Disappearance is such a powerful word. Complete absence; cease to exist - to vanish. Leaving only a memory, just the incorporeal trace. In Hiding, Mark C Taylor argues that it is the very disappearance of the body which makes it real - only its astonishing absence can inscribe the importance of its (now past) presence. But the past is as corporeal as the present for those who cannot detach themselves from it. Perhaps more so, because its influence is felt, a deadweight, inescapable and unchallengable because of its very, dead, certainty. Whereas the present projects into the future, it is unrealised, unactualised and only to be resolved. The past's shadow is upon us whereas the present's appearance is cast into the future. So, only in retrospect does the present become real - only as past. Only in disappearance does the body gain real - apparent - corporeality.
What use then is disappearance?
Many have claimed that it is only in death that we find Being - in leaving the transitory existence of Becoming, we enter a new state of eternal subsistence. Certainly the concrete presence of the absent implies this. In being not-here, it transcends and solidifies out of the living-death of the corruptible world.
Monday, 25 August 2014
Sunday, 24 August 2014
Philosophy of the Body
What is needed is a philosophy of the body. This is not to say a philosophy of matter, or a materialist philosophy. The body is more than matter - encompassing that which is present through the body, the mental, that 'epiphenomenal' which can breach its own boundaries and, overflowing, exercise power over that which gives it birth.
A philosophy of the body, of human physicality, seeks to determine the humanistic aspects of the body; how the body functions in cultures, how physicality can determine and effect (even, affect) our internal and interpersonal realities.
What happens when we scratch this surface? What comes to pass when we open the body for an examination which is transphysical in nature?
In this case the body becomes not just matter, not a concentration of particles, tissue, blood and bone; neither is it a hollow vessel, second to the spirit which moves it. Instead it is the very presence of the internality which exists through it; the medium by which minds interact, through which expression occurs and as which the human being is real. In this case the body is the manifestation of the spirit in action, bloodied, strained and taut or limp, reduced and languid. The body is both unreal and the most real; it's the closest we get to presence of the incorporeal; it's the opaque presentation of the diaphanous, illogically concealing that very - postulated, always postponed - Real which we can never reach.
A philosophy of the body, of human physicality, seeks to determine the humanistic aspects of the body; how the body functions in cultures, how physicality can determine and effect (even, affect) our internal and interpersonal realities.
What happens when we scratch this surface? What comes to pass when we open the body for an examination which is transphysical in nature?
In this case the body becomes not just matter, not a concentration of particles, tissue, blood and bone; neither is it a hollow vessel, second to the spirit which moves it. Instead it is the very presence of the internality which exists through it; the medium by which minds interact, through which expression occurs and as which the human being is real. In this case the body is the manifestation of the spirit in action, bloodied, strained and taut or limp, reduced and languid. The body is both unreal and the most real; it's the closest we get to presence of the incorporeal; it's the opaque presentation of the diaphanous, illogically concealing that very - postulated, always postponed - Real which we can never reach.
Sunday, 6 April 2014
Reductionism, metaphysical fascism
Really, the main opponent I find myself arguing against time and again is reductionism. A main theme of my thesis was that an other, any subject or object (and for me the terms really are interchangeable), while wholly constituted of the material that composes it, should not be reduced to it; an entity, in order to be an entity rather than an aggregate, must admit of some kind of metaphysical unity.
It's also been an ongoing conviction that the truths of separate fields of investigation should not and cannot be reduced to each other; while I value science and scientific investigation immensely, I flinch whenever someone tries to explain religious claims in terms of a literal, "scientific" statement about the world(as you may imagine this happens often enough to constitute some kind of nervous tick; it is the error, in my opinion, of people both with and without religious conviction to claim that religious statements can hold the same kind of truth as scientific ones; that religion is principally an attempt at explaining or describing the world). Likewise I don't think biology should be reduced to chemistry or physics, or psychology to biology - or even sociology to psychology. And needless to say, art too has its own domain of value, truths of which are not explainable or even correctly stateable in terms of any other discipline.
I think a mistake that it's easy to make about this is in thinking that these separate domains or magisteria exist side-by-side; that this means religious truth, for example, is equal but complementary to scientific truth, because there is some "spiritual" realm sitting alongside the material. But this is to make the fundamental mistake of judging all meaning by the terms of materialism. There doesn't need to be a "real" realm in which religious truth happens in order for religious truth to be "real" in terms of having value and meaning. Just like psychological claims don't have to be stateable in terms of chemistry in order to be valid. There is a mental "realm" but it's not an objective one in the way we tend to think of the objectively real material world.
