Poppy Shakespeare ::: Clare Allan ::: Bloomsbury
This novel, by a former patient at the now defunct Belle Ridley Day Hospital, (Islington) deploys an intense style of narration, kind of like ‘Trainspotting’ but more singular, and at more of a fixed focus. It is upon this foundation that the novel builds, incorporating several references to other documentary texts about unwell people, aka MAD money assessments (Disability Living Alowance) and,
“ ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ I ask again.
‘Same,’ she says and she holds it up. Assessment in Mental Health Nursing
it’s called. Got a crystal ball on the cover.”
as objects within the plot or frameworks for plot subtexts. The humour blossoms forth off the concrete backdrop of the foundation: the Mad money theme continues,
“ ‘It says BLOCK CAPITALS,’ she said.
‘Fuck what it says’, I said. ‘Just scrawl it. You’re s’posed to be mentally ill,’ I said.
‘Alright,’ said Poppy and she done it small.
‘Try with your other hand,’ I said.
‘They need to be able to read it,’ she said.
‘Trust me, Poppy, ‘ I said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’ “
There are further developments. Also what I quite like are the lucid asides of the main story, the many scenes that give substance and sustenance to the plot : a surreal plate throwing episode: the shock and awe of self harm: the surreality of her motion-capture of institutional routine.
The humour still further develops in some quite choice pieces, I am also minded of the ‘sets’ of the book – council flats, the common room at the (now decommissioned) Waterlow Unit on Highgate Hill, the offices and consulting rooms within it, and the corridors: claustrophobic spaces: the psychogeography and the surrealness of it all, reminding me of Will Self’s breaking work ‘The Quantity Theory of Insanity’, his first book in 1991.
july 2006
Saturday, 21 April 2007
Blue / Orange ::: Courtyard Theatre, London
From the off in this play the agency and authority of the three characters is flirted with, ambushed and at times humiliated. Paranoia, about ones views and how they are received, drives this charade: the first scene features a heady confrontation just about held under the auspices of the ‘doctor-patient’ relationship as to whether the patient can have a drink of coca cola. Subtle attacks flow back and forward, whilst all the agents of the situation – consultant psychiatrist, senior house officer, patient - play the game.
This charade exposes the vacuity of the psychiatrists moral authority, and shows us that what really goes on in this system, to quote Adam Phillips, is some kind of “protection racket…..where we only hear the same old story”, of blame and humiliation. The situation exists on the borders of things, documenting mugging, splits in authority - within and without – and social processes: it is somehow very relevant that the patient is black, and that both doctors are white. Even the set design – a café table and two chairs, encircled by a white line aka some kind of gym situation, with two prescribed ways in and out, complimented by a watercooler – lends itself to supporting the animation.
To an extent ideas of cultural oppression – I thought of Franz Fannon – are animated, with the shit going round in the situation, each attempting to dominate the other in a bid for some kind of temporary illusion of freedom from the constrictions of their boundaries, a relief from the collisions of negotiation. The music’s also interesting, designed by Jonathan Bidgood, taking inspiration from Brian Eno’s seminal ‘Music for Airports’, and it reminded me as much, if not more so, of Taylor Dupree’s output on 12K etc.
“Music for Psychiatric Hospitals” attempts to follow the same logic. The sounds are soothing, calm and smooth. The textures evolve unremittingly, but without any violent alterations, shifting in a manner almost imperceptible. Repetition of phrases creates a soothing familiarity, while constant, subtle, alteration engages the mind and draws it with the flux of the sound. If you enjoy the music, or are looking for some ambiance for your psychiatric hospital, an album version of Music for Psychiatric Hospitals is available in the lobby.”
Jonathan Bidgood, 2006.
www.fervent-theatre.com
November 2006
From the off in this play the agency and authority of the three characters is flirted with, ambushed and at times humiliated. Paranoia, about ones views and how they are received, drives this charade: the first scene features a heady confrontation just about held under the auspices of the ‘doctor-patient’ relationship as to whether the patient can have a drink of coca cola. Subtle attacks flow back and forward, whilst all the agents of the situation – consultant psychiatrist, senior house officer, patient - play the game.
This charade exposes the vacuity of the psychiatrists moral authority, and shows us that what really goes on in this system, to quote Adam Phillips, is some kind of “protection racket…..where we only hear the same old story”, of blame and humiliation. The situation exists on the borders of things, documenting mugging, splits in authority - within and without – and social processes: it is somehow very relevant that the patient is black, and that both doctors are white. Even the set design – a café table and two chairs, encircled by a white line aka some kind of gym situation, with two prescribed ways in and out, complimented by a watercooler – lends itself to supporting the animation.
To an extent ideas of cultural oppression – I thought of Franz Fannon – are animated, with the shit going round in the situation, each attempting to dominate the other in a bid for some kind of temporary illusion of freedom from the constrictions of their boundaries, a relief from the collisions of negotiation. The music’s also interesting, designed by Jonathan Bidgood, taking inspiration from Brian Eno’s seminal ‘Music for Airports’, and it reminded me as much, if not more so, of Taylor Dupree’s output on 12K etc.
“Music for Psychiatric Hospitals” attempts to follow the same logic. The sounds are soothing, calm and smooth. The textures evolve unremittingly, but without any violent alterations, shifting in a manner almost imperceptible. Repetition of phrases creates a soothing familiarity, while constant, subtle, alteration engages the mind and draws it with the flux of the sound. If you enjoy the music, or are looking for some ambiance for your psychiatric hospital, an album version of Music for Psychiatric Hospitals is available in the lobby.”
Jonathan Bidgood, 2006.
www.fervent-theatre.com
November 2006
::: fourcolour ::: air curtain ::: 12k ::: 12K1029
this release reminds me of watching the weather, enjoying the shifts in light, atmosphere, hue and so forth. or enjoying the experience of reverie on a visit to a gallery. the musical palette of this cd is, in the main, composed of guitar samples: harmonics, melodies, drones and minimal rhythmic glitches. this is at once melancholic and inspiring.
its interesting that the ceo of this label takes a part in running websites that have free downloadable typefaces: something about generating a new language comes to mind, working on many levels: the musical and the written, both written: the microsounds and text icons supporting an evolving vision.
i was reminded of the both the book and metaphor 'Haunted Weather' (David Toop), whilst listening to this cd. David Jennings, reviewing this book at www.alchemi.co.uk, commented that
"When i was about half-way through Haunted Weather I had a dream where as part of of an audition or assessment I had to do a reading to a panel that included David Toop. As I am a confident reader I had no fears, but as i started to read the newspaper article given to me, I quickly realised that the reading made no sense without the photograph that went with it. I tried to 'read' the photograph, but how? Should I read each blade of grass in the picture left to right? Then how would I deal with the tree that punctuated the lawn? Painfully aware that I had made a wrong turn into a dead end, i reverted to the text. But by now my fluency was irrecoverable, and I sputtered to a stop."
