Catharsis

Woebot

Woebot

Well-known member
Found this great quote in Evan Eisenberg's "The Recording Angel" which I'm (very slowly) coming to the end of. It's quite a dense read and I dont have k-punk or blissbloggers chops.

"In the twenties jazz was called the devil's music. Now Rock has that title, and every six months or so psychologists release a new study showing the unsettling effects of rock music on algebraic problem-solving or the growth of tomatoes. (I am not making this up.) One recent study concluded that mental hygiene was best served by music in three-four time - the the waltz which nineteenth century moralists so detested. Swing, once subversive, is now so acceptable to Platonists that it serves as elevator music. The historical slippage here suggests that catharsis cannot be had from either music that one has not yet begun to understand or from music that one understands too well. The first can only annoy, the second sedate."

I was thinking this could be run against any ossifying music. A quite controversial example might be Grime (though we're yet to see if it has legs left). At it's inception I'll freely admit that, though i could appreciate its agenda, my ears had yet to fall for it (Jan 2003)

http://www.woebot.com/movabletype/archives/000810.html

I fear that now, three years later, I may be entering the phase of understanding it "too well".
 
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Moodles

Active member
I can relate to this. A lot of music I tend to listen to until I completely absorb it, so that I'm familiar with it inside and out. Unless it is really superlative, I tend to lose interest in it and my obsession moves on to something else. Some things I will come back to every now and then, but for many, I just completely lose interest.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
but no matter how well I understand Slayer, each time after hearing "South of Heaven" (about once every 2 years or so these days), I feel a release, refreshed and purified.

catharsis is an emotional and physiological process, a valve function of sorts for tension; while your mind might be bored with things you know well, I don't think familiarity has any effects on the workings of catharsis.

no matter how well you know Diamanda Galas, listening to some of her tracks at a proper volume will induce catharsis. every time. Merzbow works the same way.
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
You must have at least a little familiarity with Galas or Merzbow before you can get past the shrieking/wailing or noise assault. And I imagine if you ODed on their sounds it would start to get numbing... much of the catharsis in radical listening experiences comes from the fact they're relatively unique, compared to what we listen to or hear the majority of the time.

Have you listened to any polka or baroque lately? Shit freaks me out.
 
k-punk

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
IS catharsis the right term here? Seems like he's talking about enjoyment... And certainly that 'cusp of enjoyment' is surely familiar to us all, where something that once seemed chaotic/ unpleasant/inexplicable suddenly becomes enjoyable...and there's a kind of double enjoyment at that point, an enjoyment of enjoyment ... but enjoyment is always impossible to sustain at that pitch, and is usually killed by familiarity...
 
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mms

sometimes
bleep said:
You must have at least a little familiarity with Galas or Merzbow before you can get past the shrieking/wailing or noise assault. And I imagine if you ODed on their sounds it would start to get numbing... much of the catharsis in radical listening experiences comes from the fact they're relatively unique, compared to what we listen to or hear the majority of the time.

Have you listened to any polka or baroque lately? Shit freaks me out.
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been listening to this a fair bit http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/2046
speed brass of the gypsies .
it's full on, like enjoyment taken to dangerous levels, you can imagine serious lung damage and burst blood vessels as you listen to it, but also enormous pleasure.
there is a kind of macho catharsis to this but only in the extreme performance and the physical input the players sound like they are putting into it .
 
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Grievous Angel

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
I remember that post. Sent a bad tempered email to reynolds about it at the time, going on about how some garage djs had always played slower stuff, and he said no, you've got it wrong, we're talking about everything garage-related getting slower.

I think catharsis is the right term. Music that has more than jouissance, because it does in a time and a place release demons. Not just individual demons either but social demons. I think that's why the point about catharsis not coming from music that an individual knows too well is a bit of red herring. Some music that an individual knows well might wtill be cathartic -- for me, In the Nursery from PTV's Dreams Less Sweet, or Parliament's P-Funk (Wants to get funked up) or Planxty's She Moves Through the Fair are examples of long term catharitcal records.

But such individual-centric examples are irrelavant. The accolade of being "the devil's music" is a temporary societal judgement. Rock'n'roll. Mods'n'rockers. Punk. Reggae. Hip-hop... all were once the devil's music and in certain social contexts still are.

[As an aside: Why else the interest here in Girls Aloud? Pop that releases the girl teen cthonic and is not quite... not quite nice, for all its packaged-ness...]
 
