music is about discourse: it’s about ideas, about the intellectual project. anyone can build a “beat”, but not everybody can produce an interesting argument for it. this implies the idea of romanticism as a notion of tradition and respect for certain rules. romanticism understood as virtuosity in the manipulation of art production tools. virtuosi of their own methodology. certain pedigree of virtuosity is definitely needed…but in many regards it also remains an extremely conventional formalism, which is at the core of every artist. it doesn’t matter if you have to piss around in the subterranean electronic music trenches for over two decades. a true pioneer simply has to live with that sort of dichotomy. here there are two good examples.