I think this illustrates how a visual level of perception underpins experiences that would appear to operate primarily in other modalities of perception: sometimes its better to hear music with your eyes wide shut, you see and hear more. with some of these tracks, making use of microsounds and textures, maybe a more fragmentary process of dreaming, reminding, researching may be taking place: using the music as some kind of stimulus object, researching our memories in some lateral, initially anonymous way.
the aesthetic is less linear than a lot of music, delivery is more of a being space rather than a direct narrative, the intensity of the textures waxing and waning, ebbing and flowing, the process of listening is slowed, you are given more time to (re)experience the space: like Brian Eno's ambient music: music for airports, transitional spaces, reading, painting, imagining, imaging. it feels that there is a narrative in this cd. i also came to think of this music as sculpture, in a way, partly due to its laterality and angularity: architecture as frozen:music:as architecture.
the angles get sharper as the cd plays, pulsing with life: on Cloud Whereabouts (5) and As Rain (6) the overall tone shifts towards a mood more looming and immanent: before falling away to something more settled to end. a disciplined, intensely creative release.
www.12k.com
November 2004
this release reminds me of watching the weather, enjoying the shifts in light, atmosphere, hue and so forth. or enjoying the experience of reverie on a visit to a gallery. the musical palette of this cd is, in the main, composed of guitar samples: harmonics, melodies, drones and minimal rhythmic glitches. this is at once melancholic and inspiring.
its interesting that the ceo of this label takes a part in running websites that have free downloadable typefaces: something about generating a new language comes to mind, working on many levels: the musical and the written, both written: the microsounds and text icons supporting an evolving vision.
i was reminded of the both the book and metaphor 'Haunted Weather' (David Toop), whilst listening to this cd. David Jennings, reviewing this book at www.alchemi.co.uk, commented that
"When i was about half-way through Haunted Weather I had a dream where as part of of an audition or assessment I had to do a reading to a panel that included David Toop. As I am a confident reader I had no fears, but as i started to read the newspaper article given to me, I quickly realised that the reading made no sense without the photograph that went with it. I tried to 'read' the photograph, but how? Should I read each blade of grass in the picture left to right? Then how would I deal with the tree that punctuated the lawn? Painfully aware that I had made a wrong turn into a dead end, i reverted to the text. But by now my fluency was irrecoverable, and I sputtered to a stop."
I think this illustrates how a visual level of perception underpins experiences that would appear to operate primarily in other modalities of perception: sometimes its better to hear music with your eyes wide shut, you see and hear more. with some of these tracks, making use of microsounds and textures, maybe a more fragmentary process of dreaming, reminding, researching may be taking place: using the music as some kind of stimulus object, researching our memories in some lateral, initially anonymous way.
the aesthetic is less linear than a lot of music, delivery is more of a being space rather than a direct narrative, the intensity of the textures waxing and waning, ebbing and flowing, the process of listening is slowed, you are given more time to (re)experience the space: like Brian Eno's ambient music: music for airports, transitional spaces, reading, painting, imagining, imaging. it feels that there is a narrative in this cd. i also came to think of this music as sculpture, in a way, partly due to its laterality and angularity: architecture as frozen:music:as architecture.
the angles get sharper as the cd plays, pulsing with life: on Cloud Whereabouts (5) and As Rain (6) the overall tone shifts towards a mood more looming and immanent: before falling away to something more settled to end. a disciplined, intensely creative release.
www.12k.com
November 2004
Damo Suzuki and his band(s) ::: White Noise Spitz 29 May.
too many bands to really do justice to-Damo Suzuki rocks in both lineups (they were different) he plays with. jamming within a bigger band sound, Suzuki and co do 'MotherSky' in first set, the bass player reminding me of the synth guy in Suicide when last seen at the ICA. Suzuki is evocative of previous incarnations in Can, and also Jim Morrison’s psychic territory. in the second set, things got a little more minimal and funky, the second band providing a rhythm framework that Suzuki vocalises in, creating an intensely sensual space that i feel has great integrity. both bands locked with Suzuki in a way that helped this.
White Noise provided a set of more considered electronics. David Vorhause and Graham MacMahon jammed a set of sublime atmospheres, vocal samples and Hawtin style minimal techno before settling into a beautiful classical meets Oval kindof stasis to finish.
july 2005
too many bands to really do justice to-Damo Suzuki rocks in both lineups (they were different) he plays with. jamming within a bigger band sound, Suzuki and co do 'MotherSky' in first set, the bass player reminding me of the synth guy in Suicide when last seen at the ICA. Suzuki is evocative of previous incarnations in Can, and also Jim Morrison’s psychic territory. in the second set, things got a little more minimal and funky, the second band providing a rhythm framework that Suzuki vocalises in, creating an intensely sensual space that i feel has great integrity. both bands locked with Suzuki in a way that helped this.
White Noise provided a set of more considered electronics. David Vorhause and Graham MacMahon jammed a set of sublime atmospheres, vocal samples and Hawtin style minimal techno before settling into a beautiful classical meets Oval kindof stasis to finish.
july 2005
Saul Williams (Wichita)
an urgent vocal, immanent piano playing, and subsequent minimal harmonious female vocal accompaniment, Saul launches his self titled second album: raucous guitar riffs and beats follow, more angrily focused: one gets a sense of a raving, incendiary live presence
"i wanna show you what the stars are made of, so substitute the anger and oppression with guilt and depression and its yours" White boys listen to white boys Black boys listen to black boys No one listens to no one "
sounds wise, 'Grippo' reminds me of the Anti-Pop Consortium, bleeps particularly, but rather than an electronic base there's a more rock rhythm base, "like Rage Against the Machine" said a friend, although we hadn't had the benefit of a Hi-Fi informed listen to the full cd at that point: or headphones. Frankly, it is a bit Slayer at times, but within the form of the dominant narrative this takes on a whole different ideology: imagine....
"we are discontinuing our current line of braggadacio in light of the current trend in realness stop As an alternative we will be confiscating weed supplies and replacing them with magic mushrooms in hopes of helping niggas see beyond their reality stop Give my regards to Brooklyn" then jump cut to Slayer. He just nails it down. Shot through with pathos, irony and humour. great.
Saul Williams reminds some people of Public Enemy. I think it's a good comparison, something about the depth of his vision, his understanding, his production aesthetic: his use of frequencies as much as instrumentation. You may have heard of him before, on his first album 'Amethyst Rock Star", or seen him acting in the 1998 film 'Slam': in fact his credits also run to at least three volumes of poetry also. check his website, and the rest of the web.
the tracks flow into each other completely, quite literally, in that many of the initial tracks are sequenced-no gaps between them-so the cd has the feel of a live set: i was sorry not to have witnessed his recent set at the 100 Club. The cd continues, with a break in the 'rock base' on 'African Student Movement', a minimal beat and bass number, kind of grime rhythm really, nice reversed bassline, close vocal, some good harmonies. Then his most recent single, 'Black Stacey', an analysis of identity politics, dreams and pressure: the rather minimal lines of identifications available to a young black man, the pressure to cover up ones insecurities with, for example, material wealth.
"All you baller playa's got some insecurities too that you could cover up bling it up cash in and ching it up hope no one will bring it up lock it down and string it up Or you can share your essence with us 'cause everything about you couldn't be rugged and ruff And even though you tote a glock and you're hot on the street if you dare to share your heart we'll nod our head to its beat And you should do that"
Further on, a sense of humour animates:
"i drive a yellow Volvo '86 Submarine Rims like Tibetan prayer wheels and my tank is filled with dreams"
on a more abstract, string and bass led 'Seaweed'. Humour mixed with something more bruised, angry,
"Check your engine Looks like you're running on the blood of Indians".
