The presumption of the beat

Then I found myself in the lift of the W on Washington square in New York. Another fucking hotel that thinks it’s a nightclub. Not as bad as the Soho grand where a spiteful Japanese DJ once greeted me from behind his haircut as I lugged my suitcase up the stairs looking about desperatly for a recognisable reception. Now in the W my ears are assailed by generic good times house music. I flash on coming down in the same lift, listening to the same music on my way to a big meeting. The music is designed for people who have very now meetings to attend, about either the commercial exploitation of whatever will replace U-Tube/My Space, or a presentation of the layout for the graphics of confidential global corporate rebanding project. The music brings you up. Up to the speed of the rarified world we all aspire to. It is a gutted, refurbished version of the music that used to dovetail with ecstasy to take you out of it. Now it takes you into it, zooms you into an emotional space from which you feel confident enough to suceed. A place from which to ooze confidence and contemporariness. They have done to music what developers have done to old buildings, the only original feature being the sampled slap and bass of the beat, a relentless metronomic upbeat, a death defying self centred thrum. Exiting the lift, heading for my room with it’s inevitable plug in Ipod speaker unit attached to the stereo awaiting me, I cherished the silence of the corridors and remembered fleetingly the startling disorientation and uplifting giddiness of my first E rush all those years ago to a very dissimilar similar beat that presumed only on my youthful inquisitive desire to experiament.

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