Good point! Cue Simon Reynold's chapter on Messthetics from RIUSA . . .
There are probably loads of examples of theorists first, musicians second . . . reminds me a bit of the thread on folks who were artists first, and musicians second . . .
kode 9 and spaceape album
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There are probably loads of examples of theorists first, musicians second . . . reminds me a bit of the thread on folks who were artists first, and musicians second . . .The Wire for me is too dry, not personal enough, not weird enough in the style of writing... needs more Penman rantings, even more Toop would be OK cos at least you can always recognise a Toop piece a mile off... in comparison to Blog writing at its best The Wire is just Mojo Magazine but with Derek Bailey instead of Jimmy Page...
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the undisputed truth
Banned
I can totally relate to wearing masks when representing ones music. I'ts easier to handle the rejection if you're not actually representing yourself. Talking of art critics answering their criticism with art reminds me of why i started making tunes. There was just so much crap around getting released i thought, hell i could do better then them so gave it a shot. The trouble is without an emotional investment to start with one can hardle blame the audience for not resonating the emotions in the final product, being that there are none
I missed the gig but my friend relayed a distinctly mediocre report, especially vis-a-vis the drummer. But I don't think this is so much a victory of theory over music, isn't it rather the more familiar case of fan-boy devotion leading to a certain degree of blinkeredness?
bruno
est malade
tate said:
great example.
and theory can also lead to fantastic 'impossible' projects, as in the utopian architecture of the 60s and 70s. buckminster fuller projected garden shed-sized domes and cities in the sky, the latter arguably no less important for being a chimera. now if he went on about his domes as mystical time portals or used the incestuous, solipsistic verbiage that passes for theory now to explain himself i think he would have been shunned, that's the trouble with language.
and you have the case of busoni
In 1907 he published his ''Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music,'' a work which predicted the course of 20-century music with almost psychic insight. Busoni pleaded for a music that would be utterly free: released from the bondage of rhythmic and structural norms, from the major and minor scale system, from distinctions between consonance and dissonance. He urged exploration of microtones and electronic techniques.
another artist guilty of not practising what he preached! and yet not applying your theory to your work doesen't invalidate the theory.
I wouldn't go that far, but I do think that Kode9 is maybe pushing his luck in setting out a theory of bass on the one hand and making bass-heavy dubstep on the other, and then asking people not to judge the latter against the former.
And I say that as someone who likes Kode9's stuff a lot - actually arguably the Kode9 material that most conforms to his theory is his least interesting material, b/c it's kinda hard to distinguish between these scientific investigations into bass and "bass fundamentalism" - surely these are inevitably the same thing, in practice if not in theory?
I guess maybe the notion of bass as this physically-impacting thing just doesn't interest me that much, or at least not in and of (and most of all <i>by</i>) itself. The old jungle whose bass really impressed me was the stuff that played with your nervous system almost as an afterthought in the process of doing something else. Like, in Back 2 Basics' "Horns For '94" when the bassline jumps around like a lazer zapping your internal organs, it's simultaneously hyper-physical and ultra-hooky.
The fact that all this chest-rattling bass eventually makes my chest sore (post multiple pneumothoraxes) might give me an ulterior motive though.
And I say that as someone who likes Kode9's stuff a lot - actually arguably the Kode9 material that most conforms to his theory is his least interesting material, b/c it's kinda hard to distinguish between these scientific investigations into bass and "bass fundamentalism" - surely these are inevitably the same thing, in practice if not in theory?
I guess maybe the notion of bass as this physically-impacting thing just doesn't interest me that much, or at least not in and of (and most of all <i>by</i>) itself. The old jungle whose bass really impressed me was the stuff that played with your nervous system almost as an afterthought in the process of doing something else. Like, in Back 2 Basics' "Horns For '94" when the bassline jumps around like a lazer zapping your internal organs, it's simultaneously hyper-physical and ultra-hooky.
The fact that all this chest-rattling bass eventually makes my chest sore (post multiple pneumothoraxes) might give me an ulterior motive though.
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Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Except Mojo is better...
