Was thinking that in thematic (artworks, titles, aesthetic) the genres are mostly concerned with negative emotions or negative perceptions of the world.
I think in this domain it overlaps with some metal idioms such as death metal, grind-core or black metal.
Thoughts?
To me, noise itself is usually a negative force---the opposite of meaning, the breach of structure, and so on. The negativity in content often reflects it because it helps create an artisitc result more capable of challenging/upending/exploiting social control structures.
i agree with balor, it is inherently negative, if just in like, a philosophical sense, deconstruction instead of construction, and so on. but maybe as people get more used to noise we will get more "positive" and upliftning noise, ala the new boyfriends? btw, i am totally behind that stuff, noise doesn't need to be angry, although i still prefer the dark stuff myself
Quote from: brutalist_tapes on February 11, 2024, 08:20:25 PMi agree with balor, it is inherently negative, if just in like, a philosophical sense, deconstruction instead of construction, and so on. but maybe as people get more used to noise we will get more "positive" and upliftning noise, ala the new boyfriends? btw, i am totally behind that stuff, noise doesn't need to be angry, although i still prefer the dark stuff myself
Maybe it's framing the term in a slightly different way, but I still think that The New Boyfriends is negative in the sense that it creates a space for freedom and to be joyous. And the creating of that space requires the breaking down of barriers to it.
Quote from: Balor/SS1535 on February 11, 2024, 09:05:33 PMQuote from: brutalist_tapes on February 11, 2024, 08:20:25 PMi agree with balor, it is inherently negative, if just in like, a philosophical sense, deconstruction instead of construction, and so on. but maybe as people get more used to noise we will get more "positive" and upliftning noise, ala the new boyfriends? btw, i am totally behind that stuff, noise doesn't need to be angry, although i still prefer the dark stuff myself
Maybe it's framing the term in a slightly different way, but I still think that The New Boyfriends is negative in the sense that it creates a space for freedom and to be joyous. And the creating of that space requires the breaking down of barriers to it.
that was exactly what i mean with being artistic and philosophical negative, you phrased it better than me. but still they are nice guys. but i also think there is some real dark negativity in noise, think atrax morgue, the approach where this music somehow fits in with the sickest desires.... i personally find that very interesting, but i also like the more philosophical and academic or so approach
I think it's possible to feel happy and excited about Harsh Noise, especially in a live setting. For me it's a kind of exaltation in some kind of destructive power.
As for Industrial, PE, etc - it's got to be negative, for mine. I'm prepared to believe there's positive examples of that stuff but I'm not interested in that. If I want positivity in sound I'll listen to other stuff.
I think it's a matter of who is defining "negativity" society's point of view or just the mundane term for things generally in discord? I like to think in power electronics/noise that there is re-layered sentiment in what is "negativity" I'd like to think it holds some merit to the mundane meaning, but also carries this ideal of rejection of morality to the point that "negativity" is just normal response, perhaps even by default to world standards. I like to think power electronics/noise is inherently nihilistic and of course that's just my view and I'm sure others have a different view in regards to the topic. I think there is a confusion that with "negativity" comes unhappiness and that's not the feeling I am getting, personally speaking. A great quote by Dr. Channard (Hellraiser II) just after becoming a fixture of Hell permanently...he says "and to think I hesitated" I think a moment like that says it all... I think we revel in negativity and are blind to it, it's the outside world that defines it as "negativity" more so I think.
Keep positivity out of noise.
I would consider it needs angle to consider... negative towards what?
If negativity expresses denial, disagreement, or refusal... it rarely does it towards noise. Noise itself may be the positive aspect of it?
I surely do not see noise I make as "negative". It deals with things that some may feel are representing the negative sides in society. Not always, but sometimes. Of course act of noise making or choice to do this, instead of living so called "ordinary life", is indeed refusal for norm of mainstream society. So in that way, yes, negative, but for me, very much positive.
As MikkoA wrote: negative toward what? From the perspective of bourgoise society industrial / noise sure is negative phenomenon: critical, observant and contrarian counterculture that doesn't conform to the ideals of mass culture.
