Future sounds

We knew something was up a few weeks ago when Rolling Stone, in its story on super alterna-producers the Dust Brothers, referred to Odelay as the "sequel" to Paul's Boutique. Say wha? How is it that an album by Beck is seen as an artistic sequel to a seven-year-old album by the Beastie Boys?

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Tricky
DJ Spooky
Orbital
Dust Brothers

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We're clearly in a new era of the ascendance of the record producer. Studio wizards like the Dust Brothers and Dr. Dre are seen not merely as studio administrators or tech heads -- mediums for an artist's vision -- but as co-auteurs. Rappers show up in a studio with words; producers supply the music. DJs who learned their chops in the dance club, orchestrating the improvised peaks and valleys of an all-night dance-floor marathon, have used digital technology to take their art into the recording studio.

Samples have permeated not merely production but songwriting itself, to the point where, as Matt Ashare points out in his interview, the Dust Brothers are using the studio console like a keyboard, "writing" music with their arsenal of effects. At the same time, production wizards like Tricky and DJ Spooky (not to mention a whole host of rave-bred DJs) are changing our ideas of what a song is or should be, where, as alterna-rock dweebs the Folk Implosion pointed out, "nothing can stop the flow." Our look at the Dust Brothers, Tricky, and DJ Spooky gives three different perspectives on the latest studio-produced wrinkles in the art of pop.

Jon Garelick
Music Editor