Perhaps my main complaint against reductionism is in the drive to totalise. When everything is stateable in a single tongue, according to a single model of reality, the world becomes static; the flat world of particles existing in mechanical relation according to a single overarching narrative or set of rules takes on, for me, a hellish aspect; a metaphysical fascism where value is already determined and even personal interpretation or sensation is not what it is but is only something else articulated into an apparent form. We end up with a cosmos which is nothing but numbers and the relationship between them. Reductionism aggressively roots out and throws away any alternative viewpoints, claiming that a single schema is the absolute truth, and all others are just articulations of the fundamental principle. This is highly unsatisfactory for me. It seems like a kind of death; an autopsy. (I've never been able to settle on just one thing; I can't even pick a favourite musical style, I need to listen to 'em all.) Worse yet a single system of value seems to negate even itself, because on what can that system of value, of meaning, actually ground itself? What gives the ultimate ground of reality its ultimate status? The question is like asking "who made God" or "what came before the Big Bang" I know, and perhaps it demonstrates the same basic misunderstanding of ultimacy (or of "reality"!). But I find the picture of separate realms interlinking and supporting each other much more intellectually pleasing; the idea that different (and even unrelated) systems of understanding the world-we-live-in allows for much greater depth of understanding and a much richer sense of the world; and the world-we-live-in after all isn't the objective material world of science, but a world infused with social, mythical, artistic and religious aspects, none of which exist in the material world which empirical science investigates.
Another aspect of this is in the field of comparative religion. It's been fashionable for a while to say that all religions are the same, that they all teach the same thing or that they're all paths to the same truth. I find this deeply unsatisfactory. What fascinating about religion is just how different they all are. The metaphysics, the soteriology and the system of value and meaning for human life are completely different in, say, Buddhism and Islam. Even in two religions which have deeply influenced each other throughout their history, like Judaism and Christianity, their understanding what it means to be human and how the human relates to the world and to the sphere of divinity (as well as to other humans) is really totally different (this is one of the reasons why Jewish philosophy is so different from typical post-Christian western philosophy). For me, Judaism fascinates me - but I wouldn't claim it's the only or best way of doing religion. I value equally (well, maybe not equally...) the teachings of all religions; these are human endeavours, constructed by humans to answer the specific questions which a group of people faced at a particular time, and subject to an evolutionary trajectory constrained by both the strictures of the initial dogma and the events which subsequent generations endured, altering their interpretations and emphases. Of course, reigions havealways existed in proximity to each other and many have absorbed concepts and traditions from other faiths; the boundaries are always permeable.
But further I think ther must be a means of escaping. No? When one system, one order, becomes too much one needs the possibility of escaping into another; of stepping out of the existing symbolic order and experiencing the world anew, through another. To realise that things don't have to be the way they seem; that redemption can come in various forms, from unexpected places; that the world can actually be turned upside down and reform into new shapes, with new relationships between its parts.
It's also been an ongoing conviction that the truths of separate fields of investigation should not and cannot be reduced to each other; while I value science and scientific investigation immensely, I flinch whenever someone tries to explain religious claims in terms of a literal, "scientific" statement about the world(as you may imagine this happens often enough to constitute some kind of nervous tick; it is the error, in my opinion, of people both with and without religious conviction to claim that religious statements can hold the same kind of truth as scientific ones; that religion is principally an attempt at explaining or describing the world). Likewise I don't think biology should be reduced to chemistry or physics, or psychology to biology - or even sociology to psychology. And needless to say, art too has its own domain of value, truths of which are not explainable or even correctly stateable in terms of any other discipline.
I think a mistake that it's easy to make about this is in thinking that these separate domains or magisteria exist side-by-side; that this means religious truth, for example, is equal but complementary to scientific truth, because there is some "spiritual" realm sitting alongside the material. But this is to make the fundamental mistake of judging all meaning by the terms of materialism. There doesn't need to be a "real" realm in which religious truth happens in order for religious truth to be "real" in terms of having value and meaning. Just like psychological claims don't have to be stateable in terms of chemistry in order to be valid. There is a mental "realm" but it's not an objective one in the way we tend to think of the objectively real material world.
Perhaps my main complaint against reductionism is in the drive to totalise. When everything is stateable in a single tongue, according to a single model of reality, the world becomes static; the flat world of particles existing in mechanical relation according to a single overarching narrative or set of rules takes on, for me, a hellish aspect; a metaphysical fascism where value is already determined and even personal interpretation or sensation is not what it is but is only something else articulated into an apparent form. We end up with a cosmos which is nothing but numbers and the relationship between them. Reductionism aggressively roots out and throws away any alternative viewpoints, claiming that a single schema is the absolute truth, and all others are just articulations of the fundamental principle. This is highly unsatisfactory for me. It seems like a kind of death; an autopsy. (I've never been able to settle on just one thing; I can't even pick a favourite musical style, I need to listen to 'em all.) Worse yet a single system of value seems to negate even itself, because on what can that system of value, of meaning, actually ground itself? What gives the ultimate ground of reality its ultimate status? The question is like asking "who made God" or "what came before the Big Bang" I know, and perhaps it demonstrates the same basic misunderstanding of ultimacy (or of "reality"!). But I find the picture of separate realms interlinking and supporting each other much more intellectually pleasing; the idea that different (and even unrelated) systems of understanding the world-we-live-in allows for much greater depth of understanding and a much richer sense of the world; and the world-we-live-in after all isn't the objective material world of science, but a world infused with social, mythical, artistic and religious aspects, none of which exist in the material world which empirical science investigates.