Content wise it might be percieved "negative", but i think that notion is purely in the eye of beholder, so to speak. I believe that artist can approach the seemingly negative subject matter, i.e. human condition or societal decay, from the neutral position or from the position of outside observer etc. In this regard industrial and noise do not greatly differ from, lets say, expressionistic art. It can and will present the view on the state of affairs filtered thru the artists own hands, mind, soul, heart and worldviews, leaving the listener to make his own conclusions from it.
I personally do not find noise to be negative, and my favorite stuff I rather find life affirming, like the schimpfluc, haters or TNB stuff. I think this is a perception that many outsiders and new listeners experience while getting into it, part of it is artist and content, the other part is developing an ear that provides context and order to the sound.
Even stuff like PE like Slogun, Whitehouse etc usually makes me laugh (not in a dismissive way) but in the way Judas Priest, Candle mass or Bathory does, it's like posturing in a safe space and I think in the best cases the artist is aware of it, at worst I just sorta feel sad. I personally know that in my most negative and depressive moments I don't listen to anything at all, sometimes for months at a time. I feel the environmental sound itself produces something so much more bleak than anything being created could.
Negativity is a perception we as listeners/viewers throw upon something, be it the environment, a song, or fragment of. Such as a sample of kids on a playground, which could seem extremely unsettling with context removed. content, themes and messages are things the artist can express in their packaging that can move the listener to the perception or intent. But any act of creation even through the lense of destruction is ultimately a positive act.
Real destruction is wholly negative, your house burning down, an unintended car accident or a mass shooting. You can view them through an aesthetic lense as an outsider but these are different than the deconstruction of a filing cabinet durning and active act of recording.
More like weird & obscure, often contrarian or transgressive (if that word means anything anymore) but I don't really find the main force behind noise being negativity.
Quote from: Commander15 on February 14, 2024, 02:27:02 PMAs MikkoA wrote: negative toward what? From the perspective of bourgoise society industrial / noise sure is negative phenomenon: critical, observant and contrarian counterculture that doesn't conform to the ideals of mass culture.
Content wise it might be percieved "negative", but i think that notion is purely in the eye of beholder, so to speak. I believe that artist can approach the seemingly negative subject matter, i.e. human condition or societal decay, from the neutral position or from the position of outside observer etc. In this regard industrial and noise do not greatly differ from, lets say, expressionistic art. It can and will present the view on the state of affairs filtered thru the artists own hands, mind, soul, heart and worldviews, leaving the listener to make his own conclusions from it.
I agree with the "eye of the beholder" notion. The listener should always be able to formulate their own personal conclusions, based around their own specific experiences upon listening. Definitely an interesting multi dimensional perspective, one that should be embraced.
I don't find noise necessarily "negative". Noise I like usually feels cathartic and pleasant. I often feel that the images of filth, disease and suffering attached to noise releases are not related to how I feel about the sounds I experience.
Quote from: Moran on November 16, 2024, 08:10:51 AMI don't find noise necessarily "negative". Noise I like usually feels cathartic and pleasant. I often feel that the images of filth, disease and suffering attached to noise releases are not related to how I feel about the sounds I experience.
I can't say it better.
Quote from: Vermin Marvin on November 16, 2024, 05:09:04 PMQuote from: Stipsi on November 16, 2024, 11:18:50 AMQuote from: Moran on November 16, 2024, 08:10:51 AMI don't find noise necessarily "negative". Noise I like usually feels cathartic and pleasant. I often feel that the images of filth, disease and suffering attached to noise releases are not related to how I feel about the sounds I experience.
I can't say it better.
I can.
Love you Tero 🫶
Watch the Incapacitants movie & read the Rrron Lessard book, then think again. Noise can be a very joyful thing, "the true sound of love", as Emil Beaulieau put it. In this world of vile shit, I don't need more negativity from the stuff I listen to.
Quote from: Haare on November 19, 2024, 12:24:30 PMWatch the Incapacitants movie & read the Rrron Lessard book, then think again. Noise can be a very joyful thing, "the true sound of love", as Emil Beaulieau put it. In this world of vile shit, I don't need more negativity from the stuff I listen to.
Good points/examples. It also goes to show the importance also of distinguishing negativity as "negation" from negativity as "negative emotions"!
