Reunite Psychedelia and The Avant-Garde.

that last bit's crucial, i was going to write yesterday that psychedelia is fundamentally routed in reality; hence why religion is psychedelic and disney or lord of the rings isn't.

synesthesia as communicative language is brilliant

metaphors aren't psychedelic

I've read a few books recently (eg 'Bomb culture' by Jeff Nuttall, 'The Kodak Mantra Diaries' by Iain Sinclair, 'A hero for high times' by Ian Marchant, 'Jumpin Jack Flash by Keiron Pim) which have made me think about how we're really still dealing with the legacy of the 60s counterculture. A lot of things seemed to reach a certain point and then became arrested, or stopped, because the State became involved, or things got too dark. I can add more detail on this if people want.

And a lot of supposedly 'avant garde' or 'psychedelic' currents now are really just revisiting those moments? Even the words/phrases themselves feel out of date. Like, is 'psychedelic' too loaded a word to be using in this context, if it's something we're looking for, now, in this moment we are in? Surely we need a new word? And 'avant garde', particularly in music, does it still mean that?

i dutifully did the search for "cultural cowardice" and have found the thread, so excuse me while i read a few more pages. i might be gone for some time...

sorry, seem to have killed this one a little.

OK so some more thoughts on the emergence of the avant garde / sacred / psychedelic / whatever you wanna call it. These are taken from a short book/novella i'm writing at the moment called 'smog', which is about the emergence of the new, particularly related to (visual) pollution. I am selling copies of the work in progress as a zine if anyone is interested.

1. It tends to emerge as a violence - when the new comes about, by definition it cannot be recognised, so therefore it cannot be understood (immediately) so therefore it ruptures or causes consternation within the established scene.

2. It comes as an accident: the new is born without intention, because, again, it is undefined. So there can be intention in the creative sense of wanting to consciously create something new, but the point i want to make is that what actually gets made, the stuff, is, by definition, beyond purpose or intention. So i suppose this idea that a lot of creators talk about eg 'it seemed to write itself' or whatever.

3. Labelling. As soon as the new thing can be pinned down and 'caught' by a word or phrase, it's pretty much dead in terms of its power and is no longer new. viv albertine talks about this quite a lot in her first book and there's obviously the 'wot do u call it' thing that has been discussed a lot already.

4. I really like this quote from dean blunt which is worth listening to in full https://soundcloud.com/catalog01/dean-blunt-fm-black-metal-thesis i think it says a lot in 90 seconds. I also transcribed it cos i was so impressed with it.

OK, that's it for now, if anyone wants any more info on any of this, let me know.

Nice 1!

Are you talking about the dean blunt quote? Are you saying it's missing something about what is new? What else could it have? I mean, he refuses to talk about what he does on the terms that people want him to talk about it, and i think this 'speech act' does explain that quite well? Elsewhere he's talked about the book of revelation and talking too much killing things. Like, the act of discussion can literally destroy.

I get that's he's speaking about the emergence of innovation in a specific way, in a racialised context, but I think the wider point does still stand ie we literally don't know what the new is and even if you call it something, that is completely meaningless.

Here's the transcription. I think you get something more from reading it, or something different.

Ripped from Scratcha's Rinse FM show 2nd July 2014.

Dean Blunt guesting:

DB: Can I, can I stop for a second?

Scratcha: Yeah man, do your thing.

DB: Can I tell you...

S: This is Dean Blunt FM

DB: Can I tell you about, erm, what Black Metal is

about? Black Metal is about...

S: Do we need to make this acapella?

DB: Nah nah nah. Black Metal basically is er, it's like, it's like, OK, you know, it's like, imagine like an essay and the heading or the thesis kind of title is, er, it's like appropriate yeezus, appropriation, reappropriation and the empowerment of the post-black male... and it's the idea of how, er, in America, the black man uses, erm, existing white images and claims em as his, as a form of empowerment, so Black Cobain, I'm black this, I'm black that, which is not actually really progressive.

So it's this American idea of racial progression, it's completely backward cos er, you're just appropriating something and kind of calling it your own, that's something that's already died and passed...

S: Gimme an exact example...

DB: I think anything like that, anything, anyone that, I think that whole movement or that idea of this like progressive, this new black, but really, you are just taking something that's been and gone, it's been discarded, and claimed it back and saying "yeah I'm the Black Cobain, yeah we're reappropriating..." you're actually, you're picking something old up.

The real progression is something that is undefined and is new and that's what Black Metal is.

S: Oh OK, so would you say you're pushing Black Metal, is that your thing?

DB: Er, Black Metal I guess doesn't really mean anything whatsoever, I guess, if you know what I mean...

S: I actually don't!

DB: Nor do I!

so when you say 'in the middle of the trip' do you mean the absolute present time? ie everything up till 'now' with the assumption that (obviously) 'now' keeps becoming the past? Is that what you mean by 'middle'.

I think i agree with that, and also the idea of something containing it's own future - 'as above so below' and all that.

But the key word is 'potential' right? Like, what does that mean? Potential is sort of meaningless until it's recognised/harnessed/taken on elsewhere/repurposed?

so this is the dissolution of the ego i guess?
well i was gonna say in my original list of points this other thing about the emergence of the new and how it has to be latched onto by 'the popular'.
so this is totally essential IMO. like with music, it's not till it's being pumped in the mainstream that you know it's working.
and that's when bigger wheels can start turning, cos there's that sheer weight of people behind them.
i'm sure all this has been discussed before anyway and i'm not adding anything new.
but yeah, i just thought about that thing you've written and it is definitely something necessary i think.
nothing can happen if people have a sense of difference from others.