layered sample history. I dug into funk and soul, learned to love jazz and blues, grew fascinated with krautrock and the avant-garde, even bobbed my head to disco, and then I finally returned to Radiohead. Kid A has a strange necromancer’s power, similar to the sampling pastiche of hiphop, where the old is revived in new combinations that resurrect past formal codes in strangely resonant ways. The frankensteinian music shifts our understanding of that history, arranging new inclinations and anticipations that reshape sentiments we’ve always known.

Our listening does not come without a melancholy for the freshness and excitement we seem to recall feeling when we experienced something fascinating or brilliantly magical before our jaded adulthood subsumed our imaginations. How do we face up to the deadening experience of knowledge, where we mourn the mystical quality of our innocence, and wonder about the possibility of a mature enchantment with the world and ourselves. What could a mature enchantment even mean? We can start with at least one way it might sound.