Another aspect of this is in the field of comparative religion. It's been fashionable for a while to say that all religions are the same, that they all teach the same thing or that they're all paths to the same truth. I find this deeply unsatisfactory. What fascinating about religion is just how different they all are. The metaphysics, the soteriology and the system of value and meaning for human life are completely different in, say, Buddhism and Islam. Even in two religions which have deeply influenced each other throughout their history, like Judaism and Christianity, their understanding what it means to be human and how the human relates to the world and to the sphere of divinity (as well as to other humans) is really totally different (this is one of the reasons why Jewish philosophy is so different from typical post-Christian western philosophy). For me, Judaism fascinates me - but I wouldn't claim it's the only or best way of doing religion. I value equally (well, maybe not equally...) the teachings of all religions; these are human endeavours, constructed by humans to answer the specific questions which a group of people faced at a particular time, and subject to an evolutionary trajectory constrained by both the strictures of the initial dogma and the events which subsequent generations endured, altering their interpretations and emphases. Of course, reigions havealways existed in proximity to each other and many have absorbed concepts and traditions from other faiths; the boundaries are always permeable.
But further I think ther must be a means of escaping. No? When one system, one order, becomes too much one needs the possibility of escaping into another; of stepping out of the existing symbolic order and experiencing the world anew, through another. To realise that things don't have to be the way they seem; that redemption can come in various forms, from unexpected places; that the world can actually be turned upside down and reform into new shapes, with new relationships between its parts.
Monday, 18 November 2013
Reading Buber, and thinking about love
Love seems to depend on the nature of individuality. Is it the qualities, the 'accidents' of someone's personality and lifestyle habits that one is called to love? Or the irreducile, the 'soul', that which is them in their itneriority and absolute individuality?
One thinks it should be the latter. But all internality is identical; it is only the exterior which grants difference; it is the perception of difference itself which generates difference. The I of all is identical. How can one love that which is identical to oneself? What meaning or value would this have? The answer is clear: none. That would not be love but masturbation; narcissism; dissolution, to love what of oneself one sees reflected in the other.
But love must admit difference. It is precisely that infinitesimal space between two which allows love to exist: that gap which cannot be materially breached but still across which electrical sparks might fly; through the name, through and via those qualities (middot) of difference, the accidents, into the soul of another wich precisely in its hiddenness, its concealedness behind that gap, cannot be known as identical but known only as other; as different. The spirit of one which reaches out to me through these material qualities is still the spirit which I love, unknowable in its unclothedness but perceivable in its represented form.
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
Writing and art
I'd mentioned that I want to start blogging again this year. I've felt that ever since I began my PhD I just haven't had any ideas to express here. All of my intellectual energies have gone into my studies. This isn't a bad thing, because this is perhaps the most crucial point when I should try to focus, and after which I can begin to relax a bit (ha! I know that isn't true). But it has left me feeling rather two-dimensional and wondering what happened to all my other interests outside Judaism. I can't even find the time to read my weekly New Scientist anymore, and the pile of waiting-to-be-read books grows daily.
So, I wanted to share this post from the excellent artist Bryan Christie. He discusses his past as a musician and the feeling of uselessness at being an anachronism, playing jazz in 90s New York, and then the revelation at becoming art editor at a scientific magazine where the passion of the writers made him feel like he was "surrounded by artists and musicians". This reminded me of the sense of liberation I had when I finally abandoned music and turned instead to academia (five years ago now). There are some things I miss about being a musician, but mostly I think I've found the drives that brought me to music have been fulfilled more completely here.
I often reflect that academic study - or more precisely, academic writing - is for me an artistic pursuit. I have the same feeling from honing a mass of information into a coherent, developing "argument" with momentum as I did from making music. Because music-making was always more a matter of composition than playing for me, the careful and intricate refinement, and the attempt to "show" a complex notion over the course of a piece that could not be said in a single melody, are recalled to me now when I attempt to express very abstract, intangible and complex theories over ten thousand words that couldn't be adequately stated in twenty. Both processes, it occurs to me now, were mostly carried out infront of computer screens.
The process of writing - and I've found this to be true in my PhD as well as in my MA and earlier essays - is roughly analogous to sculpture. The first step is to form your lump of clay. This is the research phase, taking notes and editorialising; effectively throwing words at the screen until you have a good solid mass to start working with. Next you can start honing: chipping away at the block until you can feel the shape emerging, rearranging paragraphs and aligning topics so that the argument takes shape. Finally you can start adding in more ideas and text to highlight or accentuate areas. But crucially I think, it never feels like the argument is something I'm creating; it's present in the initial body of text, I am just turning it around and trying to find how to reorder it so that the argument becomes obvious. Although I've occasionally been surprised, mostly I have a vague awareness of my conclusions even before I've started that process.