The cd ends with the track 'Notice of Eviction', a mournful lament to death and possible regeneration: strong lyrics-this man can write, I think: realistic ambivalence, and politically lyrical gravity:
"Harlem church sings refrain "we're marching on to Zion""
nice repeating delay on 'Zion'. Saul Williams comes across as no bodies fool: lyrically provocative, musically, the way he inhabits the genres, yet letting them work for him, is something of an inspiration, the riffs and narrative pan out almost cinematically. He works with others-yes there are collaborators on this cd although you'll have to look a bit hard to find their names on the inlay. Thanks to Hattie Collins and her excellent piece on him in the May issue of I-D.
http://www.saulwilliams.com/
http://www.wichita-recordings.com/
October 2005
an urgent vocal, immanent piano playing, and subsequent minimal harmonious female vocal accompaniment, Saul launches his self titled second album: raucous guitar riffs and beats follow, more angrily focused: one gets a sense of a raving, incendiary live presence
"i wanna show you what the stars are made of, so substitute the anger and oppression with guilt and depression and its yours" White boys listen to white boys Black boys listen to black boys No one listens to no one "
sounds wise, 'Grippo' reminds me of the Anti-Pop Consortium, bleeps particularly, but rather than an electronic base there's a more rock rhythm base, "like Rage Against the Machine" said a friend, although we hadn't had the benefit of a Hi-Fi informed listen to the full cd at that point: or headphones. Frankly, it is a bit Slayer at times, but within the form of the dominant narrative this takes on a whole different ideology: imagine....
"we are discontinuing our current line of braggadacio in light of the current trend in realness stop As an alternative we will be confiscating weed supplies and replacing them with magic mushrooms in hopes of helping niggas see beyond their reality stop Give my regards to Brooklyn" then jump cut to Slayer. He just nails it down. Shot through with pathos, irony and humour. great.
Saul Williams reminds some people of Public Enemy. I think it's a good comparison, something about the depth of his vision, his understanding, his production aesthetic: his use of frequencies as much as instrumentation. You may have heard of him before, on his first album 'Amethyst Rock Star", or seen him acting in the 1998 film 'Slam': in fact his credits also run to at least three volumes of poetry also. check his website, and the rest of the web.
the tracks flow into each other completely, quite literally, in that many of the initial tracks are sequenced-no gaps between them-so the cd has the feel of a live set: i was sorry not to have witnessed his recent set at the 100 Club. The cd continues, with a break in the 'rock base' on 'African Student Movement', a minimal beat and bass number, kind of grime rhythm really, nice reversed bassline, close vocal, some good harmonies. Then his most recent single, 'Black Stacey', an analysis of identity politics, dreams and pressure: the rather minimal lines of identifications available to a young black man, the pressure to cover up ones insecurities with, for example, material wealth.
"All you baller playa's got some insecurities too that you could cover up bling it up cash in and ching it up hope no one will bring it up lock it down and string it up Or you can share your essence with us 'cause everything about you couldn't be rugged and ruff And even though you tote a glock and you're hot on the street if you dare to share your heart we'll nod our head to its beat And you should do that"
Further on, a sense of humour animates:
"i drive a yellow Volvo '86 Submarine Rims like Tibetan prayer wheels and my tank is filled with dreams"
on a more abstract, string and bass led 'Seaweed'. Humour mixed with something more bruised, angry,
"Check your engine Looks like you're running on the blood of Indians".
The cd ends with the track 'Notice of Eviction', a mournful lament to death and possible regeneration: strong lyrics-this man can write, I think: realistic ambivalence, and politically lyrical gravity:
"Harlem church sings refrain "we're marching on to Zion""
nice repeating delay on 'Zion'. Saul Williams comes across as no bodies fool: lyrically provocative, musically, the way he inhabits the genres, yet letting them work for him, is something of an inspiration, the riffs and narrative pan out almost cinematically. He works with others-yes there are collaborators on this cd although you'll have to look a bit hard to find their names on the inlay. Thanks to Hattie Collins and her excellent piece on him in the May issue of I-D.
http://www.saulwilliams.com/
http://www.wichita-recordings.com/
October 2005
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma ::: The Garden of Forking Paths ::: Spekk KK: 009
This release is very hard to put words to: something could be said along the lines of immanent electronic interiority: pensive emotional film music, an interior landscape perhaps………
It is slightly reminiscent of Cycla’s ‘Level’ release on Spekk (KK007) but this is not a critical comparison, at least not meant in any negative sense, more a comment on the aesthetic palette utilised and the sense of slowness and unfolding within the work: on saying this I am also minded of Taylor Dupree’s ‘Northern’ cd on 12K, although there is a smoothness within that work that contrasts a bit with the slightly rawer feel of this release. Slow motion, blurry and at times mournful electronic voices give a sense of an exploration of some kind of interiority. The closest analogy I can come up with would be of something like an exploration of space, whether an abstract show at a gallery or a more idiosyncratic, derelict space, for example entering an abandoned warehouse, slowly moving around, exploring the space visually, taking in the historical artefacts such as doors and fixtures in varying states of decay, writing and/or graffiti on the wall, weird juxtapositions of the previous legal and semi-legal inhabitants, different spaces and perspectives. All within the visual register.
Heavy, defocused sounds, give us a heightened sense of the interior, the emotional. Abstract sounds painting sonic forms, an extremism of sorts that is very effective. Reading off the titles to the pieces, such as ‘Aberration of Starlight’, ‘Spirits’, ‘The Lights and Perfections’, ‘Phases of the Moon’ and ‘Our Way was Lit by Moonlight’, somehow gives a greater orientation to the work.
There’s something very conscious about this release, about its integrity of style, that reminded me of Daniel Framptons’ commentary on Harmony Korines’ film ‘Julien Donkey Boy’. I would like to quote from his book ‘Filmosophy’,
“When a film frames a person that act of framing creates a way of seeing that person (as central or peripheral or close-up). The filmgoer sees that person via the films thinking of that person – this thinking is simply the action of form as dramatic intention. This effect is enhanced by the film-goer’s understanding of film’s actions as emotional thinkings – through this engagement they merge with the film a little more fully, because their natural aesthetic thinking links more directly with the film. The filmgoer experiences film more intuitively, not via technology or external authorship, but directly, as a thinking thing. In making ‘style’ integral to the films thinking (and not an addendum to its ‘main content work’), filmosophy hopes to widen and deepen the experience of the filmgoer. Film form is always there, and thus necessarily part of the actions and events, and filmosophy simply, holistically, bonds film’s actions to dramatically thoughtful motives and intentions. Film style is now seen to be the dramatic intention of the film itself.”
When reading this quotation if you think of abstract music instead of film I think it gives us a little more understanding of the value of such work as ‘The Garden…’, since it is at once a piece within itself and resonant with other electronic works. It is stylistically coherent within itself and I think that’s the main reason why I quoted Frampton.
