2010 RECAP: Sean Horton of Decibel Festival

Sean Horton is a Detroit native who now resides in Seattle as an active member of its electronic music community. In 2003, he started Decibel Festival, a multi-media event that has blossomed into one of North America’s premier gatherings of cutting edge music, art & media. Headliners from Decibel 2010 include Modeselektor, Carl Craig, Untold, Tim Hecker, Scuba & Pantha Du Prince. Needless to say, dude is a linchpin in the North American electronic music scene.

Pantha Du Prince’s “Welt Am Draht” by Sean Horton
(Decibel Festival Fouder, Director and Curator – Seattle)

“For me, 2010 was a year of intense introspection and personal triumph over fear and depression. As it has through out my entire life, music played a major role in this transformation both as inspiration and escape when the pressures of life weigh too heavily on the soul.

Part of my daily routine involves an hour long commute from West Seattle to Redmond where I work. Much of that time is spent in a sea of gridlock traffic. Music functions as a sort of mediation during these inane times and one album in particular — Pantha Du Prince’s Black Noise — found it’s way into my heart and mind, so much so that I would vehemently seek out the German composer Henrik Weber to perform at the 2010 Decibel Festival.

If I had to pick, the one tune off Black Noise that I continue to come back to is titled “Welt Am Draht”, which translates to “World On Wires”. It starts out with a simple harmonic chord strum on an acoustic guitar, followed by a softly crooning voice. Shortly after the synthesized percussion starts in, these two elements begin to harmonize and layer, setting the tone for a wall of cascading bells, cymbals and pads. All of these elements are perfectly arranged into a simple, seven minute long piece that gives the listener both a sense of foreboding and peace.

This emphasis of organic, human sound is all too often lost amidst the seemingly infinite possibilities that electronic music composers now have at their disposal. As a musician and lover of folk, jazz and other predominantly acoustic genres, I feel what Henrik was able to accomplish with this song was both profoundly beautiful and original. In a world drowning in superficial, technologically driven art and communication, I hope to hear more music in of this caliber (emotive, personal, organic, pure).”

read Sara Ajiri’s (of Eleven Eleven Agency) 2010 RECAP

read Prison Garde’s (fka Megasoid) 2010 RECAP

read Daedelus’ 2010 RECAP