But I think the crucial aspect for me, what drove me both as a musician and as an academic, is the sense of discovery - the sense of curiously placing things together, taking ideas from different fields/styles, mashing them all together and making something new, but also the ability to (forgive my Wittgensteinian fascination) show what cannot be said, to somehow express a concept that goes beyond words.
Friday, 14 December 2012
2012 in Music
Well, this year has been almost entirely without posts, on any of my blogs. But it's been a year of a lot of music for me so I feel like sharing some of what I've been listening (and in fact, not listening) to.
I've bought more music this year than for a long time. I came back to the vinyl fold, initially buying a 99p usb turntable off Ebay (which didn't work) and quickly afterward collecting my battered old Vestax from storage at my parents' house. In a way I regret it, because vinyl's so much more expensive and unecological than CD...but, it does sound (and feel) fantastic. So much for my eco-credentials.
A shout out should be given to Nottingham's Music Exchange. The only independent store in Nottingham, they are run by homeless charity Framework, support vinyl and new artists and sometimes have live shows instore. Needless to say, musicians can't survive and carry on making the music we love if people don't buy their releases.
I've surprised myself by getting into extreme metal again. Well, for the first time really - apart from a teenage interest in Napalm Death and the rest of the Earache roster, I could never really dig the lack of emotional breadth or melody in much grindcore, and hated the overstatement of death metal. All that teenage phase left me with was a deep love for Mick Harris and James Plotkin, as well as a high respect for Godflesh. Really, two bands have sealed my embrace of the dark side this year: Dephosphorus - a Greek "astrogrind" band whose second full-length has garnered rave reviews from around the web. It's beautiful, both physically for its art and presentation, and aurally. Brutal, abrasive but intelligent; psychedelic and furious, but controlled. There's been a massive proliferation of screamy, sophisticated-ish black metal awash with blastbeats and all those same chords and sounds - Dephosphorus do something beyond that, and hopefully will continue to push the sound beyond the very narrow furrow it now inhabits.
The second band is This Gift Is A Curse, a Swedish band who I saw at the Chameleon. Thanks to a nice little group of music-loving friends this has become my regular haunt and I've discovered much great music here. I really can't fault it as an underground venue and the sound-system/sound-man especially cannot be praised highly enough. Anyway TGIAC make a brutal brand of occult black metal which pleases both the viscera and the intellect, being complex, blackened, gruesome and tight but never overly technical. Here's a band firing on all cylinders and pulling in the same direction. Just a shame about the drunk guy in the audience who kept annoying the singer by getting into the mood a bit too much.
Raime. Well, what can I say about Raime? After a string of well-received twelves they dropped their LP Quarter Turns over a Living Line late this year; it's stunning. Better, if you ask me, than the singles although I have to admit that I only heard Spotify's MP3s of their previous stuff. This is the release that sealed my love for vinyl. Digital has never sounded as rich as this, and never made bass that shakes out of the woofers like this does. It's very simple music, but full of soul and, as Boomkat put it, dread. I sometimes think about how perception of music changes over time and wonder how today's music will seem in ten or twenty years. I have no idea how Raime will sound - either seminal or curious transigent fascination, I'm not sure. On paper they don't do much different from Demdike Stare, but they remain so much more interesting and vital. Maybe when fashion has moved on, the smog will have left and revealed them as actually no different, but I suspect this album will remain some definitive statement on the mood of our times, as Autechre and Aphex Twin did the mid 90s. Kids don't sit in their bedrooms chilling and smoking on a sunday comedown anymore; they sit and feel intense insecurity about the future and their place in it, the collapse of ecological systems, terrorism, corporate politics and the ravaging of social infrastructure.
I'll remind you here of what I said about the vinyl. This clip just doesn't compare.
On the other hand, a group I discovered at the same time as Raime and loved briefly, are Tropic of Cancer. I find myself now bemused as to what the fuss is - they have one or two great tracks, but the majority of their work is very cheesy, and displays a conventionalism which belies the apparent underground veneer; behind the smog there's nothing there. I'm glad I didn't buy their massively overpriced 12", though I did cough up for the massively overpriced mini-LP split with HTRK. I don't regret that, as it does at least have one of their great songs on, and I'm still in love with HTRK. I realise now that I was partially incorrect last year in characterising them as austere though - it's the unusual mixture of austerity and decadence which makes them so fascinating and is sure to preserve the strength of their music in years to come.
This is one of the good ones.
This year has seen a real return to the dark in fact. There's a real sense of terror and doom in music right now that I don't remember at any point before - maybe the late 70s would be the last point it was this apparent. It was reading a review on Boomkat which made me understand the sudden, unprecedented rise of freeform music recently: it's a response to the collapse of bedroom electronica. The complete antithesis of sequenced, 4 minute, computerised beats&melody music has been the sprawling, organic compositionless sound experiments which have almost taken centre-stage in underground music the last couple of years.
