Rhythm Science Unbound

I had the extremely fortunate opportunity of catching DJ Spooky at the Basement last year thanks to a friend getting the gig together. Although it wasn't promoted well and turned out to be a lot less people than I would have expected for such a pioneer of the turntables, I look back at it now as true experiential growth. I saw one of his speeches at UWM on VHS yesterday where he both lectured and presented the philosophy of Rhythm Science. Essentially his perspective on this stage of the DJ is the role of a cultural guru, a storyteller, and a scientist. The power of rhythms and their direct link to cultures are peaked in their potential effect when the DJ can not only create the sound clash of one beat/record from the 60's to another from 2006. Or fusing Yates reading his poetry to Chuck D's 911 is a Joke. What Spooky has truly pioneered is the new use of in synch imagery to the beat, cut, and reflection. In one instance he synched a national flag sequence going faster and slower than 90 rpms to an "illbient" record clash where the flags, crests, and colors blinked, merged, transformed, and illustrated the cornerstone of rhythm science's converging vision of "the big blurry circle." Spooky, or Paul D. Miller, believes that in a service economy that has become so hyper condensed with information highways, any and everywhere we go in a day is packed with signs that lay in the vast subconscious of our mind. Billboards to food smells and stencil art in the city all effect us whether we register its effects or not. This is where the DJ intervenes with the promotion of culture over material commercialism. Essentially rhythm science unravels the confines of boxes, categories, and straight lines into that big blurry circle that seriously keeps coming up in my mind the more I think about it. I'm under the spell of Rhythm Science!!
Learn more about th philosophy, the musician, and his new novel at www.djspooky.com