Sensuous raw electronica. Recommended.
http://www.spekk.net/catalog/tgofp.html
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=111467049
February 2007
This release is very hard to put words to: something could be said along the lines of immanent electronic interiority: pensive emotional film music, an interior landscape perhaps………
It is slightly reminiscent of Cycla’s ‘Level’ release on Spekk (KK007) but this is not a critical comparison, at least not meant in any negative sense, more a comment on the aesthetic palette utilised and the sense of slowness and unfolding within the work: on saying this I am also minded of Taylor Dupree’s ‘Northern’ cd on 12K, although there is a smoothness within that work that contrasts a bit with the slightly rawer feel of this release. Slow motion, blurry and at times mournful electronic voices give a sense of an exploration of some kind of interiority. The closest analogy I can come up with would be of something like an exploration of space, whether an abstract show at a gallery or a more idiosyncratic, derelict space, for example entering an abandoned warehouse, slowly moving around, exploring the space visually, taking in the historical artefacts such as doors and fixtures in varying states of decay, writing and/or graffiti on the wall, weird juxtapositions of the previous legal and semi-legal inhabitants, different spaces and perspectives. All within the visual register.
Heavy, defocused sounds, give us a heightened sense of the interior, the emotional. Abstract sounds painting sonic forms, an extremism of sorts that is very effective. Reading off the titles to the pieces, such as ‘Aberration of Starlight’, ‘Spirits’, ‘The Lights and Perfections’, ‘Phases of the Moon’ and ‘Our Way was Lit by Moonlight’, somehow gives a greater orientation to the work.
There’s something very conscious about this release, about its integrity of style, that reminded me of Daniel Framptons’ commentary on Harmony Korines’ film ‘Julien Donkey Boy’. I would like to quote from his book ‘Filmosophy’,
“When a film frames a person that act of framing creates a way of seeing that person (as central or peripheral or close-up). The filmgoer sees that person via the films thinking of that person – this thinking is simply the action of form as dramatic intention. This effect is enhanced by the film-goer’s understanding of film’s actions as emotional thinkings – through this engagement they merge with the film a little more fully, because their natural aesthetic thinking links more directly with the film. The filmgoer experiences film more intuitively, not via technology or external authorship, but directly, as a thinking thing. In making ‘style’ integral to the films thinking (and not an addendum to its ‘main content work’), filmosophy hopes to widen and deepen the experience of the filmgoer. Film form is always there, and thus necessarily part of the actions and events, and filmosophy simply, holistically, bonds film’s actions to dramatically thoughtful motives and intentions. Film style is now seen to be the dramatic intention of the film itself.”
When reading this quotation if you think of abstract music instead of film I think it gives us a little more understanding of the value of such work as ‘The Garden…’, since it is at once a piece within itself and resonant with other electronic works. It is stylistically coherent within itself and I think that’s the main reason why I quoted Frampton.
Sensuous raw electronica. Recommended.
http://www.spekk.net/catalog/tgofp.html
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=111467049
February 2007
Main ::: Surcease ::: n-rec 00005
At times field recordings zoning in focus, at times symphonic, always searching, crystalline vectors of sound moving through one’s mental ether, Robert Hampson’s latest offering is a strange, beautiful body of sound that maintains a focus in cycling intensities and spatial situations: it’s as if certain questions are being asked, or points in a journey or narrative are being enabled or briefly imbued with life, in very subterranean places, giving it an authenticity and character that briefly reminded me of some of the more lucid dubs by Mouse on Mars, Twisted Science, or Tu M’s more electronic compositions.
The second track is initially more transient, fleeting and tense: the movement is more discernable। It then becomes more crystalline, stilled, shimmering.
At times field recordings zoning in focus, at times symphonic, always searching, crystalline vectors of sound moving through one’s mental ether, Robert Hampson’s latest offering is a strange, beautiful body of sound that maintains a focus in cycling intensities and spatial situations: it’s as if certain questions are being asked, or points in a journey or narrative are being enabled or briefly imbued with life, in very subterranean places, giving it an authenticity and character that briefly reminded me of some of the more lucid dubs by Mouse on Mars, Twisted Science, or Tu M’s more electronic compositions.
The second track is initially more transient, fleeting and tense: the movement is more discernable। It then becomes more crystalline, stilled, shimmering.
September 2006
Burial ::: Burial ::: Hyperdub
Very tasty slice of phuture garage breakbeat soul filtered out into a serious selection. Musically I found the sculpted, well produced tracks – witness the subtle double vocal on the second track, ‘Distant Lights’: in general razor sharp dub production, utilising lots of little sounds and details that render at a high resolution, musically speaking. The cover, all low level urban views as if taken from a helicopter or a UFO: distant, twinkly lights, the visual virus or code of our cities, populations.
Musical influences unfold like you’re taking in Saturday night going through the wave bands, exploring radiospace. Slow burning colours and crisply snappy, textured breaks take place within an ambience of sub-bass and sounds: a bit like the Future Sound of London in the early 90’s, or A Guy Called Gerald’s ‘Black Secret Technology’, creating futuristic spaces. Stephan Betke’s ‘Pole’ project has been mentioned in reviews and I can see why, the sounds seriously focussed dub pressure at times. The cd also opens out to much more ambient spaces and at times synthesis of the Pole sound and well sculpted two step rhythms: at others something slower and religious takes place, like mixing Pole with Massive Attack, or Autechre, dubbing it out on ‘Gutted’ (8) or ‘Wounder’ (4). The smearing bass sound that is often heard in this cd raises interesting thoughts about parallels, i.e. when u smoke skunk you’re smearing your head in a way, and the video that accompanied the Kode_9 track ‘9 Samurai’ in a recent art show visually illustrated this to some extent, playing with the idea of sound and rupture. New sounds, new mixes, new visions.
What does this hail after?: ‘Night Bus’ makes me think about lonely, urban scenes, the modern day medieval reincarnated:, a narrative of something of scale: a kind of religious feel, choral elements used in a totally coherent way but combined with other styles of production too. ‘Forgive’ seems to hint about redemption.
There are some good samples: I’m not sure how many but at the start there is one from ’21 Grams’, Benicio Del Toro’s character – the ‘bad’ guy in Sean Penn’s ’21 Grams’ – imploring “God even knows when a hair moves on your head”. Or the string’s, for example in ‘U Hurt Me’, very beautiful middle eastern type sounds set to dope rhythms. Music that resonates with a kind of techno paradigm: production on the interestingly titled ‘Southern Comfort’ utilises techno style sounds but played with in a very human way, like Carl Craig say on his ‘More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art’ (Planet E).
Burials single ‘South London Boroughs’, which I believe has been reissued to accompany the cd, also gives it up, offering the same full on bassline business mixed with a coherent and detailed soundstage. Not a lot has done it for me since the jungle/drum and bass situation of the early to mid-90’s: this is doing it. ‘Broken Home’ kicks off a bit like an ambient Kid606 track, all reverb and space, then focussing down to mournful broken beat machinic, but human, twinkly ambience, like the best 90’s sampladelia.
http://www.hyperdub.com/
http://kode9.blogspot.com/
http://www.ccru.net
August 2006
Very tasty slice of phuture garage breakbeat soul filtered out into a serious selection. Musically I found the sculpted, well produced tracks – witness the subtle double vocal on the second track, ‘Distant Lights’: in general razor sharp dub production, utilising lots of little sounds and details that render at a high resolution, musically speaking. The cover, all low level urban views as if taken from a helicopter or a UFO: distant, twinkly lights, the visual virus or code of our cities, populations.
