Let's Talk Cyberpunk...

[User.45]

There is a game I’m playing, Cyberpunk 2077, which has it’s flaws but some interesting music tracks that I imagine some of you would absolutely hate.

I’m curious how these songs are received by TA forum members? These are not songs I would purchase for general listening enjoyment, but they seem to fit this game quite well.

Inexplicably I am drawn to these among others as an appropriate accompaniment to Cyberpunk:


Violence by Le Destroy & The Bait


Pon Pon Shit by Namakopuri & Us Cracks


Pain by Le Destroy (profanity in this song)


Hole in the Sun by Point Break Candy (profanity in this song)


In my second read through, it progressing more coherently because I am acclimated. I assume I’ll be continuing with the second book.

CyberPunk music is something nobody could really get "right". In the 90s it was imagined to be somewhere between Massive Attack and the Prodigy. I think it was really off. The show that came close to what I like is WestWorld Season 3:

This is a gem for example that took me back to SNAP! from the 90s


This one's also pretty fun, also from WW3 soundtrack, which matches the style of the CyberPunk game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=217CdX7Z2tM

Now I think what best matches the Neuromancer books is Dub Techno:
This is also great music for high intensity exercise, gets you through those lactate peaks like nothing else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=734beMDdLWk

But the best is Rhythm and Sound from Rhythm and Sound:

To me, Roll Off is the main theme of Mona Lisa Overdrive. A space machine producing art objects floating in zero gravity. This isn't really what I'd call "music," but a set of sounds unraveling unlikely spaces. You listen to this for 5 minutes, and you can imagine yourself floating in zero G surrounded by vast spaces of a machine that gives off these rhythmic sounds reverberating in in the distance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W23f2-2EPLo

Mango Drive is THE track that got me into Dub Techno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrV5SVutZQ8

BOP is one of the few new-school D&B/Dub(Step) producers who can really capture an atmosphere like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxowIHqA-tc

If you want something that has the resemblance of real music, then it's Floating Points' stuff (he's a classically trained pianist who actually know counterpointing). This reminds me of the soundtrack of Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-xNxzmNtjs

Bonus:
Seba - Dangerous Days which features some synth pads tributing the Yamaha CS80 Vangelis used for the soundtrack of Bladerunner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe_Xjg9EbOY

 

[Scepticalscribe]

There is a game I’m playing, Cyberpunk 2077, which has it’s flaws but some interesting music tracks that I imagine some of you would absolutely hate.

I’m curious how these songs are received by TA forum members? These are not songs I would purchase for general listening enjoyment, but they seem to fit this game quite well.

Inexplicably I am drawn to these among others as an appropriate accompaniment to Cyberpunk:


Violence by Le Destroy & The Bait


Pon Pon Shit by Namakopuri & Us Cracks


Pain by Le Destroy (profanity in this song)


Hole in the Sun by Point Break Candy (profanity in this song)


In my second read through, it progressing more coherently because I am acclimated. I assume I’ll be continuing with the second book.

What about Kill The Messenger (which was the second track I liked, - I also liked Pain) of the tracks which you posted & linked on MR?

Glad to see this topic discussed and explored, here, for, it is good to be coaxed out from one's sometimes cosy comfort zones.

 

[Huntn]

What about Kill The Messenger (which was the second track I liked, - I also liked Pain) of the tracks which you posted & linked on MR?

Glad to see this topic discussed and explored, here, for, it is good to be coaxed out from one's sometimes cosy comfort zones.

Kill the Messenger is really atmospheric. I can also imagine listening to these when playing Vampire the Masquerade, another atmospheric game that has a great sound track, a case where the music becomes melded with the overall experience. And as far as playing games, Cyberpunk 2077 does some pretty amazing things as far as an immersive story and main plot, but it also tripped in a big way. They created an amazing city, Night City (name straight out of Neuromancer) with a landscape that appears so full of life, the participant is disappointed when they discover it’s just a surface veneer.

