kode 9 and spaceape album

[shudder]

I keep getting tripped up on the idea of music as theory unto itself. Or that music is "theorizing itself". What does that mean?

gek-opel said:

music is obviously a number of arguments relating to itself (amongst other things)

Is it about how any given piece of music needs to be understood in the context of the music that came before, how it takes on old forms, responds to them, etc? Or is something else meant? Is this discussed in Eshun's book? I'd picked it up a while ago, but never got beyond the introduction (which I did like).

 

[Logos]

I keep getting tripped up on the idea of music as theory unto itself. Or that music is "theorizing itself". What does that mean?

I always thought it meant the codification of ideas or concepts in the music itself - so in jungle if you follow the Reynolds line of thought the idea that darkcore reflected the post-rave come down, or that male and female were codified differently in terms of types of sound within jungle, or the nature of rhythm in jungle or dubstep (which are like mirror images of each other) articulated something meaningful.

 

[boomnoise]

this is a great discussion. i'm trying to hash out a contribution.

 

[gek-opel]

Music=critique of all other music I think. Like for example in the recent history of the hardcore continuum you have had a number of evolutions which whilst they can be analysed along Reynoldsian lines (this vocal=the feminine, this sub bass= masculine or whatever) in a more fundamental way they are really about themselves, arguments phrased in music, about music, (about where the music ought to go as much as anything else- like a crit theory think piece but in the form of the actual music). Although quite where that leaves the situation of the composer who hates his own work I don't know... are we to necessarily expect a musical-creative categorical imperative or what?

This is not really an argument against intellectualisation in linguistic form, but really most theorisation represents a creative side-view on the music, transposing these musical ideas into linguistic social/political/crit-theoretical arguments. The CLEAREST form of musical criticism is and always will be the production of music itself.

So its almost the opposite of the way that certain attributes of a particular sound can be allusive (ie can refer to other ideas) rather that they are part of a process of critiquing musical ideas through the means of more music. IE- the most fundamental critique of halfstep would be to create innovative new ways to merge 2step with real sub pressure. This could then be theorized about (and that theorising could itself influence music makers of course, creating new categories for example which are later filled up with actual music)

 

[the undisputed truth]

It's funny reading kode9 prattle on about whatever. You'd think his music would be hypercomplex but as I listen to it I'm left wondering what's the big deal and where's the rest of it ? The sonic theorising seems a distraction as maybe once again the emperor appears to be nekkid clothed only in bassweight and verbiage. There in lies the joke methinks. Kode9 is taking the piss.

I do like the title though and am looking forward to deconstructing the spaceape's soliloquys. 'Memories of the future' suggests deja vu. A universe extrapolating probabilities to a future and feedback looping into our consciousness via memory. All time is now.

 

[tate]

It's funny reading kode9 prattle on about whatever. You'd think his music would be hypercomplex but as I listen to it I'm left wondering what's the big deal and where's the rest of it ? The sonic theorising seems a distraction as maybe once again the emperor appears to be nekkid clothed only in bassweight and verbiage. There in lies the joke methinks. Kode9 is taking the piss.

But no one could have been more clear than Kode 9 himself (in the linked interview with K-Punk) when Kode said that he wanted to keep the music and theory separate. He said that explicitly. I must admit, the old comeback that appoximates, in a thousand different variants, "dude, it's only music, no need to analyze" is sort of frustrating. On the one hand, of course it is only music and words are superfluous, perhaps even distracting. But if every time a person begins to attempt to speak in an informed way about new music, a person then responds with the classic 'too-cool-for-school' attitude of 'don't bother, it's just music,' then that doesn't seem very helpful either. Am not saying that you are doing this, undisputed, am just commenting . . .

In any case, with reference to the things now on the table, I'd just like to say that I'm neither for nor against any of the people/concepts mentioned above, am more interested in subjecting them to scrutiny to see if they hold up rather than supporting/attacking any position in particular.

As for the the claim (original with Eshun in the context of the rave continuum I think, but certainly not new to the history philosophy) that 'the concepts are already contained in the (artwork) music,' the idea refers, I agree, to the sense described by gek, where one track responds to the musical material or ideas, techniques, spatialities, harmonies, rhythms etc etc present (or absent) in the earlier track or style or whatever it is that you are musically 'theorizing' about by composing a new piece. There is a similar idea among poets: a poet will sometimes say that "the best way to respond critically to a poem is to write a new poem, not to write criticism." The statement is usually cited in similar circumstances, i.e., when a poet perceives that a piece of criticism has become so theoretical as to have lost touch with the object supposedly under observation.