Not really in total agreement here (I mean Junior Boys and Burial are at times inordinately funky- as funky as their source material in 2 step anyway- tho I can see some FSOL comparisons with Burial certainly in terms of background sonics) but the weird thing is that lots of these CCRU people were obsessed with classic era jungle, original 2step and grime as much as any of these things. I feel your argument here holds little water. None of the actual musicians are creating this music with the theory in mind. The interesting thing is the way that this theoretical discussion at present appears to cling onto stuff that is mostly non-theoretical in basis- rather than avant-classical or whatever, its post hardcore dance music which seems to obsess. I guess its easier to perhaps project interesting ideas onto, rather than something which is more rich in external reference points already...? Easier to impose your own interpretations when the author isn't coding them into the work itself?
OK, how about this for a question:
Doesn't Kode9's confession that he makes deliberate attempts to separate theory from practice just go to prove that much (if not all) of crit theory is in fact a complete load of bullshit?
My logic is this: If theory was in fact bringing genuine knowledge about the structures, mechanisms and systems at work in art and culture, then surely it would be helpful in the construction of cultural products. The very fact that Kode 9, a respected theoretician doesn't use any theory surely suggests that theory isn't very helpful, and therefore, erm, wrong. No doubt he's attempted it, and wasn't impressed by the results.
Now, I don't mean to attack anything here. I'm just starting to take tentative steps into a lot of these ideas myself, and am completely open to them. I'm genuinely curious if someone can come up with a reasonable answer here. Basically, I'd like to know if in studying such things, I can expect some useful insights that will aid my own ambitions, or whether I'll in fact be engaged in nothing more than an intellectual hand shandy. Which will probably be alright too.
Doesn't Kode9's confession that he makes deliberate attempts to separate theory from practice just go to prove that much (if not all) of crit theory is in fact a complete load of bullshit?
My logic is this: If theory was in fact bringing genuine knowledge about the structures, mechanisms and systems at work in art and culture, then surely it would be helpful in the construction of cultural products. The very fact that Kode 9, a respected theoretician doesn't use any theory surely suggests that theory isn't very helpful, and therefore, erm, wrong. No doubt he's attempted it, and wasn't impressed by the results.
Now, I don't mean to attack anything here. I'm just starting to take tentative steps into a lot of these ideas myself, and am completely open to them. I'm genuinely curious if someone can come up with a reasonable answer here. Basically, I'd like to know if in studying such things, I can expect some useful insights that will aid my own ambitions, or whether I'll in fact be engaged in nothing more than an intellectual hand shandy. Which will probably be alright too.
nomos
Administrator
Now you're being sillytartarsky said:
I just took that comment about keeping work and music separate to mean that his academic work doesn't focus specifically on dubstep but on a wider network of things, and that if he did make it all about dubstep it would kill the pleasure in both enterprises. There's obviously theory going on Hyperdub releases though (Let's distinguish between theory in the sense of invoking specific discourses, and theory in the sense of creating tracks as sonic-cultural homologies - e.g. Plasticman saying his music was the sound of life in Croydon. They're not the same thing, but not mutually exclusive). Kode9 has a track called 'Swarm' which calls up Ccru concepts** and Space Ape is clearly making specific theoretical references. He's just not filling us in on the whole narrative.
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mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
Yes, you can. It all depends on how you look at it. When discussing theory, you generally come across alot of people who have studied it in academia ( cultural studies, philosophy ) - or been in therapy - who have spent many years learning the language in order to be able to speak better with other people who have learnt the language, much as if you moved to Spain and learnt Spanish. Thus the seeming impenetrability of the world and the fear it induces in people. Academia is the biggest cult of them all.
I never went to university and read all of the above mentioned and many more of my own account, using them as I would poetry, or art of any sort, and I've found alot of psychoanalysis, cultural studies, philosophy and the occult to be profoudly stimulating in the the production of ideas THAT MAY BE THERE ANYWAY. It's very rare you read anyone who totally blows your mind, it's generally the manner in which they say it that does. All reading 'theory' does is open up the ideas in your head that you've already had, and allow you to muse on them for a bit. If you choose to implement that within your 'work', it's dependent on how rigid you want to be.
