Sci Fi and Magic

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

I think your OP is interesting and accurate in articulating one of strongest repeating themes over the last year or so, since this place came back to life

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Yes as someone who was on dissensus lots years ago and then took years out and returned to the fold quite recently the biggest change has been this. People are vvtey comfortable describing things like jungle or drill as magic, or having magical elements.

Back in the early days of dissensus I think the standard view was the opposite. I remember Martin Clark/blackdown had this dichotomy of real/urban/clear-eyed and unsentimental music (jungle, grime, dubstep) which was opposed to what he saw as the mystical, fantasising, blurry eyed rave stuff (which he was pretty disparaging about). But now we've switched it and put the music that dissensus tends to like on the latter side. jungle etc has become magic not "real". I'm all for this.

But it makes me wonder what's happened, or more precisely what's happened to us? Because the music itself hasn't changed but we're hearing it differently, talking about it differently

My theory is that in the olden days dissensus had a lot of people who were someone directly involved, in varying extents, to the scene. They were meeting people who made and DJed grime and dubstep etc, through running labels or promoting nights or journalism or sometimes just doing it directly themselves (Logan Sama used to be a regular dissensian!) And that kept the discussion very much grounded in the "real"

Whereas now I might be wrong but I don't think there's that direct link to the creation of dissensus musics anymore. So it's music that exists in our heads rather than out in the world. And we can create our own way of hearing and speaking about this music. And it can sprout off in weird directions in our minds and become magical.

That's my theory. My other theory is that collectively we've done a lot more psychedelics in the intervening years

 

[luka]

I can't say what I want to say! But yeah there's been a huge shift and now it's much better than it's ever been imo.

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

What do you want to say! Kill the censor! Say it!

 

[luka]

No way! But it's been great. im Very happy with where we've ended up. It's got it's own identity for the first time since its inception I would argue.

 

[catalog]

Good point ssdc. The little bit of McLuhan I've read, I seem to remember him saying that you know when a medium is dead cos it stops being anything to do with communication and becomes relegated to pure art. Because another form of communication has taken over as the primary medium. So for example, vinyl comes back when it no longer matters. Dunno maybe someone can correct me here actually. But anyway, it's like dissensus becomes an art object in itself once it no longer matters as discourse. So basically I'm saying that Simon is saying what McLuhan is saying, sort of

 

[sadmanbarty]

I can't say what I want to say! But yeah there's been a huge shift and now it's much better than it's ever been imo.

luke wants to say that he single handedly remoulded dissensus in his image. the psychedelia is all his doing.

 

[william kent]

is not one of the very greatest and most magical of all jungle tunes named "Warp Drive"

Flirta D's biggest tune too.

 

[sadmanbarty]

"any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", as the saying goes

I think it's a false dyad, dichotomy, diametric

I think you're defining magic very narrowly and archetypically; religious ecstasy, sorcery, witchcraft

does not "The Angels Fell" contain much magic within it? tell me it doesn't. protean magic, unknowable depths.

so your retort to me saying that i like music that combines sci fi and religion is to say you like a song that combines sci fi samples with notions of the angelic?

 

[william kent]

without the god and magic the technology is just an ends in itself,

I think this why you, luka etc don't like Autechre.

 

[sadmanbarty]

I think this why you, luka etc don't like Autechre.

very good. as i said, it's been creeping in the back of loads of threads. the anti-human one for example.

 

[william kent]

"In order to know the world, refined men must know that gods and heroes remain spirits in our world and that these gods and heroes retain special powers."

 

[sadmanbarty]

dubstep's an interesting one as silverdollar bought up. it sounds (to me at least) like there's an element of trying to de-magic dub. to turn it into pure sci fi. rastafarianism used as a historical and cultural cue rather than a spiritual one. evocations of jamaica being about a sonic lineage rather than about a theological framework.

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

dubstep's an interesting one as silverdollar bought up. it sounds (to me at least) like there's an element of trying to de-magic dub. to turn it into pure sci fi. rastafarianism used as a historical and cultural cue rather than a spiritual one. evocations of jamaica being about a sonic lineage rather than about a theological framework.

I dunno I think a lot of DMZ and certainly skull disco stuff had a spiritual element

May be if we think hard enough about any music we can make it magical. I can't be bothered to do that with dubstep but perhaps others can and report back

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

But anyway, it's like dissensus becomes an art object in itself once it no longer matters as discourse.

I really like this idea, that dissensus has got so good because nothing said on here matters to the outside world anymore. We have cast off the dull material world and entered the secret kingdom.

I like this because it means almost every one else has got it wrong. They're all trying to matter to the world but actually the trick is to not matter to the world

 

[shiels]

All the clever people fucked off and it stopped doing any dissensus and became an erowid chat room for lonely grime fans.

 

[thirdform]

forum isn't hugely interested in cratedigging but posting the same 10 tunes from said genre of choice so im not sure why rehashing the same themes for the past 3 years is supposed to be a defining of identity that's arsene wenger talk but ok lads.

 

[luka]

We have to keep starting the conversation from scratch cos you keep derailing it you cunt! Let us finish and we might be able to move on to the next thing!

 

[thirdform]

does not "The Angels Fell" contain much magic within it? tell me it doesn't. protean magic, unknowable depths.

don't bother. it's all a claim to authenticity I was there in 1994, 2002, 2017. it's yawn-inducing, the worst of standpoint epistemology fused with the existential traumas of 80s goths, and Yeats. 'what will we continue to lose.' this is just a reframing of the populist vs underground jungle war. I don't fucking care. even by Luke's own admission jump up was the nail in the coffin before the underground techstep/break editing end of it. we don't need to have this debate again lol. and hence we get the whole revisionist bullshit that even Blackdown et al engaged in about how house and techno were just incidental factors to the nuum and had no real influence on it, although somehow reviving bleeps n bass and calling it deep tech and flapping a Cassandra at UCL dissertation take about 'black people dance to house in london'! Made it nuum when they spent ages cussing out house for not being real enough.

More protean hi-tech magic, about as far away from anything resembling angelic.

 

[thirdform]

We have to keep starting the conversation from scratch cos you keep derailing it you cunt! Let us finish and we might be able to move on to the next thing!

that would be good if it didn't always finish in wanting to bang craner's 22 year old paramour.

 

[thirdform]

i respect Trilliam's take that hardcore continuum is black music from ends. that's how he can fit deep tech into it. difference is he didn't spend years denegrating forms of black dance music culture that didn't fit into his culture war.