In any case, isn't the notion that "the music already contains the concepts within itself" pretty much at the heart of the notion of a hardcore continuum? That's the ground, so to speak, of the continuum, no? Namely, that you can, from today's vantage point, *hear* the unfolding of musical ideas and approaches that continually expand and implode in relation to each other, with a kind of topography or spatiality that has an audible history? E.g, that jungle was already in a certain way audibly nascent in '91-92 hardcore, or that you can almost hear grime in Pulse X, that you can hear dark garage and breakstep in late 2-step, etc, and halfstep in the latter as well as earlier jungle, etc etc?

 

[Logos]

It's funny reading kode9 prattle on about whatever. You'd think his music would be hypercomplex

Why would it have to be hypercomplex?

What do you mean by hypercomplex? Busy?

 

[Slothrop]

In any case, with reference to the things now on the table, I'd just like to say that I'm neither for nor against any of the people/concepts mentioned above, am more interested in subjecting them to scrutiny to see if they hold up rather than supporting/attacking any position in particular.

I'm well in favour of this 'lets pin down precisely what the theorists mean in this specific case' thing. It's helping to allay my suspicion that it's all actually a complicated Mornington Crescent-like thing.

 

[the undisputed truth]

I'm reminded of Yoko and Lennon.

events demand a response and some input from the observer rather than answering all the questions". Her most famous piece was the "cut piece" staged in 1964,where the audience was invited to cut off pieces of her clothing until she was naked, an abstract commentary on discarding materialism (i.e. disguises) for the natural (i.e. the real)underneath. Yoko's work often demands the viewers' participation and forces them to get involved. A famous example is from her "This Is Not Here" exhibit from the early 70's. One section of the exhibit included a living room completely painted white with the objects; armchair, grandfather clock, desk, television set, even an apple, cut completely in half. The viewer must "complete" the scenario with a reference memory of the "whole" object. In other words art is a two part process--what is presented by the artist and how it is interpreted by its audience.

You are here, everything is now and when you're holding a hammer everything looks like a nail so let's keep hammering away at those boards. The more nails we hammer, the more energy we expend and accrue, the greater the intensity of vibrations we create, the larger the mass of the object increases, and in hammering we become part of the art not merely observers. In reduction though, it is merely a piece of wood and a lump of steel but don't tell anyone as you may ruin their experience. The war of art continues.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/pob14.html

 

[mistersloane]

loved k-punk's piece but couldn't really understand what kode9 was on about at all in places:

what does this mean, for example:

"Methodologically, 'bass materialism' is a strain of machinic or virtual materialism. I use the concept as a way of opening up the politics of vibration, its forcefields. As opposed to a bass fundamentalism, I’m interested in vibration as micro-rhythm or micro-relation, so I use this as a way of accessing the rhythmic continuum which cuts across the urban frequency spectrum, constructing a cultural tectonics. I am interested in a vibrational rhythmanalysis of the control city."

?

It means this I think

"I'm looking at a theory of bass, really. It's a way to start talking about vibration and what it does. Instead of looking at bass as a be all and end all, I'm looking at what it is in relation to other things, looking at the role bass has within the city. "

 

[greeneyes]

Bass is just high-frequency rhythm.
Rhythm is just low fequency bass.
Dubstep's building a bridge between the two.

 

[mms]

It's funny reading kode9 prattle on about whatever. You'd think his music would be hypercomplex but as I listen to it I'm left wondering what's the big deal and where's the rest of it ? The sonic theorising seems a distraction as maybe once again the emperor appears to be nekkid clothed only in bassweight and verbiage. There in lies the joke methinks. Kode9 is taking the piss.

I do like the title though and am looking forward to deconstructing the spaceape's soliloquys. 'Memories of the future' suggests deja vu. A universe extrapolating probabilities to a future and feedback looping into our consciousness via memory. All time is now.

YAWN

he clearly states in that interview that he's not theorising about his music or dubstep .
saying his theorising is empty is truly the distraction here.

 

[the undisputed truth]

You're the distraction mms. I'd suggest a little nap if you're tired. I wasn't specifically referring to that interview nor to dubstep nor am I saying it is empty.With regard to that interview though, I am left wondering why, if he wants to keep his music and theorising separate does he then refer to both. If not to distract then possibly to confuse and contradict ? I smell hype.

What do you think the point in raising his sonic theories in the context of that interview was ?

 

[mms]

You're the distraction mms. I'd suggest a little nap if you're tired. I wasn't specifically referring to that interview nor to dubstep nor am I saying it is empty.With regard to that interview though, I am left wondering why, if he wants to keep his music and theorising separate does he then refer to both. If not to distract then possibly to confuse and contradict ? I smell hype.