Schneider TM's Construction Sounds LP is the height of the freeform trend for me. Recordings made from the construction works that surrounded his Berlin flat for several years, effected and made into a detailed sonic canvas incorporating melody and synthetic sound into the mechanical work which is always refined and never merely cacophonous. Pierre Schafer would be proud (maybe).
I discovered, later than many, The Haxan Cloak. His first album is beautiful - organic and gritty but with restraint, tension and without noodling. The follow up mini-LP sounded flat and digital in comparison. I hope he steps things up for the next release.
On quite a similar note, I've been interested in Richard Skelton's literary and musical output. A very talented man to be sure, and with a clear (and unique) artistic vision. I bought the Limnology CD/book package for my dad's birthday. It's a minimally designed collection of words, poetry and musings about rivers and inland water. I'm not sure he gets it, but I like it. I also bought A Broken Consort, which is more accomplished musically, though slightly on the weepy side for my tastes.
An honourable mention also should go to my friend Ben's micro-label Kiks/Girlfriend, specialising in tiny cassette and CD runs. His own SCKE release is worth looking into.
Finally in terms of sound art, Daniel Menche caught my attention, I think from a review in the Wire. His work is highly detailed, made up of field recordings of natural and man-made sounds composed into pieces. Layers and levels of soundoverlap and interpenetrate to an almost psychedelic degree. He has a massive catalogue all of which is worth listening to, but the two that I decided to part with cash for were Guts and Drunk Gods.
On the strength of being told it sounded like Daniel Menche, I bought a lovely 3CD box set by Small Cruel Party after a show at the Chameleon (Russell Haswell and Pain Jerk in fact). Less dense, perhaps slightly less composed, but still intelligently put together and much more than just noise.
Something a little more melodic: Silver Stairs of Ketchikan. I saw Thought Forms play at the Chameleon and liked their music - but the CD I bought turned out to be the long-running solo project of their guitarist. In fact it grabbed me more than their own show did - resolutely experimental without being weird for the sake of weird, playful and full of intrigue and a pure love of musical sound.
An interesting agenda is being pursued by Imaginary Forces, and his label Sleep Codes. Very limited releases on a variety of formats sitting somewere between abstract electronics and noise. Beats taken through a grinder so they take on abstract, unrhythmic quality. I was drawn into his sound by the excellent Resonance FM show Resonating Machines, which invited producers to compose thirty minutes of sound from the sonic tools of their favourite records. All episodes are available to download from his site.
Pop.1280 formed pretty much my only foray into verse-chorus pop music this year. Not really pop in attitude, but standard band music, these guys play a sneery, grim cyberpunk art-rock which has seen more than one comparison to Cop Shoot Cop. Their debut The Horror is beautiful and exactly what I needed. I hope they play the UK soon.
Although, I've been more than a little bemused by the similarity of their first video:
To one that my old band DisinVectant put together. Not content with taking the aesthetic sense and the scratchy VHS quality, they even feature the vocalist talking into a payphone!
And now a moan. I raved about Death Grips last year. Now I wish I hadn't. I managed to catch their soundcheck (half of Guillotine, wonderful) in Leeds last summer before leaving to catch the last train back; I was gutted, it would have been my favourite show of the year. I really wanted to see them. Soon after they anounced, and then unceremoniously cancelled, a show in Nottingham. When they finally returned to the UK recently they totally avoided us. They released two albums, I listened to them both once and probably won't bother again. Don't get me wrong: Guillotine is a masterpiece. Death Yon is awesome. The rest of the Ex-Military album I could happily never hear again. I recently picked up the vinyl version and sold it, unopened, for four times what I paid (best price I've ever got for a record actually). I don't regret it at all. I don't have a problem with their attitude, their disrespect for their record label (uploading the third album because of a petty dispute about release dates) or their fans (cancelling a tour to record said album, leaving many people with train tickets or even accommodation etc which were unrefundable). Artists are like that, and shouldn't base their decisions on anything other than their art...art should never be "for" the fans, this makes it a commercial, crowd-pleasing endeavour which is not true art. If you want entertainment watch X-Factor. But the lack of intrigue, the lack of challenge and the sheer lack of progression in their sound has left me feeling bored. Maybe I'll change my mind, it's not unknown.
Circle Takes the Square still haven't released their second album, more than a year after their Kickstarter project was hugely oversubscribed. It'd better be worth the wait. But, it was a pure joy to see them play in Birmingham all the way back in February.
I heard and quickly bought Michael Idehall's SOL. I know nothing about this artist, label or album but I really like it; definite elements of Coil here.
Although it's only a twelve, I think I should briefly mention the Regis and Ancient Methods collaboration Ugandan Methods, and their recent Cold Retreat, on Boomkat's own label. Quality industrial technoid grooves. I've been really impressed with Regis output recently and how he's refashioned Downwards into something much bigger than the Brum techno label it could have been.
