Oscar Powell, the head of Diagonal Records who also releases music under the moniker of Powell, is set to release a new single "Insomniac" featuring a vocal sample from record producer and musician Steve Albini from the days when he fronted the band Big Black. When Powell reached out to ask permission for the sample, he also got a lot of Albini's opinions on his hate for dance music.
According to Pitchfork, Albini granted sample clearance but he also got a brief history lesson as Albini tore into some deep cuts for his love of early electronic music such as White Noise, Xenakis, Suicide and Kraftwerk. However, he was not a fan of the music playing in the clubs, the drugs the fans participated in, the clothes they wore or the conversations they'd have.
Powell asked if he could use the email as a promotion for the new single and when Albini responded, "still don't care," he went ahead and pasted the text of the email onto a billboard on London's Commercial Street.
The billboard reads:
From: Steve Albini
To: Oscar Powell
Re: Steve
11 April 2015 10:21
Hey Oscar
I am absolutely the wrong audience for this kind of music. I've always detested mechanized dance music, its stupid simplicity, the clubs where it was played, the people who went to those clubs, the drugs they took, the shit they liked to talk about, the clothes they wore, the battles they fought amongst each other...
Basically all of it: 100 percent hated every scrap.
The electronic music I liked was radical and different, shit like the White Noise, Xenakis, Suicide, Kraftwerk, and the earliest stuff form Cabaret Voltaire, SPK and DAF. When that scene and those people got co-opted by dance/club music I felt like we'd lost a war. I detest club culture as deeply as I detest anything on earth. So I am against what you're into, and an enemy of where you come from but I have no problem with what you're doing...
In other words, you're welcome to do whatever you like with whatever of mine you've gotten your hands on. Don't care. Enjoy yourself.
Steve
The single is set to release via XL. Listen to Powell's earlier music below.
