Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
This thread gives me a headache now. :slanted:
Don't want to re-enact the argument between k-punk and Joe Muggs, but it's naturally debatable whether "the recognition or continuity running through...musics" constitutes an "observable fact" and not just the construction of a historian who can necessarily never be perfectly objective and needs to construct a narrative: a 'designation' or 'explanation' not an empirical thing in the world - a particular way of telling a particular story. But sure, it's definately a continuous scene and can be talked about in that sense.For him the nuum is the recognition of a certain tradition or continuity running through these musics from Hardcore Rave to 2-Step Garage. That's the sense in which he says it is an observable fact and not a theory.
I'm not a fan of the imperative for big 'progress' in musical style, I guess I think it's a bit blinkered. Of course revolutionary sounds are exciting and important and I await the next batch, but there's nothing wrong with a few people going back a few steps and exploring what we passed during the rapid journey in a different way or in a little more detail. It's when you believe in a 'continuum' with notions of one-dimensional continuity that it starts to look bad when it stops rupturing and transitioning and turns back on itself.I'd agree with K-Punk that if you played even some of the better post-dubstep (look, just trying to avoid the w word) stuff to someone in 1989 or whatever it wouldn't sound startling or 'impossible' where jungle sounded like a rupture or a phase transition. But also as he says it's just so difficult to get that across after the fact - we can't go back, jungle has happened. And Joe Muggs asks if anyone thinks those Joker or whatever records are not 'exciting'. Well, they're nice enough tunes but I do think some perspective is in order. The very fact that they are so readily digestible is your clue.
And the nature of change may itself change.I'm not a fan of the imperative for big 'progress' in musical style, I guess I think it's a bit blinkered. Of course revolutionary sounds are exciting and important and I await the next batch, but there's nothing wrong with a few people going back a few steps and exploring what we passed during the rapid journey in a different way or in a little more detail. It's when you believe in a 'continuum' with notions of one-dimensional continuity that it starts to look bad when it stops rupturing and transitioning and turns back on itself.
Of course not if i asked any dumfuck producer whos never even thought of where their ethnically misappropriated music comes from. Maybe benga would if he really thinks of himself as an afro warrior. Maybe megaman from so solid would after the establishment built them up then destroyed them.
Thing is brits in no way want to face up to their percieved cultural superiority and racist attitudes and it would be career suicide for any black academic or musicologist to suggest it but history is riddled with examples of validation only by caucasians from eric clapton shooting the sheriff to lady sovereigns fake patois to grievous angels noodlings.
yet even in kodwo eshuns writings or paul gilroys its subvertly hinted at but never overtly discussed.
http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/2007/05/07/paul-gilroy-in-conversation/
All music started in Africa, so all music is 'black' music.
Reductio ad absurdo .
I have no idea at all why you've come back to this forum but overall it just seems it's to have a go at other forum posters and bloggers, primarily because they're white and involved in uk dance music, (which is a subject you evidently know nothing about or want to learn more about it would seem) you're going to have to stop doing this.
I can sort of see how the delineation of the boundaries of the (historical) nuum might look arbitrary from the other side of the world. Just going by the chronology and surface formal aspects of the music. Maybe.
I mean not even everyone in the UK agrees it makes much sense and to an extent it is about a London thing and a vibe, no matter how much people try and pin it down.
"you're treading on thin ice. if you're capable of having real discussions with people then go ahead, otherwise take it elsewhere."
and how am i supposed to respond to that ?
...why not just deal with the topic at hand and dont worry about why i am like i am or do what i do? its not like i'm the only banned person to ever come back. FWIW I am having real discussions and havent insulted anyone unless insulted first. So please spare me the hypocrisy.
true, the nuum is a racially mixed but the music it represents for is essentially black. I'm sure reynolds wouldnt have a problem with that, given some of his past quotes on repackaging black music for white audiences.
you know very well, it's because you personally attack other people indirectly or directly who write on the board, usually on the grounds that they're white, you've done it to the same people before on other sites you've been banned from and on people's own blogs, i could give numerous examples, but i don't need to, they're all over this thread for a start, it's tiresome and i'm busy so stop or stop posting altogether.
Gender came up in a couple of places, but it wasn't really debated. Alex Williams answered someone's question by doubting that there were signifiers for male or female in the music itself.
It felt less like a discussion of alternative models, but more one of varying degrees of departure from the original nuum idea, or how k-punk described it at kick-off. I guess Goodman and Eshun's 'synaesthetic signatures' idea (sort of the stylistic hallmarks of Eshun's black Atlantic tradition) could be described in certain ways as a model, though it's not a category like the nuum. Joe Muggs and Dan Hancox rejected the idea, while Alex Williams and Martin Clark adapted it or discussed something slightly different.
Maybe it was London City Airport being right next to the seminar room, but I don't remember hearing Davis, Martin or Gilroy come up.
I've written some more reactions to the debate here: http://rougesfoam.blogspot.com/2009/05/theory-is-spice-of-critical-life.html