The inadvertent future

[luka]

Well cyberpunk is a deliberate reaction to the sterile shiny future isn't it. You have hypercapital, Dubai, Singapore, and you have the dysfunctional city on the other hand, the biker gangs in neo Tokyo, the bad drugs, the shanty towns, the pandemics, the dirt, the shadows etc.

Mike Davis City of Quartz & Planet of Slums.

 

[luka]

The super rich seceding from society and the poor left to fend for themselves in the ruins and decaying and malfunctioning infrastructure.

 

[thirdform]

dematerialisation is also hyper materialised because what it requires to work is extreme levels of sidechained compression. I.E: those quiet semi-perceptual frequencies are artificially inflated on a level to match with the regular perceptual field. This is why it sounds so good in a car. the compression technology was always there, it's not actually new, it's just that there seemed to be little use for it unless you wanted to make distorted and squashed jungle a la digital hardcore crew out of germany. Sidechaining allows you to be more precise with how the compressor actually acts within the stereo field.

But actually it's an attempt to mimic old hi-fi's (because hardly anyone apart from audiophiles uses em these days) and being at a live music gig or in a club. so actually the sonic dematerialisation process is retrofuturist. It's reflecting the live and the propulsive rather than the cold and the isolated. people don't want to be atomised but they don't know how to resist it. it isn't thrilling so much as matter of fact.

 

[luka]

So far we've seen blissblogger, third form, Crowley, webeschatology, catalog, all come out and state categorically that Migos are derivative, old hat, retro, tired and past it. Bartys going be spitting tacks, absolutely fucking furious when he sees what you've said about his favourite band....

But that's good. An angry Barty is a motivated Barty. He's going to go super saiyan and assume his ultimate guise. He's going to explain why Migos sounds like 2050 and all you lot are going to be able to do is beg for forgiveness. I can't wait.

 

[thirdform]

expanse rather than claustrophobia.

90s normie futurism was expansive in the melodic and textural sense. the aquadic nature of fsol. the liquid synths and the shiney arpeggios. tangerine dream synced to a house beat. ethereal.

2010s normie futurism takes that shine and magnifies it to such an extent that it doesn't shine anymore. it just pulses and fills up the sound field. It's a pastiche shine.

 

[catalog]

Dubai Singapore etc is not the future tho. It's cardboard thin unreality. There's no good tunes from there, it's just bad copying, apeing I suppose. When I say smog, I don't mean cyberpunk, I mean arrangements of things in the air in front of you that have an effect, but not the one you expect. And it gets inside you and clogs you. It provides space for projection, imagination.

 

[luka]

dematerialisation is also hyper materialised because what it requires to work is extreme levels of sidechained compression. I.E: those quiet semi-perceptual frequencies are artificially inflated on a level to match with the regular perceptual field. This is why it sounds so good in a car. the compression technology was always there, it's not actually new, it's just that there seemed to be little use for it unless you wanted to make distorted and squashed jungle a la digital hardcore crew out of germany. Sidechaining allows you to be more precise with how the compressor actually acts within the stereo field.

But actually it's an attempt to mimic old hi-fi's (because hardly anyone apart from audiophiles uses em these days) and being at a live music gig or in a club. so actually the sonic dematerialisation process is retrofuturist. It's reflecting the live and the propulsive rather than the cold and the isolated. people don't want to be atomised but they don't know how to resist it. it isn't thrilling so much as matter of fact.

I don't understand the technical stuff and dematerialisation as I see is first and foremost an historical process not an aesthetic but I agree that we don't seem to know how to resist atomisation. I mean, I sit on the street, in the public and talk to strangers, make beautiful thoughtful things for them, but I'm still completely atomised and alienated. Nothing has ever come of it. No night out, no good conversation, no friendship. We're really in a sticky spot. What little public space we have we don't know how to use. We don't know what we want. Do we like other people or want to hide from them?

 

[thirdform]

bebop versus fusion.

this is bebop.

 

[luka]

Dubai Singapore etc is not the future tho. It's cardboard thin unreality. There's no good tunes from there, it's just bad copying, apeing I suppose. When I say smog, I don't mean cyberpunk, I mean arrangements of things in the air in front of you that have an effect, but not the one you expect. And it gets inside you and clogs you. It provides space for projection, imagination.

I think they do represent futures in just the same way Victorian London or early 20th century New York did. I'm not talking about aesthetics here. Or not primarily. Of course there are no tunes.

But I agree the imagination moves most easily within mists.too much objectivity and it shrivels up.

 

[catalog]

I was convinced for a while that all those blends, refixes of dizzee, Beyonce all screwed up, like they've taken a poppy acapella and fucked about it with it, I did genuinely think it was something new (there was a mavado one where they pitched the vocal so much it was like a little girl, and I thought it was actually quite subversive) but you can't just keep doing that. Like, you run out of steam if you make it a formula. Gets boring very quick and you have to move on from that. I thought they would do it and find something but it didn't happen, maybe cos of other reasons.

 

[thirdform]

hard bop

EDIT: wrong one...

 

[catalog]

I don't understand the technical stuff and dematerialisation as I see is first and foremost an historical process not an aesthetic but I agree that we don't seem to know how to resist atomisation. I mean, I sit on the street, in the public and talk to strangers, make beautiful thoughtful things for them, but I'm still completely atomised and alienated. Nothing has ever come of it. No night out, no good conversation, no friendship. We're really in a sticky spot. What little public space we have we don't know how to use. We don't know what we want. Do we like other people or want to hide from them?

Yeah I agree with that to some extent, we're all too clever for each other now to properly relate and social media requires a huge amount of investment and might not lead to anything real anyway.

I suppose this is a mark fishery thing coming on, about how good the BBC was and like you say, public civic spaces, libraries, religious gatherings whatever. Like how they afford certain standards of relationships.

Maybe this connects to the idea that it's fine to kill god, that's just an invention or whatever, but what do you do after that.

None of this very original or interesting, I know it's been said a lot better elsewhere.

 

[Leo]

Getting bored now. Where are my bushido Warriors? Where is droid with his science fiction obsession? Where is corpse with his jg ballards quotes? Where is tea with his inside knowledge of the large hadron collider? Where is other life to talk to me about chuck person? Where is Leo with his intimate knowledge of modern stealth marketing and reality manufacture?

it's Friday night in NYC, some of us have social lives!

 

[thirdform]

dematerialised 90s fusion.

 

[luka]

Now you come to mention it bebop is a good example of a music considered modernist, if not explicitly futurist, despite not being reliant on technology.

 

[luka]

it's Friday night in NYC, some of us have social lives!

Really? That never used to be the case. When did this happen?

 

[thirdform]

I sense that barty is hesitating because this would go so against ayatollah reynolds that he may have to acknowledge that FSOL were onto something even if the execution itself was terrible. luckily my antihuman agenda is watertight.

 

[Leo]

Really? That never used to be the case. When did this happen?

I imagine Barty's not contributing right now because he's on a hot date, possible mulling over in his mind whether to get dressed and leave or spend the night and grapple with an awkward breakfast.

 

[thirdform]

space is the place, but we stuck here on earth. FSOL were far too hasty. they wanted their cake and wanted to eat it. that's not how a healthy musical conversation works.

 

[luka]

I imagine Barty's not contributing right now because he's on a hot date, possible mulling over in his mind whether to get dressed and leave or spend the night and grapple with an awkward breakfast.

Perfect time to wind him up then....