Musical influences unfold like you’re taking in Saturday night going through the wave bands, exploring radiospace. Slow burning colours and crisply snappy, textured breaks take place within an ambience of sub-bass and sounds: a bit like the Future Sound of London in the early 90’s, or A Guy Called Gerald’s ‘Black Secret Technology’, creating futuristic spaces. Stephan Betke’s ‘Pole’ project has been mentioned in reviews and I can see why, the sounds seriously focussed dub pressure at times. The cd also opens out to much more ambient spaces and at times synthesis of the Pole sound and well sculpted two step rhythms: at others something slower and religious takes place, like mixing Pole with Massive Attack, or Autechre, dubbing it out on ‘Gutted’ (8) or ‘Wounder’ (4). The smearing bass sound that is often heard in this cd raises interesting thoughts about parallels, i.e. when u smoke skunk you’re smearing your head in a way, and the video that accompanied the Kode_9 track ‘9 Samurai’ in a recent art show visually illustrated this to some extent, playing with the idea of sound and rupture. New sounds, new mixes, new visions.
What does this hail after?: ‘Night Bus’ makes me think about lonely, urban scenes, the modern day medieval reincarnated:, a narrative of something of scale: a kind of religious feel, choral elements used in a totally coherent way but combined with other styles of production too. ‘Forgive’ seems to hint about redemption.
There are some good samples: I’m not sure how many but at the start there is one from ’21 Grams’, Benicio Del Toro’s character – the ‘bad’ guy in Sean Penn’s ’21 Grams’ – imploring “God even knows when a hair moves on your head”. Or the string’s, for example in ‘U Hurt Me’, very beautiful middle eastern type sounds set to dope rhythms. Music that resonates with a kind of techno paradigm: production on the interestingly titled ‘Southern Comfort’ utilises techno style sounds but played with in a very human way, like Carl Craig say on his ‘More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art’ (Planet E).
Burials single ‘South London Boroughs’, which I believe has been reissued to accompany the cd, also gives it up, offering the same full on bassline business mixed with a coherent and detailed soundstage. Not a lot has done it for me since the jungle/drum and bass situation of the early to mid-90’s: this is doing it. ‘Broken Home’ kicks off a bit like an ambient Kid606 track, all reverb and space, then focussing down to mournful broken beat machinic, but human, twinkly ambience, like the best 90’s sampladelia.
http://www.hyperdub.com/
http://kode9.blogspot.com/
http://www.ccru.net
August 2006
Level ::: Cycla ::: Spekk K007
Eno style slow downs, only in the digital domain...a sonic integrity throughout supports some very visual music, luminescent sonic fictions. From the off we are in the territory of a space odyssey via the slo mo frame sequence although this could be based on earth too: I am reminded of a John Adams classical record I bought, 'Shaker Loops' (1983): it's something about the pathos that resonates from the music: other comparisons could include Deltraxx's 'Alaska Slowwater' on the fax labels 'Ambient Compilation 3', in the early 90's.
The bespoke sleeve, pretty much plastic free, contains photographic work by Maura Wallace, from the "ICE series", and there is something glacial about the music, its slow pace, its steady presence. Although this could be taken too generally, as at times you get more of a sense of velocity, in a smooth way, and this also affects the perception of space within the music. There are an interesting range of sound sources used: there sounded like there was some electric and acoustic guitar at one stage; and some brush strokes on the snare briefly too, but again within the slow motion time frames and generally reverential treatments employed here. Some very contemplative music, in a not dissimilar ground as Sakamoto and Nicolai's recent 'Insen'.
http://www.spekk.net
http://www.myspace.com/sicomm
March 2006
Eno style slow downs, only in the digital domain...a sonic integrity throughout supports some very visual music, luminescent sonic fictions. From the off we are in the territory of a space odyssey via the slo mo frame sequence although this could be based on earth too: I am reminded of a John Adams classical record I bought, 'Shaker Loops' (1983): it's something about the pathos that resonates from the music: other comparisons could include Deltraxx's 'Alaska Slowwater' on the fax labels 'Ambient Compilation 3', in the early 90's.
The bespoke sleeve, pretty much plastic free, contains photographic work by Maura Wallace, from the "ICE series", and there is something glacial about the music, its slow pace, its steady presence. Although this could be taken too generally, as at times you get more of a sense of velocity, in a smooth way, and this also affects the perception of space within the music. There are an interesting range of sound sources used: there sounded like there was some electric and acoustic guitar at one stage; and some brush strokes on the snare briefly too, but again within the slow motion time frames and generally reverential treatments employed here. Some very contemplative music, in a not dissimilar ground as Sakamoto and Nicolai's recent 'Insen'.
http://www.spekk.net
http://www.myspace.com/sicomm
March 2006
Kode_9 interview
Interview with Kode_9, June 2005
found via a 10" single-'Spit'-on Kode_9's label, Hyperdub. this is a bass heavy rolling monster with lyrics loosely borrowed from the Public Enemy tune 'Welcome to the Terrordome'. out of all the grime/2step singles i listened to, this one really stood out, on account of its musical depth and strength of vocal performance. perhaps also since the lyric is alive in its relevance now more than ever. i decided to try and find out more.....
i begin the interview with Steve with a quote of Michel Foucaults' theory, regarding conceptual theory that comes under the heading of "technologies of the self". Foucault outlines his ideas regarding these technologies of the self:
"a history of the various ways in our culture that humans develop knowledge about themselves: economics, biology, psychiatry, medicine, and penology. The main point is not to accept this knowledge at face value but to analyse these so-called sciences as very specific 'truth games'related to specific techniques that human beings use to understand themselves. As a context, we must understand that there are four types of these "technologies," each a matrix of practical reason: (1) technologies of production which permit us to produce, transform, or manipulate things; (2) technologies of sign systems, which permit us to use signs, meanings, symbols, or signification; (3) technologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivising of the subject; (4) technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct and way of being, so to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality." -Michel Foucault, 'Ethics', Penguin, 2003.
Steve replies, raising Deleuze and Guattarri's theories, a point of view that might suggest that we've internalised the authority relationship, that nowdays control is on the inside, in our minds, that we've taken on the authority relationship, the penopticon, taken on the task of cctv'ing ourselves. Writing this, i think of Big Brother, a surveillance society where a different kind of visibility, a 2D monitor mirror image mediating almost everything.
Steve is writing a book about sonic warfare: he's interested in the "'political physiology of sound": cultural warfare mediated at the sonic level. He talks about the ambient state of a culture being more important than outbreaks. Interesting...At a more micro level, he talks about remixing, restructuring an original, exploring the ambiguity in the piece, mutations that contain the sensation-or is it the hallucination-of the original. The first release on the Hyperdub label was a version of the Prince track "Sign of the Times", entitled "Sign of the Dub". All basslines, no beats. Steves latest release, which will have hit the shops by the time you read this, is "Kingstown", a 10" containing a lyric and dub version. What can i say? Serious dub pressure, gutteral drum and bass, and lyrics to match:
"a temperature rise before we reach the gates suggest more that what we bargained for this sleep dog surface with eyes that glint in the night and curves that swerve with every shift in the.... an intense fever balls and screams as it burns you up from the inside...outside a head is a place where pleasure and pain collide...". The Specials tune, 'Ghost Town', is to be given the treatment in the future.