Here is probably where I should also note Downward's So Click Heels compilation. The highlight for me is Deathday's opener (which actually reminds me of a Regis track from an obscure compilation called Exist)
And finally it would be remiss not to mention Swans' The Seer. Probably the year's most awaited and certainly most lauded album, I was surprised by the delicacy of some of it - not what I remember from Gira's previous work, though it's a while since I listened to anything except the first couple of Swans albums.
In the midst of all this there hasn't been much space for melody. That's something I hope will change next year, I do miss tunes.
I've bought more music this year than for a long time. I came back to the vinyl fold, initially buying a 99p usb turntable off Ebay (which didn't work) and quickly afterward collecting my battered old Vestax from storage at my parents' house. In a way I regret it, because vinyl's so much more expensive and unecological than CD...but, it does sound (and feel) fantastic. So much for my eco-credentials.
A shout out should be given to Nottingham's Music Exchange. The only independent store in Nottingham, they are run by homeless charity Framework, support vinyl and new artists and sometimes have live shows instore. Needless to say, musicians can't survive and carry on making the music we love if people don't buy their releases.
I've surprised myself by getting into extreme metal again. Well, for the first time really - apart from a teenage interest in Napalm Death and the rest of the Earache roster, I could never really dig the lack of emotional breadth or melody in much grindcore, and hated the overstatement of death metal. All that teenage phase left me with was a deep love for Mick Harris and James Plotkin, as well as a high respect for Godflesh. Really, two bands have sealed my embrace of the dark side this year: Dephosphorus - a Greek "astrogrind" band whose second full-length has garnered rave reviews from around the web. It's beautiful, both physically for its art and presentation, and aurally. Brutal, abrasive but intelligent; psychedelic and furious, but controlled. There's been a massive proliferation of screamy, sophisticated-ish black metal awash with blastbeats and all those same chords and sounds - Dephosphorus do something beyond that, and hopefully will continue to push the sound beyond the very narrow furrow it now inhabits.
The second band is This Gift Is A Curse, a Swedish band who I saw at the Chameleon. Thanks to a nice little group of music-loving friends this has become my regular haunt and I've discovered much great music here. I really can't fault it as an underground venue and the sound-system/sound-man especially cannot be praised highly enough. Anyway TGIAC make a brutal brand of occult black metal which pleases both the viscera and the intellect, being complex, blackened, gruesome and tight but never overly technical. Here's a band firing on all cylinders and pulling in the same direction. Just a shame about the drunk guy in the audience who kept annoying the singer by getting into the mood a bit too much.
Raime. Well, what can I say about Raime? After a string of well-received twelves they dropped their LP Quarter Turns over a Living Line late this year; it's stunning. Better, if you ask me, than the singles although I have to admit that I only heard Spotify's MP3s of their previous stuff. This is the release that sealed my love for vinyl. Digital has never sounded as rich as this, and never made bass that shakes out of the woofers like this does. It's very simple music, but full of soul and, as Boomkat put it, dread. I sometimes think about how perception of music changes over time and wonder how today's music will seem in ten or twenty years. I have no idea how Raime will sound - either seminal or curious transigent fascination, I'm not sure. On paper they don't do much different from Demdike Stare, but they remain so much more interesting and vital. Maybe when fashion has moved on, the smog will have left and revealed them as actually no different, but I suspect this album will remain some definitive statement on the mood of our times, as Autechre and Aphex Twin did the mid 90s. Kids don't sit in their bedrooms chilling and smoking on a sunday comedown anymore; they sit and feel intense insecurity about the future and their place in it, the collapse of ecological systems, terrorism, corporate politics and the ravaging of social infrastructure.
I'll remind you here of what I said about the vinyl. This clip just doesn't compare.
On the other hand, a group I discovered at the same time as Raime and loved briefly, are Tropic of Cancer. I find myself now bemused as to what the fuss is - they have one or two great tracks, but the majority of their work is very cheesy, and displays a conventionalism which belies the apparent underground veneer; behind the smog there's nothing there. I'm glad I didn't buy their massively overpriced 12", though I did cough up for the massively overpriced mini-LP split with HTRK. I don't regret that, as it does at least have one of their great songs on, and I'm still in love with HTRK. I realise now that I was partially incorrect last year in characterising them as austere though - it's the unusual mixture of austerity and decadence which makes them so fascinating and is sure to preserve the strength of their music in years to come.
This is one of the good ones.
This year has seen a real return to the dark in fact. There's a real sense of terror and doom in music right now that I don't remember at any point before - maybe the late 70s would be the last point it was this apparent. It was reading a review on Boomkat which made me understand the sudden, unprecedented rise of freeform music recently: it's a response to the collapse of bedroom electronica. The complete antithesis of sequenced, 4 minute, computerised beats&melody music has been the sprawling, organic compositionless sound experiments which have almost taken centre-stage in underground music the last couple of years.