 

[Huntn]

CyberPunk music is something nobody could really get "right". In the 90s it was imagined to be somewhere between Massive Attack and the Prodigy. I think it was really off. The show that came close to what I like is WestWorld Season 3:

This is a gem for example that took me back to SNAP! from the 90s


This one's also pretty fun, also from WW3 soundtrack, which matches the style of the CyberPunk game:


Now I think what best matches the Neuromancer books is Dub Techno:
This is also great music for high intensity exercise, gets you through those lactate peaks like nothing else.


But the best is Rhythm and Sound from Rhythm and Sound:

To me, Roll Off is the main theme of Mona Lisa Overdrive. A space machine producing art objects floating in zero gravity. This isn't really what I'd call "music," but a set of sounds unraveling unlikely spaces. You listen to this for 5 minutes, and you can imagine yourself floating in zero G surrounded by vast spaces of a machine that gives off these rhythmic sounds reverberating in in the distance.


Mango Drive is THE track that got me into Dub Techno


BOP is one of the few new-school D&B/Dub(Step) producers who can really capture an atmosphere like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxowIHqA-tc

If you want something that has the resemblance of real music, then it's Floating Points' stuff (he's a classically trained pianist who actually know counterpointing). This reminds me of the soundtrack of Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-xNxzmNtjs

Bonus:
Seba - Dangerous Days which features some synth pads tributing the Yamaha CS80 Vangelis used for the soundtrack of Bladerunner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe_Xjg9EbOY

Dangerous Days is pretty amazing. I’ve not listened to the other yet, except the first one which was yech.

 

[hulugu]

Yeah, I've been reading Cyberpunk since I started reading fairly "adult" type literature in my early teens. I quoted most of this post as I think it's a great reference / starting point (see bold ...)

The ONLY place to start is with Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy. Side note, his collaboration with Bruce Sterling on The Difference Engine is consider the foundation work that started the Steampunk genre, and for Sterling - more on topic - I'd recommend Schismatrix and some of his anthologies like Mirrorshades.

Another +1 for Ghost in the Shell, and Black MIrror, the latter always has a bit of Cyberpunk-ish-ness to it (it's kind of Zone + Outer Limits + <the modern dilemma of tech dependency>), I'd say the EPs range from decent to mostly "pretty good", to a few "this is some of the best TV I've ever seen". YMMV.

I'd highly recommend Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, it's certainly Cyberpunk, but it can be taken as a bit of a parody, incredible concept ("crashing" a human being by introducing virus based on language). Also The Diamond Age, by him, it's a less "punk", in fact, I've seen it called "Post-Cyberpunk", but still terrific.

Also, the comic series, Transmetropolitan, incredible writing and art,the writer, Warren Ellis also was the showrunner for the superlative Castlevania animated series (er, that's not Cyberpunk ... ;D), but he was also involved in some sexual coercion of assistants, etc., last I read he had left most projects and claimed to be getting hit shit together.

I started reading cyberpunk because of William Gibson's "Neuromancer," which set my head on fire in my early teens. I'd also highly recommend "Mirrorshades," and Gibson's short-story collection "Burning Chrome." "The Difference Engine," is definitely the foundation work for Steampunk, and the book is really clever in creating an alternate history.

"Transmetropolitan" is brilliant. Painful, brilliant satire of the news economy, and Spider Jerusalem is a fav character.

I don't really like Stephenson's early work—The Big U and Snow Crash are a little too cute in their parody—but he evolved to become an incredibly interesting author with his "Baroque Cycle." He reminds me of Pynchon. And, his last two works, "Reamde" and "Seveneves" are both well-written. Some people have complained that Stephenson's not great at his endings, but I don't think that's entirely true.

I tend to agree with you about "The Diamond Age," and I think a lot of Alastair Reynolds' work is a good representation of post-Cyberpunk, in that it includes space empires and a dangerous alien race, but also thinks hard about human modifications and its limits. Probably the best short example of this is the novella "Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days."

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I started reading cyberpunk because of William Gibson's "Neuromancer," which set my head on fire in my early teens. I'd also highly recommend "Mirrorshades," and Gibson's short-story collection "Burning Chrome." "The Difference Engine," is definitely the foundation work for Steampunk, and the book is really clever in creating an alternate history.

"Transmetropolitan" is brilliant. Painful, brilliant satire of the news economy, and Spider Jerusalem is a fav character.