Oral / aural culture, repeating, song carrying meaning in a different way to text. Bruce Sterling, cybertheorist, military entertainment complex, in sonic culture, as in the military industrial complex. A post-industrial, post modern, kinda thing. We speak regarding the use of different kinds of spaces, the use of technology within this to give people a kind of processing space, like you can watch the film on DVD and play the game of it all in the same machine.
I relate the experience of going to the park, near my work, to experiment with digital cameras and a football: cue schoolboys, heavy adolescent ritual, 'play' fights, stress, football, video clips, dogs, fun. Tinged with the realisation that the more sadistic elements in the 'play' could not realistically be stopped. We talk about there being a fine line, a cusp, between play and violence: dancefloors that can at times be situated on that difficult line, that is in all of us: I am comforted with memories of 80's punkish moshpits: normalising, finding commonality. Perhaps that space is more realistically located nowdays within the military entertainment complex: i saw quite a few stylised mock punches thrown: nowdays the feedback processes are as likely to be on the inside, some kind of virtual reality, as on the outside: people learn co-ordination, think about power relationships, and generally process their experience through the media of cartoons, films, other peoples stories, identification. Steve speaks of Deleuze's Postscript to the societies of control and "Burroughs idea of addiction, as a way of thinking about control": also raised is the idea of the self policing society, where we're so psychically split, so internally divided-creating a tension, a space ripe for connections?
Accelerators: Kowdo Eshun accelerates text culture in his 1998 book, 'More Brilliant than the Sun:Adventures in Sonic Fiction''. If i may quote, "Respect due. Good music speaks for itself. No Sleevenotes required. Just enjoy it. Cut the crap. Back to basics. What else is there to add? All these troglodytic homilies are Great British cretinism masquerading as vectors into the Trad Sublime. Since the 80's, the mainstream British music press has turned to Black music only as a rest and refuge from the rigorous complexities of white guitar rock. Since in this laughable reversal a lyric always means more than a sound, while only guitars can embody the zeitgeist, the Rhythmachine is locked in a retarded innocence. You can theorize words or style, but analysing the groove is believed to kill its bodily pleasure, to drain its essence...... All todays journalism is nothing more than a giant inertia engine to put the brakes on breaks, a moronizer placing all thought on permanent pause, a futureshock absorber, forever shielding its readers from the future's cuts, tracks, scratches. Behind the assumed virtue of keeping rhythm mute, there is a none-to-veiled hostility towards analysing rhythm at all. Too many ideas spoil the party. Too much speculation kills 'dance music', by 'intellectualising' it to death. The fuel this inertia runs on is fossil fuel: the live show, the proper album, the Real Song, the Real Voice, the mature, the musical, the pure, the true, the proper, the intelligent, breaking America: all notions that stink of the past, that maintain a hierarchy of the senses, that petrify music into a solid state in which everyone knows where they stand, and what real music really is. " -Kodwo Eshun, 'More Brilliant Than The Sun Adventures In Sonic Fiction', Quartet Books, London, 1998.
We speak about the idea of synaesthesia where an excess of perception can overflow into other senses, for example the sonic into the visual. This idea gets played with further, mutated: film samples. Deja entendu, a bit of the known, can create an enhanced familiarity, i think of the media/radio samples in Kode_9's 'Spit' and also, say Photeks 'UFO', and Trace/Nico's 'Cells': the eirieness with which the captured space crackles with tension, static, imperfection, controlled voices but on the verge of something else, an outbreak, contagion, paranoia............in both, the possibility of contact with an alien other: a sense of the unknown comes across vividly, as does panic, and control. A link to the film 'Bladerunner' comes up in my head following the ambience of a Dillinja tune, the idea of who or what you really are inside, and whether this can connect with who or what someone else really is inside, the multiple layers, the deeply held connection with anger, frustration, pleasure, identifying us all.
I return to the idea of film samples, and link it to the notion of the uncanny. Steve raises Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return, also Henri Bergsons concept of the past accompanying the present. I recall Eliots poetry,
"Time present and time past, Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. "
And on writing this i am reminded that "sampling is like sending a fax to yourself from the sonic debris of a possible future"-dj Spooky, aka Paul D. Miller. In fact, "DJ culture-urban youth culture-is all about recombinant potential. It has as a central feature a eugenics of the imagination. Each and every source sample is fragmented and bereft of prior meaning-kind of like a future without a past. The samples are given meaning only when re-presented in the assemblage of the mix. In this way the DJ acts as the cybernetic inheritor of the improvisational tradition of jazz, where various motifs would be used and recycled by the various musicians of the genre. In this case...the records become notes...Triggered by the sensuous touch of the DJ's hands guiding the mix, the spectral trace of sounds in your mind that existed before you heard them, telling your memory that the mixed feelings you get, the conflicting impulses you feel when you hear it are impressions-externalised thoughts that tell you you only know what you have never felt what you thought what you were feeling because you have never really listened to what you were hearing. The sounds of the ultra-futuristic street-soul of the urban jungle shimmering at the edge of perception. 'The basic unit of contemporary art is not the idea, but the analysis of and extension of sensations' -Susan Sontag
What these diverse new forms of representation indicate is a migration of human cognitive structures into the abstract "machinery" of the electronic environment...the DJ acts as a cipher, translating thought and sound into functional mood units...in this sense, the records, samples, and various other sonic material the DJ uses to construct their mix acts as a sort of externalised memory that breaks down previous notions of intellectual property and copyright law that western society has used in the past..... Memory and temporal structure are the new spaces of art to me..... The previous meanings, geographic regions, and temporal placement of the elements that combine the mix, are corralled into a space where the differences in time, place, and culture, are collapsed to create a recombinant text or autonomous zone of expression based on what i like to call 'cartographic failure'..................
'Autonomous zones are interstitial, they inhabit the in-between of socially significant constellations, they are where bodies in the world but between identities go......Autonomous zones may be thought of, in temporal terms, as shreds of futurity. Like "outside", "future" is only an approximation: there are any number of potential futures in the cracks of the present order, but only a few will actually unfold. Think of autonomous zones in terms of time, but tenseless: time out of joint, in an immanent outside (Nietzsche's untimely). -Brian Masumi, A Users Guide To Capitalism and Schizophrenia'" Paul D. Miller, 'Algorithms: Erasures and the Art of Memory' in Audio Culture, Continuum, London/NYC, 2004.