In my experience reading any form of theory has never 'lessened' my output, only enriched it, which is the usual argument, which I personally think is intellectual and class cowardice. How can you possibly beat them if you don't understand them?
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
And with regard to the Ccru and kode9, there's links to him all over the bloody place on the Ccru website, kode9's even designed some of it. It's not the theory I find problematic, it's the nepotism.
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
How can it be Nepotism when he's involved, clearly.
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
I'd agree, some of the stuff he's banging on about is very interesting indeed and I'll admit that I find Dubstep nights a reason to go back out to clubs, there's a spirituality and freshness that leads me to believe there is hope or maybe I've been hanging out with techno bores for too long
k-punk
Spectres of Mark
I wish it were!
This discussion is interesting, but I'd like to add one or two things...
The founding event of Ccru was definitely jungle. I read Nick Land's texts at exactly the time that I first heard jungle, and it wasn't a case of 'applying' the former to the latter; there seemed to be an uncanny convergence between the two. I knew nothing about Deleuze and Guattari, but I wanted to find out about them because of the way that Nick had remixed them (to be honest, actual D/G were a bit of a disappointment after encountering Nick's cybergothic darkside remixes first) - I was drawn in by the incantatory, rhythmic power of the prose, the way that language was broken down and re-combined, which seemed to have less to do with 'theory' per se than with the technojargon you'd see in cyberpunk or jungle. Ccru was about an attempt to force the academy to respond to sonics, not about positing an essential role for theory in mediating sound. No-one thought that jungle 'needed' theory; but we all thought theory had to take account of, to register, jungle. So there was an attempt to induce a becoming-sonics of theory (as I think Gek was suggesting upthread).
Now, I think the problem with this is that it is precisely anti-theory... It denied absolutely the traditionally-constituted role of theory, totally subordinating theory to the affects/FX. Remixology supplanted logic; narrative and argument were replaced by connectivity; sense was superceded by asignifying rhythm.
But I think this reached an impasse because writing is not sound - writing has a very different rhythm to sound, a slower tempo, and produces enagement in a different way. There's also a self-cancelling dimension to the enterprise: why read at all, why not just listen? I tried to argue this a while back on k-punk; it is the Deleuzian attempt to reach an immament flatline NOW, to write away writing itself, that produces an oddly delibidnizing, transcendent effect.
So now I would say - there's nothing wrong with theory or writing! Writing achieves immanence by precisely accepting its difference from what it is 'about'...
As to the Junior Boys 'exemplifiying my theories' --- it's not as if I had the concepts BEFORE I heard the album. The concept of 'nomadalgia' arose in response to the record. (And is an ANTI-D/G concept, positing nostalgia and travel sickness against their advocacy of nomadology.) I doubt there are critics who listen to records more times than I do before I write about them. I freely admit that immersing myself in the records is designed to produce a kind of delirium... I suppose some people are satisfied with so-called 'neutral' or 'objective' 'descriptions' of music; but I want to read about what images or concepts music produced in the listener, so that's what I try and produce when I write about pop.
Gek might be right about the fanboy thing, but I WANT critics to be fans, not musicologists or judges. Being a fan just means having made a certain kind of existential commitment after all.... I try to develop the auto-erotic aspect of writing about pop, where writing about it is partly an exercise in teaching yourself what you enjoy about it, and how to enjoy it more... (As for the live gig - I was genuinely blown away by how good they were. The out of time drum thing didn't bother me any more than the out of time drums of Burial bother me; for me the drums gave the live sound a 'depth of field' it might have lacked if the drums had been sequenced. For the record, there was someone behind me who was absolutely RAVING about the drums ... but he probably wasn't a 'classically trained musician', so he didn't know what he was talking about
...)Well that's it: you can't be critical about something without being emotionally connected to a topic - to understand the world you have to be involved with the world etc. There's a continuum between audience and subject, if you will.
I guess this is what separates a Lester Bangs, say, from your average cargo cult reviewer -> IMO
Good to have you back, Mark!
I guess this is what separates a Lester Bangs, say, from your average cargo cult reviewer -> IMO
Good to have you back, Mark!
the undisputed truth
Banned
Hope ? Hope in what ?