form minus function
Kiran Sande on noise-ist turned "techno"-ist Pete Swanson as emblematic of a spate of "unique, outsider takes on techno" (and also house)
http://www.factmag.com/2012/01/27/pete-swanson-on-dysfunctional-techno-mental-health-and-chasing-the-next-thing/
"If “proper” techno music is about function, then the Swanson, KPLR and Container records are about dysfunction – and their refusal to be useful to DJs and consumers feels like a quietly political statement. “I don’t really like the idea of music being produced for a functional purpose,” Swanson says. “I would be shocked if someone actually played Man With A Potential at a club and people were into it.”
it is a curious trend (see also Ital's Hive Mind), these replicas of analogue-era techno... that are absent -- in some hard to precisely pinpoint way-- of whatever vital attribute made the music work in their original context...
(cf Prurient dude rediscovering EBM/Cold Wave/dancefloor for Bermuda Drain as well as Vatican Shadow alter-ego, and producing music that would, if it had been sent as demos to Nettwerk or Play It Again Sam back in the day,would have been rejected as substandard)
the trend seems to be recursive in two ways
i/ a flashback to Throbbing Gristle's sideline in defective disco with "United", "Hot On the Heels of Love", "Adrenalin"
ii/ a strategy symptomatic of hyper-stasis -- Swanson like so many artists in the Zones wants to keep moving restlessly ever "onwards" ("I’m always chasing the next thing” he tells Sande). but since pushing forward in some absolute sense (advance into the genuine unknown) gets harder and harder with each passing years (for all kinds of reasons including the hyper-productivity of the Zones) that requires a sideways-and-backwards movement, i.e. into another genre/field from your usual one, but naturally into that genre's past (after all, you wouldn't want to get mistaken for an attempt to participate in the genre as currently constituted, or judged on its terms). if your model is things like Underground Resistance-type brutalist tekno (a style that electronic dance music left behind long ago) and your execution is deliberately rough-hewn.... not so much "deconstructed" as depurposed.... then the dread scenario of DJs playing it and dancers dancing to it becomes remote
but this leaves the work in a curious place, deriving its shape and existence in relation to something whose criteria it pointedly disregards
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
retrotech / ersatz-analogue
via http://www.psfk.com/2012/01/grammaphone-iphone-dock.html (via Daily Swarm):
"Retro Acoustic iPhone Docks Turn Your Device Into A Gramophone [Pics]
By Emma Hutchings on January 31, 2012
These impressive iPhone docks mix the old and the new to create a unique sound. Tunes from your device are sent from the speaker through a small hole in the base leading to the instrument, which acoustically amplifies the music.
These striking retro docks are made by Ryan Boase and available at his ReAcoustic Etsy shop. The bases are made from salvaged wood, and antique gramophone horns and old musical instruments like trumpets and trombones are reused as amplifiers. The docks, which range in price from around $60 to nearly $600, don’t need any batteries or power cords. Boase describes his project, saying:
ReAcoustic is a way for me to be surrounded by music again. It combines another hobby of mine, woodworking with the instruments I loved playing growing up. ReAcoustic was inspired by the “old school” phonographs and their distigushed, vintage sound. It started with brass instruments and has evolved into other areas of acoustic amplification."
more information and pictures of the things at
http://www.etsy.com/people/ReAcoustic
via http://www.psfk.com/2012/01/grammaphone-iphone-dock.html (via Daily Swarm):
"Retro Acoustic iPhone Docks Turn Your Device Into A Gramophone [Pics]
By Emma Hutchings on January 31, 2012
These impressive iPhone docks mix the old and the new to create a unique sound. Tunes from your device are sent from the speaker through a small hole in the base leading to the instrument, which acoustically amplifies the music.
These striking retro docks are made by Ryan Boase and available at his ReAcoustic Etsy shop. The bases are made from salvaged wood, and antique gramophone horns and old musical instruments like trumpets and trombones are reused as amplifiers. The docks, which range in price from around $60 to nearly $600, don’t need any batteries or power cords. Boase describes his project, saying:
ReAcoustic is a way for me to be surrounded by music again. It combines another hobby of mine, woodworking with the instruments I loved playing growing up. ReAcoustic was inspired by the “old school” phonographs and their distigushed, vintage sound. It started with brass instruments and has evolved into other areas of acoustic amplification."
more information and pictures of the things at
http://www.etsy.com/people/ReAcoustic
Monday, January 30, 2012
"why so glum, chums?"--intersecting with Retromania's concerns, an interesting piece by Ryan Diduck for The Quietus on "The New Bleak" aka "hypnagothica" and its relation to recent political/economic/environmental traumas
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
talking of dark things, Valerio Mattioli, who writes for LaRepubblica tells me that there is an Italian counterpart to hauntology that was recently covered as part of an article in Blow Up (sort of Italy's The Wire) on contemporary Italian occult psychedelia. The journalist Antonio Ciarletta, says Mattioli, enumerates its ingredients as: "local folklore, the popular spaghetti cinema of the 60s/70s (especially mondo movies, giallo, spaghetti westerns, cannibal movies etc), even Catholicism, and a typical 'Italian vibe' all around.... Many of the musicians openly mention composers such as Piero Umiliani, Ennio Morricone and basically the whole Italian soundtracks/library music school".