We talk of Kodwo Eshun's ideas about time, about the way that objects are imagined first and then assembled, that come from the future in a very real way. The quality of anticipation comes up, an openness to potential events. Steve cautions me that this could be more about affective sensational things, as opposed to the merely cognitive. In fact at this point i realise the 'interview' is becoming more a teaching session as it transpires that Steve has worked with Kodwo at the Warwick University Cybernetic Culture Unit, and has a Doctorate in philosophy. Briefly thrown by this drop of information, i try another question. From my research, i know that Steve is interested in all manner of sound: in an interview "originally uploaded by infinite" he is quoted as absorbing grime productions by "Terror Danjah, Target, Wonder, Davinche and Wiley, and MCs like Riko and Trim. Outside of the garage tempo, I've been listening to microrecordings of the ebola virus." So i ask, what does the ebola virus sounds like: Steve crouches a bit in his seat and motions forward in a creeping manner with his hands, making a "ccccr..cccrrrrr..rrrrr" kind of noise with obvious delight. In a lot of ways-no disrespect to philosophy intended-this is the best bit, for me, of the whole interview. Steve speaks about the viral way the media can work, and i appreciate the frame. He cautions me against treating everything as a text, and when i quote ideas from the KLF's manual (How to have a number one hit the easy way) regarding the psychological seductiveness of Rick Astleys 'lyrics', he rejects the pop psychology, arguing that the subjective perception of said tune is much more unconscious, but that people might also have a choice to step outside that: i'm not sure if i understand him but i wonder now whether he's talking about the more fundamental level of a tactile quality to music: my notes continue with the Nietzschian idea of the body first, the ego/mind/will coming second: the idea of the ego as essentially reactive, always coming after the event, of skin being a part of this due to the autonomic response coming first, then cognition. I think of "skittering grime....and sub-bass heavy dubstep", Steve remarks about the anticipation of "what will this do to a crowd", a more embodied 'listening': the Cartesian split of a mind and body being unrealistic-"that's how you achieve control, the mind and the body are split", the dead ends of 'dance' versus a more nourishing process of listening to something, the process of sensation developing to thoughts.
The idea of what you want from music comes up more explicitly: i ask Steve what he's listening to at the moment: grime rhythms and the new Alva Noto/Ryuichi Sakamoto cd on raster-noton. The cd is a more mournful second volume to the first, and offers up an a fragmentary, glitchrhythmed and linear piano with Nicolai's precision and electronic phosphorescence. We return to the frame of the virus, infection and abduction, the trancestate in dancing, Spinozas writings giving another frame to the mind/body issue. In terms of sonic warfare seduction, as opposed to aggression, is often the more active agent, making you desire something, potentially your own repression, possibly making you do something you might not have wanted to do: Steve talks of the 'ambience of the brand', the pre-emption, and appropriation, of your own desires via seduction. Acknowledging the seductiveness of loud bass frequencies, we conclude.
found via a 10" single-'Spit'-on Kode_9's label, Hyperdub. this is a bass heavy rolling monster with lyrics loosely borrowed from the Public Enemy tune 'Welcome to the Terrordome'. out of all the grime/2step singles i listened to, this one really stood out, on account of its musical depth and strength of vocal performance. perhaps also since the lyric is alive in its relevance now more than ever. i decided to try and find out more.....
i begin the interview with Steve with a quote of Michel Foucaults' theory, regarding conceptual theory that comes under the heading of "technologies of the self". Foucault outlines his ideas regarding these technologies of the self:
"a history of the various ways in our culture that humans develop knowledge about themselves: economics, biology, psychiatry, medicine, and penology. The main point is not to accept this knowledge at face value but to analyse these so-called sciences as very specific 'truth games'related to specific techniques that human beings use to understand themselves. As a context, we must understand that there are four types of these "technologies," each a matrix of practical reason: (1) technologies of production which permit us to produce, transform, or manipulate things; (2) technologies of sign systems, which permit us to use signs, meanings, symbols, or signification; (3) technologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivising of the subject; (4) technologies of the self, which permit individuals to effect by their own means, or with the help of others, a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct and way of being, so to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality." -Michel Foucault, 'Ethics', Penguin, 2003.
Steve replies, raising Deleuze and Guattarri's theories, a point of view that might suggest that we've internalised the authority relationship, that nowdays control is on the inside, in our minds, that we've taken on the authority relationship, the penopticon, taken on the task of cctv'ing ourselves. Writing this, i think of Big Brother, a surveillance society where a different kind of visibility, a 2D monitor mirror image mediating almost everything.
Steve is writing a book about sonic warfare: he's interested in the "'political physiology of sound": cultural warfare mediated at the sonic level. He talks about the ambient state of a culture being more important than outbreaks. Interesting...At a more micro level, he talks about remixing, restructuring an original, exploring the ambiguity in the piece, mutations that contain the sensation-or is it the hallucination-of the original. The first release on the Hyperdub label was a version of the Prince track "Sign of the Times", entitled "Sign of the Dub". All basslines, no beats. Steves latest release, which will have hit the shops by the time you read this, is "Kingstown", a 10" containing a lyric and dub version. What can i say? Serious dub pressure, gutteral drum and bass, and lyrics to match:
"a temperature rise before we reach the gates suggest more that what we bargained for this sleep dog surface with eyes that glint in the night and curves that swerve with every shift in the.... an intense fever balls and screams as it burns you up from the inside...outside a head is a place where pleasure and pain collide...". The Specials tune, 'Ghost Town', is to be given the treatment in the future.
Oral / aural culture, repeating, song carrying meaning in a different way to text. Bruce Sterling, cybertheorist, military entertainment complex, in sonic culture, as in the military industrial complex. A post-industrial, post modern, kinda thing. We speak regarding the use of different kinds of spaces, the use of technology within this to give people a kind of processing space, like you can watch the film on DVD and play the game of it all in the same machine.
I relate the experience of going to the park, near my work, to experiment with digital cameras and a football: cue schoolboys, heavy adolescent ritual, 'play' fights, stress, football, video clips, dogs, fun. Tinged with the realisation that the more sadistic elements in the 'play' could not realistically be stopped. We talk about there being a fine line, a cusp, between play and violence: dancefloors that can at times be situated on that difficult line, that is in all of us: I am comforted with memories of 80's punkish moshpits: normalising, finding commonality. Perhaps that space is more realistically located nowdays within the military entertainment complex: i saw quite a few stylised mock punches thrown: nowdays the feedback processes are as likely to be on the inside, some kind of virtual reality, as on the outside: people learn co-ordination, think about power relationships, and generally process their experience through the media of cartoons, films, other peoples stories, identification. Steve speaks of Deleuze's Postscript to the societies of control and "Burroughs idea of addiction, as a way of thinking about control": also raised is the idea of the self policing society, where we're so psychically split, so internally divided-creating a tension, a space ripe for connections?
