Explain Electro To A Sweet Boy

[catalog]

i was just reading up on the Mekons for something work-related and had forgotten that in their very first interview, for NME, they wanted there to be no photographs and i think also no individual names mentioned, no attribution of quotes to specific people - it was all to be presented to the public collectively and facelessly.

but the photographer from NME sneaked a pic anyway and then before you know it they are signed to Virgin and there's actually a publicity photo of them sent out with the album.

But their initial stance was very idealistic and UR-like.

although not with the mystique and remoteness of UR - the opposite in fact, their ideal was to be absolutely approachable by their audience, absolutely demystified in every aspect

they even had some kind of band charter or internal manifesto of principles, which were things like no distance between band and audience, we are not special people in any way etc

there is a line you can trace running through rock/etc history that is all around this thing of facelessness versus face-fullness (embracing stardom, image, glamour, presentation)

it plays out in everything from stage presentation (how bright the lights, wearing stage clothes versus everyday clothes) to record packaging (prog groups and post-psychedelic Underground groups tended to not appear on their covers, but have abstract/surreal images or landscapes or whatever, whereas the more pop / showbiz things get, the more emphasis there is on having a face on the front cover

another aspect to this collectivity - the pop industry doesn't like bands and is always scheming to break up bands and spawn off solo stars, because that's more marketable

Sorry but Dean blunt. Clothes and stance are generic. Few interviews, as many lies as truths in them. And then pure spirit at the shows. Artist of the 2010s without a shadow of doubt.

 

[luka]

You'd have a hard time arguing blunt over keef or thug I reckon. Art school back water vs transforming a major sector of the billion dollar American entertainment industry.

 

[catalog]

What, so because they are more popular, they are better? Get your coat Luka. He's the innovator.

 

[luka]

Only you and version like Dean Blunt. You won't be discriminated against for your views however, no matter how outre. All are welcome in the big church.

 

[catalog]

I'm trying to bait you. I went all city this morning.

And yeah, I'll defend Dean blunt till the final trumpets are blown. No one knows more about him than me. In the world I'll wager

 

[luka]

Our task is to liberate the imagination to realise it's true scope and dimensions and any attempt to limit it to a particular issue or problem is doomed. Why anti humanism is simply this
The imagination reaches out and finds as limits the individual subject and its pre-set affects, its shells. Its task at this stage of its development is to reach out beyond that cell into matter and forces. It is part of a development programme.

cool thread

 

[luka]

lot of fun this thread

Walking round London during office hours youare made very vividly aware of the imposed rhythms, which are natural only to the extent that they are regulated by the time scales of addiction and hunger and to a lesser extent, attention.

The workers are kept in their pens until caffeine or nicotine or food craving affects productivity. Then they're allowed outside to make the necessary biochemical alteration. The scale of it and the synchronisation of it is a powerful, even overwhelming experience. This is of course not remotely profound or original but every time you're made aware of it its a shock.

I very much like the modern architecture which lays this bare. The huge segmeted transparent building eith the hundreds and hundreds of work pods in endless rows within. It's like a sexy version of the matrix. It allows you to visualise these units as batteries.

 

[sufi]

lot of fun this thread

 

[version]

That formatting!

 

[Leo]

That formatting!

yeah, damn. tell us how, @sufi

 

[woops]

Wrt deLillo - well, if the way you want to resist capitalism is to be an individualist famous writer, of course you're going to get co-opted because capitalism fetishises the 'exceptional' individual. Plays right into its hands. You have to resist as part of the collective in order to avoid this logic - and the collective IS the machine.

So antihumanism could be seen, as someone has said upthread, as music/art from the perspective of the machine - from the perspective of the workers who are the machine, from our perspective (unless Jeff Bezos is lurking here) when we see ourselves at a macro-level, rather than from that well-worn (cynical?) romantic perspective of us as free beings that dominates pop culture. And maybe that's why antihumanism can feel so emotive even when it's anti-emotional. The world is antihuman.

Brilliant thread: Thirdform you have really brought the obscure tunes here. Hardly heard any of these, and 90% killer.

wow what a post, baboon should return

 

[woops]

childlike melodies over glitch hip hop beats

 

[pattycakes_]

so many jams in this

a joyous watch

 

[pattycakes_]

i mean

 

[pattycakes_]

 

[luka]

 

[thirdform]

Wood green geezer!

 

[version]

 

[craner]

This thread title is a relic of what we might call the ‘Jimmy Saville era’ of Dissensus.

 

[version]

Barty Sticks His Dick In The Electro Acoustic