I don't really like Stephenson's early work—The Big U and Snow Crash are a little too cute in their parody—but he evolved to become an incredibly interesting author with his "Baroque Cycle." He reminds me of Pynchon. And, his last two works, "Reamde" and "Seveneves" are both well-written. Some people have complained that Stephenson's not great at his endings, but I don't think that's entirely true.

I tend to agree with you about "The Diamond Age," and I think a lot of Alastair Reynolds' work is a good representation of post-Cyberpunk, in that it includes space empires and a dangerous alien race, but also thinks hard about human modifications and its limits. Probably the best short example of this is the novella "Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days."

Loved the Baroque cycle - a male friend in my postgrad days (who himself had studied science) introduced me to both the writing of Neal Stephenson and the work of Michael Shea.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I've already mentioned the superb Scott Lynch (for cyberpunk, one needs to look to some of his excellent short stories, his brilliant novels - The Gentlemen Bastard series are not really cyberpunk).

However, re cyberpunk, I would also recommend the impressive work (especially the Cities trilogy - City of Stairs, City of Blades, City of Miracles) of the seriously superb Robert Jackson Bennett.

His current trilogy - Foundryside - (two out of three books written) is excellent, especially if you like dark, gritty, witty, intelligent, well-written, politically (and sexually) complex, sought-provoking stuff that also deals with technological changes of the sort found in cyberpunk, or steampunk.

 

[hulugu]

I've already mentioned the superb Scott Lynch (for cyberpunk, one needs to look to some of his excellent short stories, his brilliant novels - The Gentlemen Bastard series are not really cyberpunk).

However, re cyberpunk, I would also recommend the impressive work (especially the Cities trilogy - City of Stairs, City of Blades, City of Miracles) of the seriously superb Robert Jackson Bennett.

His current trilogy - Foundryside - (two out of three books written) is excellent, especially if you like dark, gritty, witty, intelligent, well-written, politically (and sexually) complex, sought-provoking stuff that also deals with technological changes of the sort found in cyberpunk, or steampunk.

I haven't picked up Robert Jackson Bennett's stuff.

I'd also recommend Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl," and "The Water Knife" which are both excellent.

 

[DT]

I don't really like Stephenson's early work—The Big U and Snow Crash are a little too cute in their parody—

Yeah, you can definitely feel him winking, "It's funny right? Hiro? Hiro Protagonist? His name is like a character archetype, hahaha, I'm fucking hysterical!" I think you have to read them with the right lens

 

[Scepticalscribe]

I haven't picked up Robert Jackson Bennett's stuff.

I'd also recommend Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Windup Girl," and "The Water Knife" which are both excellent.

Robert Jackson Bennett is excellent; his Divine Cities trilogy is one I recommend wholeheartedly, - he writes terrifc female characters (something not all male writers manage, especially in the fields of fantasy) - and his current Foundryside series (Foundryside, and Shorefall have been published, but the third book in the trilogy has yet to make an appearance) is seriously good.

 

[Huntn]

I decided to read Neuromancer a second time and am really impressed with how Gibson portrays an AI construct based on a human being, the idea we have seen in science fiction and cyberpunk, mapping a human brain and turning into an AI. In this example, it is Dixie Flatline, a net runner, former human being, now an AI construct who is not really happy with its existence, it can think and communicate and relate it’s memories, but is not happy with it’s state of existence:

"How you doing, Dixie?"
"I’m dead, Case. Got enough time in on this Hosaka to figure that one."
"How’s it feel?"
"It doesn’t."
"Bother you?"
"What bothers me is, nothin’ does."

Dixie Flatline is more like a lost soul. This story centers on the efforts of a different AI to achieve more freedom than it has, but at this point, I’m not sure if it is completely an artificial creation or personality construct like Flatline.

 

[Huntn]

Just finished rereading Neuromancer a second time. It was good the first time, excellent the second time. Quite visionary considering when it was written, the AI especially and many of the characteristics you see in the Cyberpunk genre today. IMDB lists a movie in development for 2021. Fingers crossed it’s worthy.

Onto The Sprawl book 2- Count Zero!

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