Grievous Angel

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
Yeah, Planxty is excellent.

Try Words and Music -- FABULOUS psychedelic folk music. Embrace your inner hippy. If you like Roy Harper you'll be blown away by this.

I assume you've got into Sandy Denny as well?

Yeah, I think the reason why GA is a little more (and only a little, in my opnion) interesting than pure packaged pop of the fast food rockers type is that they invoke (not evoke) and unleash pure pre-teen chthonic menstrual fury... in tiny and well-managed amounts. Quite a trick to pull off, like dealing with Enochian spirits long term (which is way beyond me, but the ppl who can do it have chops...).
 
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Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
For some reason, catharsis always sounds a really old fashioned concept to use with reference with emotions or state. Didn't the greek use of the word arguably involve some almost physical component, so that watching a good tragedy would involve a process of physical cleansing? I dunno, "letting emotions out" doesn't really resonate with me. I don't think I let tension out with music, rather that one gets in touch with this inner tension, works with it. Likewise I don't think boxers "let anger out" so much as get in touch with it, learn how to control it.

I guess what I'm saying is that for me catharis isn't some "eruption" caused by art, and I don't think music would have to be unfamiliar on new to cause some sort of similar process.
 
Grievous Angel

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
The greeks thought of it as emotional cleansing -- but didn't divide the body/mind/soul so much, so much non-Anglos saxon wailing and gnashing of teeth. I think you're right about the "getting in touch with" stuff though.
 
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dogger

Sweet Virginia
Diggedy Derek said:
For some reason, catharsis always sounds a really old fashioned concept to use with reference with emotions or state. Didn't the greek use of the word arguably involve some almost physical component, so that watching a good tragedy would involve a process of physical cleansing? I dunno, "letting emotions out" doesn't really resonate with me. I don't think I let tension out with music, rather that one gets in touch with this inner tension, works with it. Likewise I don't think boxers "let anger out" so much as get in touch with it, learn how to control it.

I guess what I'm saying is that for me catharis isn't some "eruption" caused by art, and I don't think music would have to be unfamiliar on new to cause some sort of similar process.
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yeh i think you're right there -- it's hazy but from what i can remember about greek catharsis it involved physical elements...and i remember being told that 'it's much more complicated than a simple therapeutic outpouring of emotions'....can't quite remember how tho!

and i agree with you: seeing 'emotions' as something that can be (benefically) 'purged' from the system is an odd and out-dated concept.

however, k-punk, eisenberg seems to be talking about some sort of physical, medicinal or at least functional property of music, more than simply 'enjoyment'. the use of the expression 'catharsis' is apt, then.

eisenberg's point about the shock of the new is valid but surely a little tired: does anyone really doubt that it takes time to acclimatise to radically new (musical) styles?
 
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mms

sometimes
interesting -
i just put on the langley schools choir cd - which is 70's pop classics by a school band with lovely warm arrangements - really quite heart wrenching and nice, but in my experience some people react very badly to it and almost 80% of the office here did .
really extreme reactions - i kinda expected that and secretly enjoyed it - but why do you think it is - obviously it's impossible to get a straight answer out of anyone ..
 
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Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Thinking back to Woebot's Catharsis idea, the idea of rhythmic memes like grime and jungle loosing their power doesn't really ring true with me. Take jungle- obviously listening to classic jungle now, I no longer get that "shock of the new" thing, yet there's still a frisson, a jarring-ness, like fur being rubbed up the wrong way. There's a kind of powerful reaction there that remains years after hearing the original tracks.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that "catharsis" (not really the right word I think, but anyway) can't be just a cognitive thing of expectations, but there's also something physical, bodily in there. When one hears jungle or roots years after the effect, it hits something in your rhythmic DNA or whatever.
 
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telluride11

New member
well yeah
this is why i dont listen to the age of quarrel more than once a year and why no great musicians have come out of berklee. time the destroyer of worlds
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
Diggedy Derek said:
When one hears jungle or roots years after the effect, it hits something in your rhythmic DNA or whatever.
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Rhythm is such a funny one, the way off-kilter beats become normalised if you listen to them constantly... and then you hear some rigid four to the floor techno and it can feel physically shocking and fresh.

A lot of jungle sounds a bit (rhythmically) passe to me now, but I put on something like Nookies 'A drum, a bass, a piano' and it blows away the cobwebs - its so wonderfully elegant, both sonically and riddim-wise.
 
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