Schneider TM's Construction Sounds LP is the height of the freeform trend for me. Recordings made from the construction works that surrounded his Berlin flat for several years, effected and made into a detailed sonic canvas incorporating melody and synthetic sound into the mechanical work which is always refined and never merely cacophonous. Pierre Schafer would be proud (maybe).
I discovered, later than many, The Haxan Cloak. His first album is beautiful - organic and gritty but with restraint, tension and without noodling. The follow up mini-LP sounded flat and digital in comparison. I hope he steps things up for the next release.
On quite a similar note, I've been interested in Richard Skelton's literary and musical output. A very talented man to be sure, and with a clear (and unique) artistic vision. I bought the Limnology CD/book package for my dad's birthday. It's a minimally designed collection of words, poetry and musings about rivers and inland water. I'm not sure he gets it, but I like it. I also bought A Broken Consort, which is more accomplished musically, though slightly on the weepy side for my tastes.
An honourable mention also should go to my friend Ben's micro-label Kiks/Girlfriend, specialising in tiny cassette and CD runs. His own SCKE release is worth looking into.
Finally in terms of sound art, Daniel Menche caught my attention, I think from a review in the Wire. His work is highly detailed, made up of field recordings of natural and man-made sounds composed into pieces. Layers and levels of soundoverlap and interpenetrate to an almost psychedelic degree. He has a massive catalogue all of which is worth listening to, but the two that I decided to part with cash for were Guts and Drunk Gods.
On the strength of being told it sounded like Daniel Menche, I bought a lovely 3CD box set by Small Cruel Party after a show at the Chameleon (Russell Haswell and Pain Jerk in fact). Less dense, perhaps slightly less composed, but still intelligently put together and much more than just noise.
Something a little more melodic: Silver Stairs of Ketchikan. I saw Thought Forms play at the Chameleon and liked their music - but the CD I bought turned out to be the long-running solo project of their guitarist. In fact it grabbed me more than their own show did - resolutely experimental without being weird for the sake of weird, playful and full of intrigue and a pure love of musical sound.
An interesting agenda is being pursued by Imaginary Forces, and his label Sleep Codes. Very limited releases on a variety of formats sitting somewere between abstract electronics and noise. Beats taken through a grinder so they take on abstract, unrhythmic quality. I was drawn into his sound by the excellent Resonance FM show Resonating Machines, which invited producers to compose thirty minutes of sound from the sonic tools of their favourite records. All episodes are available to download from his site.
Pop.1280 formed pretty much my only foray into verse-chorus pop music this year. Not really pop in attitude, but standard band music, these guys play a sneery, grim cyberpunk art-rock which has seen more than one comparison to Cop Shoot Cop. Their debut The Horror is beautiful and exactly what I needed. I hope they play the UK soon.
Although, I've been more than a little bemused by the similarity of their first video:
To one that my old band DisinVectant put together. Not content with taking the aesthetic sense and the scratchy VHS quality, they even feature the vocalist talking into a payphone!
And now a moan. I raved about Death Grips last year. Now I wish I hadn't. I managed to catch their soundcheck (half of Guillotine, wonderful) in Leeds last summer before leaving to catch the last train back; I was gutted, it would have been my favourite show of the year. I really wanted to see them. Soon after they anounced, and then unceremoniously cancelled, a show in Nottingham. When they finally returned to the UK recently they totally avoided us. They released two albums, I listened to them both once and probably won't bother again. Don't get me wrong: Guillotine is a masterpiece. Death Yon is awesome. The rest of the Ex-Military album I could happily never hear again. I recently picked up the vinyl version and sold it, unopened, for four times what I paid (best price I've ever got for a record actually). I don't regret it at all. I don't have a problem with their attitude, their disrespect for their record label (uploading the third album because of a petty dispute about release dates) or their fans (cancelling a tour to record said album, leaving many people with train tickets or even accommodation etc which were unrefundable). Artists are like that, and shouldn't base their decisions on anything other than their art...art should never be "for" the fans, this makes it a commercial, crowd-pleasing endeavour which is not true art. If you want entertainment watch X-Factor. But the lack of intrigue, the lack of challenge and the sheer lack of progression in their sound has left me feeling bored. Maybe I'll change my mind, it's not unknown.
Circle Takes the Square still haven't released their second album, more than a year after their Kickstarter project was hugely oversubscribed. It'd better be worth the wait. But, it was a pure joy to see them play in Birmingham all the way back in February.
I heard and quickly bought Michael Idehall's SOL. I know nothing about this artist, label or album but I really like it; definite elements of Coil here.
Although it's only a twelve, I think I should briefly mention the Regis and Ancient Methods collaboration Ugandan Methods, and their recent Cold Retreat, on Boomkat's own label. Quality industrial technoid grooves. I've been really impressed with Regis output recently and how he's refashioned Downwards into something much bigger than the Brum techno label it could have been.