Definitely a lot of interesting perspectives on the matter, a lot of various ideas about the projections of negativity and certainly gets even more interesting from the listeners own interpretations as well.
Quote from: Haare on November 19, 2024, 12:24:30 PMWatch the Incapacitants movie & read the Rrron Lessard book, then think again. Noise can be a very joyful thing, "the true sound of love", as Emil Beaulieau put it. In this world of vile shit, I don't need more negativity from the stuff I listen to.
I think I may have written about it, perhaps in Finnish. I don't think "true sound of love" really excludes any topic - but I would understand love, not as depictions of romantic love, but noise artists dealing with things that he feels passionate about, that come out very naturally, things his mind and life revolves around. Some have a great interest and pleasure in something - be it ballerina shoes or decaying rural buildings... but it does not exclude things like photography of human corpses ready for mass grave, hah. Just the idea that noise should be something particular, something inherently dark is absolutely incorrect, but also would be foolish to think some of us would not absolute love images of tied up ladies and headless corpses and these may be called "negativity" only because other people feel that way.
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on November 20, 2024, 01:22:44 PMQuote from: Haare on November 19, 2024, 12:24:30 PMWatch the Incapacitants movie & read the Rrron Lessard book, then think again. Noise can be a very joyful thing, "the true sound of love", as Emil Beaulieau put it. In this world of vile shit, I don't need more negativity from the stuff I listen to.
I think I may have written about it, perhaps in Finnish. I don't think "true sound of love" really excludes any topic - but I would understand love, not as depictions of romantic love, but noise artists dealing with things that he feels passionate about, that come out very naturally, things his mind and life revolves around. Some have a great interest and pleasure in something - be it ballerina shoes or decaying rural buildings... but it does not exclude things like photography of human corpses ready for mass grave, hah. Just the idea that noise should be something particular, something inherently dark is absolutely incorrect, but also would be foolish to think some of us would not absolute love images of tied up ladies and headless corpses and these may be called "negativity" only because other people feel that way.
Haha indeed, a "love" for morbid curiosities.
On some level negativity equates with keeping it real. For a given value of real. I mean. Are we not alive, in this world. Okay then.
But all that goes out the window when the vibrations invade the earhole. At which point, it's just vibrations. To which one or another series of vaguely coherent notions may (or may not) be attached.
Knock yourself out.
If we talk about Noise\Industrial in general, then, as a rule, everything depends on the context in which the author puts his work and on the perception of a particular person.
Harsh Noise, as mentioned above, is quite flexible in this aspect and often you can change the cover, change the track names and get a completely different impression of the same material. Often, but of course not always. There are projects, in which the author uses nature sounds, such as grass rustling, wind sounds, etc., which are distorted later to unrecognizable extent. And what supposedly should sound like something life-affirming sounds aggressive for an unprepared listener, despite the fact that the source material is field recordings of nature, and on the cover instead of corpses and blood, for example, the same nature elements or a nice photo of the author. On the contrary - some Industrial, which is quite soft sounding, can be perceived as something sinister, due to the relevant design or concept.
In Death/Black metal you are still limited to certain themes, usually related to the dark aspects of the human psyche, or reality in general. But not always performers working in such genres pursue the purpose to glorify death in any of its manifestations, for example NSBM carries a "positive" message that death, destruction, etc. are necessary to achieve the "higher purpose", whatever it is expressed in. That is, all "negative" aspects serve to achieve a "good" for a certain type of people. Grindcore is not always about bursting skulls and guts, you can find a lot of politicized bands that are "positive" in that they highlight the problems of social inequality, fight, as they believe, for someone's rights, etc. But for a person who is not in the subject, it's all just a lot of noise with crazy screams that he want to stay away from :) And in that respect, all of the above genres are, of course, inherently negative.
Quote from: I. Rex on November 21, 2024, 06:50:17 PMIf we talk about Noise\Industrial in general, then, as a rule, everything depends on the context in which the author puts his work and on the perception of a particular person.
