The Other Transcendence

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
Proper transcendent beauty. But remarkably it's emotionally very- grounded might be the wrong word- but relatable. It’s an interesting, very familiar, very warm, very intimate incarnation of the otherworldly. It’s clearly speaking to a higher state, it’s not of the everyday, but it’s not by virtue of blowing your mind or being alien. It’s just through the pure distillation of emotion and in doing so suddenly rendering it magical; it becomes archetypal and eternal. It’s not LSD/Dark Magus/Jungle stretching my brain across the entire parameter of the universe, it’s a magic night out or a pretty sunset or something. That very easy transcendence. An emotional transcendence rather than a cognitive one.

It's something we've brushed up against a lot recently. In the deep house thread I was talking about intoxication of the body, but not the mind; psychedelia felt but not yet thought as the drugs first start kicking in. What I was trying to reach in the 80's pop poignance thread and my 'beautiful songs' thread and seemingly what Patty's after in his best songs ever thread.. Music that can't be said to be of the world, but it's also not alien or third's 'shock of the impossible' or cognitive obliteration.

It also what I was saying in relation to Mobb Deep and Mr. Fingers; they uncovered archetypal sound worlds that weren't hugely innovative or mind-blowing, but were what you could call 'heart-blowing'.


https://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=14910&highlight=beautiful+songs
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
yeah it's an interesting distinction. third had that thread where he favored the other side.

it seems like it's impossible to convince people that one or the other is better. it's just so obvious to them which is the Aim of art that they never acknowledge the split. that's sort of what I was trying to get at with this thread http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=14889 but I framed it in kind of a boring way.

another quote arguing back and forth about this:

“No,” I could have said like Cheever’s adolescent in Bullet Park, “No, enough of your breathtaking concepts, infinite distances, quasar leaps, binding messages from the Crab Nebula; be away with your light years, asteroids, Van Allen belts, methane systems and heavy planets. No, I am aware that there are those who find an ultimate truth there and would bend their lives toward their perception but this is not for me. Where is the pain, the remorse, the regret and guilt and terror? No, I would rather dedicate the years of my productive life which remain to an understanding of the agonies of this middle-class suburb in northern New Jersey. Until I deal with those how can I comprehend Ridgefield Park, to say nothing of Scarsdale, Shaker Heights of the unknown lands of the west? Give me not the year two million which I will not see; give me now. The year two million can say nothing to me, but I may address it if, of course, the collected works can be carefully preserved. At least one writer will survive from this era and if not the notorious Q or the obscure N or the unfortunate A, why could it not be me?”

Nicely put. Cheever’s adolescent would have approved, if not Cheever. Indeed, I found it convincing, until it occurred to me in one of those quick changes of consciousness which control the lives of all of us yet which may never be acknowledged in fiction that Ridgefield Park would forever be as mysterious to me as the swamp of lights perceived through the refinery smog which are known to my children as “stars” . . . and that one should never deny infinity to pursue a particular which until the day of one’s death—if not for longer than that—would always be a mystery.
 
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sadmanbarty

Well-known member
its the romantic transcendence as opposed to the modernist one.

yeats rather than Burroughs.

thomas cole rather than this:

Franz_Marc-The_fate_of_the_animals-1913.jpg
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
yeah it's an interesting distinction. third had that thread where he favored the other side.
.

i favour the other side to in my listening habits too. but you don't have to pick. you can 99% of the time like having your cognition put through a blender and then every now and then want something a bit different.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
fwiw my best songs ever thread was purely made to balance out version's worst songs ever, and hopefully put out some niceness. although getting to call craner a leaf was a bonus.
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
used to love that marc painting lol

i favour the other side to in my listening habits too. but you don't have to pick. you can 99% of the time like having your cognition put through a blender and then every now and then want something a bit different.

i think that everyone does pick though. certainly you can appreciate the other side and recognize it as deeply important, but i think you'll be inevitably be guided towards one more than the other. that's my impression.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
does anyone remember (on the dissensus framework thread maybe) i was talking about music that correlates with sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system?

one type is about information, velocity and stimuli while the other is about awareness of the body and emotions.
 

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
the mundane epiphany

it's tricky because words like 'mundane' and 'grounded' do try and crop up when talking about this stuff, but they don't do it justice.

as i said familiarity, accessibility, ease they're the qualities that define this and hopefully don't make it sound a bit shit.
 

luka

Well-known member
In the deep house thread I was talking about intoxication of the body, but not the mind; psychedelia felt but not yet thought as the drugs first start kicking in.

That was good that. Important useful distinction.
 

nun0

Member
Maybe a useful way into this is looking at songs that nod towards a lost period of innocence (which would relate back to romanticism)? What makes it a slightly harder category to pin down is that it can't be defined completely by its sonic qualities. Someone will have a personal favourite that might seem unusual but its because they can relate it to a touching memory from the past. The song is more of a vessel in this sense.

Having said that, there are definitely indicators. A big one is all the uk indie boys that love their jangly guitar:


 

catalog

Well-known member
thanks for posting those 2 next to one another. i love dean blunt, although i prefer some of the other stuff to that particular one. like his refixes are what do it for me, that one where he goes over the prefab sprout tune with his drawl.
i've noticed the connection to 80s shoegaze and dreampop before, but never really checked felt. its very obvious, like you say the jangly, awkward, not quite confident guitar that seems to find itself as it plays and produces a sure tune
 
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