What do you think the point in raising his sonic theories in the context of that interview was ?

ok bit of an overreaction..
he refers to his theorising cos he was asked about it i think,ccru dude to ccru dude. he states it's not part of the music he makes, which personally overall i think is probably the densest of dubstep, esp with te addition of the vocals.
raising sonic theories is good as this it draws stories out of the interviews i think as folk like the ones on this thread try and untangle it, it's similar in that respect to his music, its a cypher, a puzzle a bit.

 

[gek-opel]

I think if Kode9 applied his theoretical interests to his music more directly it would sound quite different! He's pretty explicit in that whilst the two do relate each is him with a different mask on... you can see this in the interview cos at the start its all musician talk, then later on its theory-head talk. I think Kode9s music isn't by any means the densest (unsure as to what meaning of "dense"- the most packed with layers of sound? The thickest sonically? The most filled out rhythm tracks? The largest number of ideas per track? I don't think he really fits in any of these categories....)

 

[SIZZLE]

I'd just like to chime in and say I'm enjoying this as well.

Although I don't really have a theory background I do consider myself to be a thinker and a 'writer' in the loosest possible terms, and that the music making I do is my form of writing about (for lack of a better word) music. That's not the only thing that's going on, but it's certainly an important dimension of it.

My favorite quote about this is from Jean Luc Godard who says that 'the best criticism of one film is another', which I whole heartedly agree with and feel can be translated to dances, sandwiches, ideas etc. I think that's about the nineteenth time I've pulled that out on this board, in as many states of paraphrase.

I am more self conscious of this than some, but I feel like this is going on all the time in every studio. Composers, people who are creating new music, are almost always doing it in relation to their musical environment, mining a thread towards or away from something, mapping out a territory or possibility space available within a certain way of working or set of conventions. A lot of young, drugged up kids in basements are doing this with no thought of D+G or any of these other guys, if there's more than one person than verbalization can enter into it but also people are 'saying things' with their fingers on samplers, keyboards, mice, etc or through their headnodding approval or disapproval of a particular tune, gesture or thought.

I find it annoying when musicians try to say that their only inspiration is themselves and that their music shouldn't be interpreted in any context but it's own. I know a lot of musicians and none come to mind (whether they claim it or not) for who this is true.

edit: and since I never quite got to it, I think that writing words about music is also a form of thinking about music and in that sense intersects quite a lot, and is interesting and valuable in it's own regard. I think it's useful to regard it as essentially a seperate activity but recognize that at it's best it can jump across and affect the course of direct musical thought. I love reading magazines and will read about almost anything if I'm bored enough, and very much enjoy reading rapturous descriptions of records I'm quite sure I don't like, if only to see what criteria would ideally characterise success or failure for a given style of tune. The Wire is great for this, I wouldn't actually listen to a ton of what they write about but I find it really interesting to read what people consider to be the goals of all these various strange styles and find that can give me ideas for movements in my own idea puddle.

 

[gek-opel]

I'm actually shocked at the LACK of theory-type stuff in The Wire. They normally just reel off a list of the artist's influences and side projects-- yawn. :slanted:

 

[tate]

My favorite quote about this is from Jean Luc Godard who says that 'the best criticism of one film is another', which I whole heartedly agree with and feel can be translated to dances, sandwiches, ideas etc.

The quote is the exact analogue to what I mentioned upthread about poets often saying that the best way to respond to a poem is to write a new one.

Though in fact Godard is a better example b/c he was one of the rare ones who was able to move from criticism to poesis, from theorist to artist. As is well known, Godard began as a critic, writing for a number of journals, most prominently Cahiers du Cinéma, for nearly a decade before his first feature, A bout du souffle, opened in Paris in 1960. That's one of the things that I've always loved about the french new wave, that their theory came first but actually led to ravishing cinema (well, not all of it, but some) made by interesting methods (cf. Marienbad, which was designed by Robbe-Grillet in textual form, Resnais constructed it visually from that).

 

[gek-opel]

What about post-punk along similar lines? Not quite the critics becoming musicians (tho that was sometimes the case) but the level of influence the critics had in terms of focusing the energies of innovation onto certain areas was unparalleled in rock music...

 

[tate]

I'm actually shocked at the LACK of theory-type stuff in The Wire. They normally just reel off a list of the artist's influences and side projects-- yawn. :slanted:

It's the opposite for me. I would almost always prefer to have the basic information about the artist, side projects, and so on in a print article rather than some geezer's personal theorizing, b/c I tend to think that I can do the 'theorizing' at least as well myself and take much of the joy in daily listening from constantly thinking through the possbilities, theoretical or musical or otherwise, without having a heavy handed neologizer attempt to tell me how to think . . . But I guess that I am one of those rare types who still gets a kick out of seeing a new Wire on the newstand, who enjoys going through old issues from years back simply to see what things looked like from that (admittedly idiosyncratic) point of view.