This or That.

luka

Well-known member
i think it was on i love music someone was watching one of the deja vu videos, possibly conflict, and they said both titch and kano did 'the walking dance' at some point in the set, and titchs was jerky and twitchy aggressive and overbearing, and when kano did it it was smooth and fluid and that they way they did the walking dance was the exact cognate of the way they mc'd

it was well observed. these are ways of being.
a bearing. a set of assumptions about the world at large, about other people
and the society you are embedded in.

whether you doff the cap or walk with your nose in the air.
whether you stoop or strut.

Deference bows the body
Servility is bad posture
 
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luka

Well-known member
or you can think about the rastafarian notion of the 'deep medi' the mind slowed to profound contemplation and how that is modelled and induced by roots music and by dub.
this is the sort of thing im getting at when i ask

what elegances does it encode? what excellencies?
what sophistications of understanding and attainment?
what does it aspire to?
what is the good life?
 
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luka

Well-known member
what happens when you slow the time-pulse?
weed does this of course. elongates the moment.
you become less reactive. you can examine
thoughts and feelings as they emerge
turn them around in your hands
like a vase.
 

CORP$EY

no mickey mouse ting
irresistible to bring up dubstep at this point ('deep medi' being mala's label - 'meditate on bass weight' etc.)

dubstep was very eyes-down music, for some reason - the bass was something you wanted to be enclosed in (although i'm thinking of a specific strand of dubstep here, not so much the skream/caspa/benga end of things). certainly wasn't courting music by any stretch of the imagination/body.

also, it could be misleading to imagine it as 'meditative' in the sense of making you think about things, and i think this obviously put people off it and set it up for ridicule because it's like some sort of pompous communion of chin-strokers... but actually, the meditative aspect (if it works for you) is complete immersion IN the music, so that the music obliterates all other thoughts

it would be interesting to take a musical idea and decorate/embellish it 'up' and strip it 'down' to see what different physical effect that had, what different physical movement the same idea can be made to embody

i'm sure remixes could be pointed to here, and cover versions
 

luka

Well-known member
also, it could be misleading to imagine it as 'meditative' in the sense of making you think about things

it's a kind of awareness not a kind of cerebation.
 

luka

Well-known member
i pointed to this few weeks ago as a good example of two metabolism in misalignment and miscommunication.


and that manifesting itself partly as a wrestle over tempo.

actors talk all the time about the 'physicality' of a character they are playing.
and that because it is a guide to metabolism, to sense of self and sense of
others and world. whether it is hostile or friendly etc

this is all there in music in a very vivid way.
 

luka

Well-known member
i dont want to use this thread to set up heirarchies of value. to say
this is good and this is bad but rather to assess music on its own
terms and come to a better understanding of what it is exactly
that is does, and how.

which region of experience is it mapping out and invoking\?

where is this?

where is this?

where is this?

where is this?
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
The intro of love supreme is like the feeling of replenishment washing over you. The closest I can think of is getting some fresh spring air after being inside a stuffy house all morning. But it’s still not exactly it; there’s a shrillness in that experience that’s totally lacking from the intro to acknowledgment. That’s why it’s music; perfectly distilled, unadulterated experience.

Elvin Jones’ drums in acknowledgment are a couple of things; the toms occasionally make me fell feel like I’m stumbling. On the other hand the ride feels totally slick; Milan streets reflected off the bonnet of a red sprots car, it’s confident, carries himself effortlessly, he’s grounded but weightless, leans against the bar, walks like Travolta at the beginning of Saturday night fever but less contrived.
 

luka

Well-known member
in a much more generalised sense i always experience ALS as being concerned with self-overcoming, it moves as if it were trying to free itself from something, to shed a skin
although there is another aspect, which is those grand plateaus and vistas. the track titles reinforce this striving, overcoming theme
"Acknowledgement" "Resolution", "Pursuance", and "Psalm"

that spiritual restlessness and muscular effort.
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
The first half of He loved him madly is ashy. a soft, pale white light like a projector shining through smoke. He’s in his 60’s, coarse white hair, wrinkled forehead, well built but tired. Used to work as an electrician; rough, solder burnt hands. Big, with a firm grip.

The bit with miles’ solo (other than being astoundingly poignant) is like the cover of fleetwood mac’s Tango in the night or jon hassel’s segreon of nightsky, but darker with denser jungle. Glimpses and snatches of the moon through trees. It’s a place not a person. Some of the plants are alian, faintly neon purple leaves. Simultaneously humid like the tropical bits in the zoo, but cold like walking through the park at night. Actually now it’s gone all moonlit night walk in London park, not many street lights. You can see your breath condensing.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
i'm very suggestible, the colour of album covers completely sways me; all the tracks on cuban linx are a garish orange to me.
 

luka

Well-known member
i mean, theyre very different records arent they? in terms of the regions of experience they map/invoke/describe

a crude way of explaining the difference would be to say that ALS is coming up, peaking, plateauing
HLHM is coming down, sensitised, twitchy, tender
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
bustin at em's bouncing on your toes, elbows to your sides with occasional arms swooping int the air in rapture. the snare rolls sound like coughing up flem. it's feverish music. when you're ill and you have a sleepness night that feels like an excorcism, a living nightmare (like the one luka had a couple of months back); discomfort confounded with strange dream logic. tossing and turning. irritable. ghost of a flea.
 
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