Whitehouse

[philblackpool]

I think that Keenan book is gonna focus a little more on the looser, improv-heavy side of the UK experimental scene, from what I've heard...so Skullflower in their extended jam mode more than Skullflower in their angular noise rock mode & Ramleh more in their noise rock mode than their power electronics mode! I know the A Band bit from the Wire website will be extended into a chapter for it.

"Yellow Trash Bazooka" is my favourite Gerogeri too

 

[labrat]

http://www.ubu.com/sound/whitehouse.html

 

[bassbeyondreason]

I know DJing secrets are to be kept and hoarded and shit, but "Dumping More Fucking Rubbish" mixes amazingly with DJ Nate-style juke stuff.

 

[Leo]

Anyone heard the Cut Hands cd "Afro Noise 1"? The samples on boomkat are interesting, not extreme sounding but kind of cool.

 

[BSquires]

Anyone heard the Cut Hands cd "Afro Noise 1"? The samples on boomkat are interesting, not extreme sounding but kind of cool.

I've got a copy. It's pretty good - although at this stage I still prefer Whitehouse - it certainly isn't so 'extreme'. It works quite well as an album though - maybe a couple of the tracks might go on a little too long... some of the the percussion reminds me of early Photek - very tightly programmed tracks of nothing but drums. I think there is some doubt how much is played and how much is programmed, but what would I know... overall though I've been enjoying it.

I am the worst music critic in the world - sorry. I am fairly renowned amongst my few friends for making terrible comparisons no one else gets so approach the above with caution.

 

[mistersloane]

I really like it, but I'm a fanboy of them. It's a really, really good release. I want a T-shirt. Can't wait to see what Best does.

 

[Leo]

ok, you guys have convinced me, just ordered it. thanks!

 

[grizzleb]

New Cut Hands is absolutely buck wild. Fucking loving it. I find it quite intense even compared to the Whitehouse stuff.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Just listening now - pretty great stuff! Makes me think of a more tribal-sounding Neubauten.

 

[mistersloane]

New Cut Hands is absolutely buck wild. Fucking loving it. I find it quite intense even compared to the Whitehouse stuff.

Lol I was working to it today and thinking it was quite mellow. Eek.

I like the fact that he's tried to do 'funky' rhythms and epically failed - the Photek comparison is otm, it's that clunky but much simpler. It sounds like he's just banged away in a session room and then put some delay on it in Garageband lol.

It's not a million miles away from the programming on Asceticists - but just without them screaming over the top, or without the ridiculously amazing production. Kinda a bit Zoviet France-y, bit Controlled Bleeding. I always wanted them/him to do something like this. I think it's gonna be one of my favourites from this year.

Get Asceticists if you haven't heard it Ollie, it's amazing.

 

[Martin D]

From doing White Power music to Afro Noise, oh the irony.

 

[john eden]

I got the Afro Noise CD for xmas and I like it, it's not as amazing as I'd hoped but it is intense and I'd like to play it more.

Still a bit clinical, rather than "wild" I would say...

I see from Twitter that Martin Dust has run his copy through the shredder, lol.

 

[DannyL]

I heard this round a friend's house late last year, on a visit oop North. Interesting enough musically, at first, but the aesthetic makes my skin crawl. To quote from the Fact review:

As crucial to the afro noise aesthetic as the percussion and the electronics is an almost salacious preoccupation with the continent’s intense polarities of beauty and horror – to quote Bennett’s notes for Extreme Music From Africa, “the tyrants, the beautiful girls, the bizarre rituals, the tropical fruits, the pygmies, the guns, the mercenaries, the tribal wars, the unusual diseases, the abject poverty, the sumptuous riches, the widespread executions, the praetorian colonialists, the exotic wildlife.”

Isn't this really fucking horrible? To project some weird Joesph Conrad fantasies onto the continent? You read the above and wonder why he didn't just stick a picture of fucking Idi Amin on the cover.

I find it disappointing this bullshit is getting a free pass in the "alternative " music press.

 

[mistersloane]

I heard this round a friend's house late last year, on a visit oop North. Interesting enough musically, at first, but the aesthetic makes my skin crawl. To quote from the Fact review:

As crucial to the afro noise aesthetic as the percussion and the electronics is an almost salacious preoccupation with the continent’s intense polarities of beauty and horror – to quote Bennett’s notes for Extreme Music From Africa, “the tyrants, the beautiful girls, the bizarre rituals, the tropical fruits, the pygmies, the guns, the mercenaries, the tribal wars, the unusual diseases, the abject poverty, the sumptuous riches, the widespread executions, the praetorian colonialists, the exotic wildlife.”

Isn't this really fucking horrible? To project some weird Joesph Conrad fantasies onto the continent? You read the above and wonder why he didn't just stick a picture of fucking Idi Amin on the cover.

I find it disappointing this bullshit is getting a free pass in the "alternative " music press.

It was kinda his raison d'etre to wind people up, or was then, he's gone straight now. I wouldnt read anything into it, or I don't anyway.

 

[DannyL]

It was kinda his raison d'etre to wind people up, or was then, he's gone straight now. I wouldnt read anything into it, or I don't anyway.

When I heard the CD, I felt you could hear this in the music. His kind of fucked-up fantasy of dark Africa, rather than any deeper engagement, which was why I didn't like it. Didn't sound like there was much engagement with African music beyond picking up the polyrhythms. I can't help but "read into" something that is so completely loaded as a text.

From doing White Power music to Afro Noise, oh the irony.

I don't think he's progressed that far at all, really.

 

[DannyL]

Sorry man, but "don't read anything into it" really gets up my fucking nose, with regard to this. Maybe it's just the hangover talking but the uncritical reaction to this really irks me.

 

[DannyL]

Didn't sound like there was much engagement with African music beyond picking up the polyrhythms

I might be wrong on this. I recognise one of those tracks from the Fact Mix - the whispered song on the Burundi one is brillant. I've been listening to a lot of ethnographic recordings over the past year, and it makes you very conscious of issues around race, colonisation etc., the problematics of recording tribal cultures who might be dying out in part because of your presence there etc. Bennet seems to be totally ignoring all of this boring "context". What a tool.

 

[mistersloane]

Sorry should explain myself a bit better, in my experience all of the whitehouse gang are erudite, free thinking people, whose engagement with having to 'market' or even produce work - if you believe it's a calling - engages reactions in them of cynicism and disgust. It's this i think bennett is talking about, he's a very bright boy. It's a very full on way of saying he hates how africa is portrayed, i think. I dont have any doubts about his genuine interest in the music.

When i said dont think about it too much, its just cis i've talked this one to death with people. They're just clever, cynical guys.

 

[john eden]

Great stuff Danny.

I think it's wrong to say Bennett is on a wind up, or rather it's wrong to feel bad about being wound up by it all.

I'll have to check the sleevenotes for the album but it does seem like quite a cold update to previous "exotica" currents in industrial or whatever. Or happy clappy "world music".

 

[mistersloane]

Great stuff Danny.

I think it's wrong to say Bennett is on a wind up, or rather it's wrong to feel bad about being wound up by it all.

I'll have to check the sleevenotes for the album but it does seem like quite a cold update to previous "exotica" currents in industrial or whatever. Or happy clappy "world music".

I don't think it's wrong to be wound up by it, or to feel bad about being wound up about it. I just think it's a waste of time. There are better targets, and arguments.

I said I wouldn't read anything into it, I don't think it's worth the time. There are better targets - at that time I think you're right in him directly targeting the exotica trends, which are more pernicious, in my opinion.