"To me," continues Mattioli, "what’s interesting in these bands, is that their kind of hauntology avoids the eerie and pastoral feeling of the English counterpart, as well as the pop-cheesy attitude of the American hypnagogic pop. On the contrary, their music is blatantly dark, esoteric and sometimes bloody, actually reflecting the 'sun & violence' culture which – despite the clichés – is a commonplace here. Of course, there’s the homage to a popular imagery which is deeply rooted here, and that somehow reflects the Italian identity better than your typical Venice postcard. But it’s also like saying that memories often can be nightmares, especially if you live in a country which is half Europe/half... well, Italy. Kind of Sergio Leone/Lucio Fulci induced nostalgia...
"When you go back with your memories to the contemporary Italian golden age – to say, the 60s of the Dolce Vita etc – you can’t escape the ghosts of that same era: terrorism, urban favelas, corruption and so on. Even the big masterpieces of the Italian literature, TV and cinema typically deal with such atmospheres - they're always bloody, violent, excessive. Somehow, the bands analyzed by Ciarletta are here to remind us that the Italian good old days (when future seemed possible) were a very depressed place, and that the present is filled with those ghosts.
"It also comes quite natural to understand this trend as a reflection of the current feelings among many Italians: we perceive our country as a declining glory with no future at all; and economic crisis, crime and political warfare create a sort of Late Empire atmosphere..."
Bands operating in this zone include Cannibal Movie, Donato Epiro, In Zaire, Orfanado, Spettro Family, Heroin In Tahiti [Mattioli's own band], and on the "more 'pagan-catholic folklore' tip", Mamuthones and Father Murphy . TheAwayTeam/Polysick are "a sort of modern Piero Umiliani" with projects lined up for 100% Silk, and Planet Mu. "Needless to say: all these artists form a sort of family, they’re all friends and do stuff together, they share projects and labels etc."
An example of what Mattioli dubs "Mondo-cannibals":
Mattioli calls this sub-category "spaghetti wastelands" (love it!)
This is an example of "Italian gothic":
"Exotic libraries":
"Bloody folklore":
and this is Father Murphy, who I saw in Pistoia last year
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
talking of dark things, Valerio Mattioli, who writes for LaRepubblica tells me that there is an Italian counterpart to hauntology that was recently covered as part of an article in Blow Up (sort of Italy's The Wire) on contemporary Italian occult psychedelia. The journalist Antonio Ciarletta, says Mattioli, enumerates its ingredients as: "local folklore, the popular spaghetti cinema of the 60s/70s (especially mondo movies, giallo, spaghetti westerns, cannibal movies etc), even Catholicism, and a typical 'Italian vibe' all around.... Many of the musicians openly mention composers such as Piero Umiliani, Ennio Morricone and basically the whole Italian soundtracks/library music school".
"To me," continues Mattioli, "what’s interesting in these bands, is that their kind of hauntology avoids the eerie and pastoral feeling of the English counterpart, as well as the pop-cheesy attitude of the American hypnagogic pop. On the contrary, their music is blatantly dark, esoteric and sometimes bloody, actually reflecting the 'sun & violence' culture which – despite the clichés – is a commonplace here. Of course, there’s the homage to a popular imagery which is deeply rooted here, and that somehow reflects the Italian identity better than your typical Venice postcard. But it’s also like saying that memories often can be nightmares, especially if you live in a country which is half Europe/half... well, Italy. Kind of Sergio Leone/Lucio Fulci induced nostalgia...
"When you go back with your memories to the contemporary Italian golden age – to say, the 60s of the Dolce Vita etc – you can’t escape the ghosts of that same era: terrorism, urban favelas, corruption and so on. Even the big masterpieces of the Italian literature, TV and cinema typically deal with such atmospheres - they're always bloody, violent, excessive. Somehow, the bands analyzed by Ciarletta are here to remind us that the Italian good old days (when future seemed possible) were a very depressed place, and that the present is filled with those ghosts.
"It also comes quite natural to understand this trend as a reflection of the current feelings among many Italians: we perceive our country as a declining glory with no future at all; and economic crisis, crime and political warfare create a sort of Late Empire atmosphere..."
Bands operating in this zone include Cannibal Movie, Donato Epiro, In Zaire, Orfanado, Spettro Family, Heroin In Tahiti [Mattioli's own band], and on the "more 'pagan-catholic folklore' tip", Mamuthones and Father Murphy . TheAwayTeam/Polysick are "a sort of modern Piero Umiliani" with projects lined up for 100% Silk, and Planet Mu. "Needless to say: all these artists form a sort of family, they’re all friends and do stuff together, they share projects and labels etc."
An example of what Mattioli dubs "Mondo-cannibals":
Mattioli calls this sub-category "spaghetti wastelands" (love it!)
This is an example of "Italian gothic":
"Exotic libraries":
~~~ THEAWAYTEAM - TWILIGHT: DRUMS IN THE FOREST ~~~ from AAVV on Vimeo.
DONATO EPIRO - La Vita Acquatica from Planeta on Vimeo.
"Bloody folklore":
and this is Father Murphy, who I saw in Pistoia last year
Friday, January 27, 2012
Toure on nostalgia as a cultural cop-out, but also on why it is, if not exactly forgivable, then understandable as a symptom at the present moment in time
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