Modulations
Modulations
| 18 September 1998 (USA)
Modulations Trailers

Less a documentary than a primer on all electronic music. Featuring interviews with nearly every major player past and present, as well as a few energetic live clips, Modulations delves into one of electronica's forgotten facets: the human element. Lee travels the globe from the American Midwest to Europe to Japan to try to express the appeal of music often dismissed as soulless. Modulations shows that behind even the most foreign or alien electronic composition lies a real human being, and Lee lets many of these Frankenstein-like creators express and expound upon their personal philosophies and tech-heavy theories. Lee understands that a cultural movement as massive and diverse as dance music can't be contained.

Reviews
Exoticalot

People are voting emotionally.

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Smartorhypo

Highly Overrated But Still Good

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Baseshment

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

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Bluebell Alcock

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

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JK2

Smash cuts! Hardcore coverage! Dozens of dizzying locations around the globe, get ready to enter the world of electronica and meet its makers and mad doctors, blending the sounds to breathe electric life into the air – injecting culture…breeding a living being with a generation riding the tide of true music and electric emotion.From filmmaker Lara Lee comes this epic, documentary examining the electronic music scene on a global level. Spanning its history in culture from its earliest beginnings, get the music, slamming dancefloor footage, and interviews with all the exotic experts who exist within the electronic universe where all minds may enter!

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John Seal

Modulations attempts to cover too wide a subject area in too little time. Electronic music is an all-encompassing label that is applied to musicians as diverse as Can, John Cage, and the Prodigy(!!). There are great segments here with pioneers such as Cage, Robert Moog, Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Henry. There are too many segments of talent-short and ego-long knob twiddlers. And there's an inexcusable total lack of Kraftwerk or Cabaret Voltaire, the two groups who pioneered the crossover of 'electronica' from fringe to pop. And why no interview with Afrika Bambaata? He made it onto PBS' Rock n Roll Series, and he should have been talked to here. The lowpoint is reached when a German techno artist says that techno has absolutely no revolutionary potential....except for his own special brand of hardcore jungle!! Modulations is a fascinating but frustrating once over lightly look at this ever evolving music scene.

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XSIV4C

a great movie for electronic music lovers. the only complaints are not even complaints. such as, too short. i could have sat there for 5 hours. missing artists. klaus schulze, tangerine dream. ambient music lovers check out Baraka(1992).

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bigmike-4

Being a fan of electronic music for several years now, I was surprised that a full scale documentary on the history of techno was produced.I got a chance to catch it at the Motor Lounge in Hamtramick and what I saw surprised me. This documentary is incredibly well done. It covers the history of electronica from its earliest origins in the 1950's to the modern day rave scene.The audio is fantastic and any music lover should appreciate the facts presented within the movie. Modulations covers most of the bases, including the various techno scenes across the world. They interview many artists and the man who started it all (inventing the Moog Synth). This is great stuff.....The audio and video are fantastic and I hope that they release this on DVD in the near future.

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