Long Live The Long Song
Fighting against the skip. Long songs versus the 30 reel. My favourite long songs. Patient Listening
Whilst scrolling a clip of Carl Craig being interviewed came up (which I now can’t seem to find!) where he was talking about how the age of the long track is over, an age that, in dance music terms at least, he helped to shape: Check his catalogue of classic tracks such as his jazzy broken beat project Innerzone Orchestra - ‘Bug In The Bass Bin’ and also epic remixes as ‘C2’ such as ‘Like A Child’ by Junior Boys and ‘Revelee’ by Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom, which in part defined a minimal style of tech house that became popular in the mid 2000s.
These tracks all run to over 10 mins and I’m a massive fan of Craig’s clever use of subtle production tweaks, his patience in letting the sounds unfold and his use of space to create the ultimate drama within the music. He always manages to find an endless groove that locks you in, which is key to enducing that transcendental state (of flow) which we all crave, rewarding you as the track builds over a longer-than-average time span.
Good things come to those that wait, and it’s as much about the song as your ability to listen to it. Patient Listening I called it:
The Battle For Attention
In this day and age, there is a battle for attention: Craig was pointing out in the interview that creating these long tracks in the age of TikTok and Spotify isn’t viable as the average listener just doesn’t have the attention span for it.
BTW. I met someone recently who before uploading their track to Spotify chopped it into six 30-second chunks in order to multiply royalties by 6 after discovering that 30 seconds of listening time constitutes one play! An interesting example of how formats/platforms change the artform…
We live in skip culture which has led to listeners craving the new and the next: just skip to the drop and move on, the Boiler Room highlights reel now seem to make or break a DJs career, not their carefully crafted music.
Long tracks buck this trend - you are rewarded for dedicating your attention to listening from start to finish. In the same way you can fall in love with an album that takes you on a journey, you can fall deeply into a sonic world that an artist creates within a ten minute song, with the added time potentially delivering a richer story than a 30 second social media trailer or 3 minute spotify ‘radio edit’.
I’ve been a long advocate in long tracks, with my Rainfall On Red Earth from ten years ago clocking 16 mins:
And more recently having bigger success with the extended version of Green City (15 mins) than the radio edit:
And my most recent remixes of Doe Paoro (11 and 9 mins):
Looking back at some of my all time favourite pieces of music, a lot falls into this category, and cover a range of genres. So allow me to share with you a list of incredible long songs.
My Favourite Long Songs
The Afrobeat master Fela Kuti’s music often went for over 15 mins, here’s 17 mins of Sorrow, Tears and Blood:
On the more ambient side you have Terry Riley (and the other minimalists) often using an entire album for one or two songs (40 mins total):
Or how about Pauline Oliveros’ original ‘Deep Listening’ album (that lead to her influential and very trendy practise of the same name)? Lear comes in at 24 mins:
Then there’s my dance music hero Ricardo Villalobos (who I’ve written about here) -
Ricardo has countless tracks over 15 minutes long:
I’ve spent a lot of time in the past month revisiting Joanna Newsom’s epic ‘Yss’ album from 2016. I think it’s one of the best albums ever made - I’ve never heard anything like it. ‘Only Skin’ clocks 16 mins and always gives you something new on every listen.
Perhaps the best definition of a long track for the dancefloor is the already-classic ‘Time’ by Pachanga Boys. It’s strength is in it’s simplicity, and it certainly influenced by Carl Craig. Play this at the right time on the dancefloor and you enter a new world:
The lyrics perhaps sum this whole article up “Lost Track of Time…”Isn’t that what we all want from music?
Do you have any other examples of long tracks you love ? please share
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