The future has something nostalgic about it. Hear me out. When films from past decades imagined tomorrow, they often relied on pre-digital technologies, projecting something almost optimistic, even utopian. After all, we’ve learned from the past – politically, at least – haven’t we? In hindsight that belief seems naïve, but this parallel world of imagined futures fascinates today’s pop culture more than ever, obsessed as it is with retrospection and nostalgia. Especially at a time when the future feels more uncertain than it ever has.
This also helps explain the small revival of a sound that, in the late 1990s, primarily served as the soundtrack to (futuristic) racing games. A heady mix of breakbeats, rave, techno, trance and house. Back then, this strain of dance music was still relatively young and radiated confidence. When, in the future racer Wipeout, polygonal hovercrafts tear across and above landscapes at breakneck speed, while metallic, slightly abrasive, stumbling break-driven tracks by Tim Wright blast from a CRT television’s speakers, they make us a promise. It’s okay to remember what that promise felt like when we hear these pumping, euphoric tracks spinning on a turntable today. And it’s also okay to admit that we once hoped for more from the future. There’s still some time, after all. Until then, the hi-hats in tracks like »Tentative« hiss in competition with one another – and, hopefully, are the first to carry us across the finish line.