Accelerators: Kowdo Eshun accelerates text culture in his 1998 book, 'More Brilliant than the Sun:Adventures in Sonic Fiction''. If i may quote, "Respect due. Good music speaks for itself. No Sleevenotes required. Just enjoy it. Cut the crap. Back to basics. What else is there to add? All these troglodytic homilies are Great British cretinism masquerading as vectors into the Trad Sublime. Since the 80's, the mainstream British music press has turned to Black music only as a rest and refuge from the rigorous complexities of white guitar rock. Since in this laughable reversal a lyric always means more than a sound, while only guitars can embody the zeitgeist, the Rhythmachine is locked in a retarded innocence. You can theorize words or style, but analysing the groove is believed to kill its bodily pleasure, to drain its essence...... All todays journalism is nothing more than a giant inertia engine to put the brakes on breaks, a moronizer placing all thought on permanent pause, a futureshock absorber, forever shielding its readers from the future's cuts, tracks, scratches. Behind the assumed virtue of keeping rhythm mute, there is a none-to-veiled hostility towards analysing rhythm at all. Too many ideas spoil the party. Too much speculation kills 'dance music', by 'intellectualising' it to death. The fuel this inertia runs on is fossil fuel: the live show, the proper album, the Real Song, the Real Voice, the mature, the musical, the pure, the true, the proper, the intelligent, breaking America: all notions that stink of the past, that maintain a hierarchy of the senses, that petrify music into a solid state in which everyone knows where they stand, and what real music really is. " -Kodwo Eshun, 'More Brilliant Than The Sun Adventures In Sonic Fiction', Quartet Books, London, 1998.
We speak about the idea of synaesthesia where an excess of perception can overflow into other senses, for example the sonic into the visual. This idea gets played with further, mutated: film samples. Deja entendu, a bit of the known, can create an enhanced familiarity, i think of the media/radio samples in Kode_9's 'Spit' and also, say Photeks 'UFO', and Trace/Nico's 'Cells': the eirieness with which the captured space crackles with tension, static, imperfection, controlled voices but on the verge of something else, an outbreak, contagion, paranoia............in both, the possibility of contact with an alien other: a sense of the unknown comes across vividly, as does panic, and control. A link to the film 'Bladerunner' comes up in my head following the ambience of a Dillinja tune, the idea of who or what you really are inside, and whether this can connect with who or what someone else really is inside, the multiple layers, the deeply held connection with anger, frustration, pleasure, identifying us all.
I return to the idea of film samples, and link it to the notion of the uncanny. Steve raises Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return, also Henri Bergsons concept of the past accompanying the present. I recall Eliots poetry,
"Time present and time past, Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. "
And on writing this i am reminded that "sampling is like sending a fax to yourself from the sonic debris of a possible future"-dj Spooky, aka Paul D. Miller. In fact, "DJ culture-urban youth culture-is all about recombinant potential. It has as a central feature a eugenics of the imagination. Each and every source sample is fragmented and bereft of prior meaning-kind of like a future without a past. The samples are given meaning only when re-presented in the assemblage of the mix. In this way the DJ acts as the cybernetic inheritor of the improvisational tradition of jazz, where various motifs would be used and recycled by the various musicians of the genre. In this case...the records become notes...Triggered by the sensuous touch of the DJ's hands guiding the mix, the spectral trace of sounds in your mind that existed before you heard them, telling your memory that the mixed feelings you get, the conflicting impulses you feel when you hear it are impressions-externalised thoughts that tell you you only know what you have never felt what you thought what you were feeling because you have never really listened to what you were hearing. The sounds of the ultra-futuristic street-soul of the urban jungle shimmering at the edge of perception. 'The basic unit of contemporary art is not the idea, but the analysis of and extension of sensations' -Susan Sontag
What these diverse new forms of representation indicate is a migration of human cognitive structures into the abstract "machinery" of the electronic environment...the DJ acts as a cipher, translating thought and sound into functional mood units...in this sense, the records, samples, and various other sonic material the DJ uses to construct their mix acts as a sort of externalised memory that breaks down previous notions of intellectual property and copyright law that western society has used in the past..... Memory and temporal structure are the new spaces of art to me..... The previous meanings, geographic regions, and temporal placement of the elements that combine the mix, are corralled into a space where the differences in time, place, and culture, are collapsed to create a recombinant text or autonomous zone of expression based on what i like to call 'cartographic failure'..................
'Autonomous zones are interstitial, they inhabit the in-between of socially significant constellations, they are where bodies in the world but between identities go......Autonomous zones may be thought of, in temporal terms, as shreds of futurity. Like "outside", "future" is only an approximation: there are any number of potential futures in the cracks of the present order, but only a few will actually unfold. Think of autonomous zones in terms of time, but tenseless: time out of joint, in an immanent outside (Nietzsche's untimely). -Brian Masumi, A Users Guide To Capitalism and Schizophrenia'" Paul D. Miller, 'Algorithms: Erasures and the Art of Memory' in Audio Culture, Continuum, London/NYC, 2004.
We talk of Kodwo Eshun's ideas about time, about the way that objects are imagined first and then assembled, that come from the future in a very real way. The quality of anticipation comes up, an openness to potential events. Steve cautions me that this could be more about affective sensational things, as opposed to the merely cognitive. In fact at this point i realise the 'interview' is becoming more a teaching session as it transpires that Steve has worked with Kodwo at the Warwick University Cybernetic Culture Unit, and has a Doctorate in philosophy. Briefly thrown by this drop of information, i try another question. From my research, i know that Steve is interested in all manner of sound: in an interview "originally uploaded by infinite" he is quoted as absorbing grime productions by "Terror Danjah, Target, Wonder, Davinche and Wiley, and MCs like Riko and Trim. Outside of the garage tempo, I've been listening to microrecordings of the ebola virus." So i ask, what does the ebola virus sounds like: Steve crouches a bit in his seat and motions forward in a creeping manner with his hands, making a "ccccr..cccrrrrr..rrrrr" kind of noise with obvious delight. In a lot of ways-no disrespect to philosophy intended-this is the best bit, for me, of the whole interview. Steve speaks about the viral way the media can work, and i appreciate the frame. He cautions me against treating everything as a text, and when i quote ideas from the KLF's manual (How to have a number one hit the easy way) regarding the psychological seductiveness of Rick Astleys 'lyrics', he rejects the pop psychology, arguing that the subjective perception of said tune is much more unconscious, but that people might also have a choice to step outside that: i'm not sure if i understand him but i wonder now whether he's talking about the more fundamental level of a tactile quality to music: my notes continue with the Nietzschian idea of the body first, the ego/mind/will coming second: the idea of the ego as essentially reactive, always coming after the event, of skin being a part of this due to the autonomic response coming first, then cognition. I think of "skittering grime....and sub-bass heavy dubstep", Steve remarks about the anticipation of "what will this do to a crowd", a more embodied 'listening': the Cartesian split of a mind and body being unrealistic-"that's how you achieve control, the mind and the body are split", the dead ends of 'dance' versus a more nourishing process of listening to something, the process of sensation developing to thoughts.
The idea of what you want from music comes up more explicitly: i ask Steve what he's listening to at the moment: grime rhythms and the new Alva Noto/Ryuichi Sakamoto cd on raster-noton. The cd is a more mournful second volume to the first, and offers up an a fragmentary, glitchrhythmed and linear piano with Nicolai's precision and electronic phosphorescence. We return to the frame of the virus, infection and abduction, the trancestate in dancing, Spinozas writings giving another frame to the mind/body issue. In terms of sonic warfare seduction, as opposed to aggression, is often the more active agent, making you desire something, potentially your own repression, possibly making you do something you might not have wanted to do: Steve talks of the 'ambience of the brand', the pre-emption, and appropriation, of your own desires via seduction. Acknowledging the seductiveness of loud bass frequencies, we conclude.
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