Here is probably where I should also note Downward's So Click Heels compilation. The highlight for me is Deathday's opener (which actually reminds me of a Regis track from an obscure compilation called Exist)
And finally it would be remiss not to mention Swans' The Seer. Probably the year's most awaited and certainly most lauded album, I was surprised by the delicacy of some of it - not what I remember from Gira's previous work, though it's a while since I listened to anything except the first couple of Swans albums.
In the midst of all this there hasn't been much space for melody. That's something I hope will change next year, I do miss tunes.
Saturday, 31 December 2011
Music of 2011
It's been, for me, the best year for music in a long time. There's been some stunning releases. While I know no one particularly cares, I'm going to share some of the highlights because I want to give some respect to the artists involved. There's no real order here, they're just listed as they occurred to me.
HTRK - Work (work, work)
http://ghostly.com/artists/HTRK
The best of the year. This gets better every time I listen to it: black and silky, cold and jagged, simple and repetetive but deep and powerful.
Oyaarss & Friends - smaida greizi nākamība
http://oyaarss.wordpress.com/ues/
Funny that one of the best releases of the year is a free download. But this compilation demonstrates some intelligent, forward-thinking electronic music with attitude.
Cloaks - Versions Grain
http://3by3cloaks.blogspot.com/
Like a broken machine, this is the kind of electronic music I've been waiting a long time for. Industrial, cold, soulless - austere and beautiful. This is actually a remix album but it only just tops their own originals.
Circle Takes the Square - Rites of Initiation
http://ritualofnames.blogspot.com/
This is the first taster of the new CTTS album due to be released next year. It's great - I'm not sure it reaches the majestic peaks of As the Roots Undo, but time and repeated listening could prove me wrong. Anyway it's still miles ahead of much screamo which refuses to push the envelope - CTTS are endlessly experimental and their tracks are insanely complex.
Regis - Adolescence
http://downwards.tumblr.com/
Yes, it's another compilation. But it's awesome; ignoring it just wouldn't make this list accurate.
Swimming - Ecstatics International
http://swimmingband.com/
I saw these guys play a headphone show at a local cinema - great idea, and the music was amazing. It's unusual to make very catchy, pleasurable music which is still experimental and sounds genuinely unique - but they do it perfectly. The album's brilliant, they deserve big success.
Grouper - Water People
http://www.myspace.com/grouperrepuorg
I doubt anyone hasn't heard of Grouper this year. Without a turntable for the past few years I haven't been able to participate in the vinyl revival but thankfully this release was available digitally.
Death Grips - Ex Military
http://thirdworlds.net/
Another free download - probably everyone's already heard Guillotine but it's always worth hearing again. Mental abstract electronic hip hop.
HTRK - Work (work, work)
http://ghostly.com/artists/HTRK
The best of the year. This gets better every time I listen to it: black and silky, cold and jagged, simple and repetetive but deep and powerful.
Oyaarss & Friends - smaida greizi nākamība
http://oyaarss.wordpress.com/ues/
Funny that one of the best releases of the year is a free download. But this compilation demonstrates some intelligent, forward-thinking electronic music with attitude.
∆AIMON
Witchhouse? Yes. I wasn't impressed by the first things I heard from this scene but it's matured quickly and this act are one of the leaders, adding a heavy dose of veiled aggression and industrial attitude to the mix. They've released a few things this year, which I can't really pick one from.Cloaks - Versions Grain
http://3by3cloaks.blogspot.com/
Like a broken machine, this is the kind of electronic music I've been waiting a long time for. Industrial, cold, soulless - austere and beautiful. This is actually a remix album but it only just tops their own originals.
Circle Takes the Square - Rites of Initiation
http://ritualofnames.blogspot.com/
This is the first taster of the new CTTS album due to be released next year. It's great - I'm not sure it reaches the majestic peaks of As the Roots Undo, but time and repeated listening could prove me wrong. Anyway it's still miles ahead of much screamo which refuses to push the envelope - CTTS are endlessly experimental and their tracks are insanely complex.
Regis - Adolescence
http://downwards.tumblr.com/
Yes, it's another compilation. But it's awesome; ignoring it just wouldn't make this list accurate.
Swimming - Ecstatics International
http://swimmingband.com/
I saw these guys play a headphone show at a local cinema - great idea, and the music was amazing. It's unusual to make very catchy, pleasurable music which is still experimental and sounds genuinely unique - but they do it perfectly. The album's brilliant, they deserve big success.
Grouper - Water People
http://www.myspace.com/grouperrepuorg
I doubt anyone hasn't heard of Grouper this year. Without a turntable for the past few years I haven't been able to participate in the vinyl revival but thankfully this release was available digitally.
Death Grips - Ex Military
http://thirdworlds.net/
Another free download - probably everyone's already heard Guillotine but it's always worth hearing again. Mental abstract electronic hip hop.
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