Harsh Noise, as mentioned above, is quite flexible in this aspect and often you can change the cover, change the track names and get a completely different impression of the same material. Often, but of course not always. There are projects, in which the author uses nature sounds, such as grass rustling, wind sounds, etc., which are distorted later to unrecognizable extent. And what supposedly should sound like something life-affirming sounds aggressive for an unprepared listener, despite the fact that the source material is field recordings of nature, and on the cover instead of corpses and blood, for example, the same nature elements or a nice photo of the author. On the contrary - some Industrial, which is quite soft sounding, can be perceived as something sinister, due to the relevant design or concept.
In Death/Black metal you are still limited to certain themes, usually related to the dark aspects of the human psyche, or reality in general. But not always performers working in such genres pursue the purpose to glorify death in any of its manifestations, for example NSBM carries a "positive" message that death, destruction, etc. are necessary to achieve the "higher purpose", whatever it is expressed in. That is, all "negative" aspects serve to achieve a "good" for a certain type of people. Grindcore is not always about bursting skulls and guts, you can find a lot of politicized bands that are "positive" in that they highlight the problems of social inequality, fight, as they believe, for someone's rights, etc. But for a person who is not in the subject, it's all just a lot of noise with crazy screams that he want to stay away from :) And in that respect, all of the above genres are, of course, inherently negative.
Interesting observation/perspective on death and black metal. I've always thought of death metal as simply just as an observation of "death", as if the band and or authors of genre are simply just putting fourth the grim details on display for the listener under the extreme imaginary or even sometimes stark realities of death as a whole down to the nitty gritty details of the entire scope of death and even sounds of a more extreme version of thrash metal, so it still lives within those confines of that type of counter culture. Black metal on the other hand feels more cathartic, especially when it comes to feelings of general misanthropy, I personally have always felt black metal to be a place of sanctification when it comes to such ideals. Growing up in Christian school until 6th grade and having Jesus be the prerequisite of every day mundane "life" got an instant backlash from me even as a child and in those days, which in turn would come with some unjust consequences for having such opinions, so black metal for me personally is a bit of sanctuary in anti religious thought, that I felt comforted in a way that I can trust, because all of my own feelings are invested with such notions against religion and it also gives the confidence to know that we are not alone, but we are a "legion" satanic pun intended, haha...I think there is some gratitude to be found for certain types of blasphemous expressions, it feels right and it feels just at times to a point of ecstasy. Putting goats heads upon stakes for live performance, giving an ode to everything against Christ...that feels exhilarating and very positive! There is a sense of positivity in what some those would call "evil" or "negative" that which only feeds more enlightenment to ingrained ideals that are commonly against organized religion. Religion in general has always felt to me like a form of terror and the only way to extinguish such terror is to override it with more terror. Satan metaphorical or metaphysical for some, never the less has been a great tool for black metal and for me personally has been merely just a weapon of blasphemous justification.
On another note I'd like for anyone who is remotely into black metal to do themselves a favor and to throughly check out Clandestine Blaze - Tranquility Of Death album, in my opinion and for whatever it's worth is a prime modern example of how black metal can be examined in a much more magnified, refined and matured version of maybe more modern ideas of misanthropy that relate more philosophically and really need more proper recognizing, maybe more than ever before and not to even mention the great music aside, because for me that album alone stands as an emotional testament within my own feelings inside of me and almost comes as a final conclusion or full circle in such a cathartic way. It brings almost a peace to a resolve in dealing with life, perhaps for those who's view of world and life in likeminded when it comes to the "end", perhaps that is my own interpretation of it, but think all black metal folk should give a listen and gather their own opinions, would be interesting to hear what other feelings on the matter and what they think. Thus, why I love black metal so much, it's the one genre where the world by and large could label it as "negative", but to the listener of such music, I'd say more often than not is the only true and real expression of freedom and sanctity from this world laid out in religious moral order that has influence even today still lingering.
Whitehouse is perhaps the peak example of mirth and jubilance within noise. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.
for what its worth - the track titles, stage setup, and general approach to most of my projects is purging negativity. its meant to be inherently depressive, but i think it may come off as something else to other people who are looking through a different lens. the last performance i did, i was told the sonic aspect was driving and inspiring which i have never considered. maybe i dont hit my mark - or maybe its all subjective. i dont know anything.
i guess merzbow is an easy example. all the vegan activism can be seen as positive or negative in whatever light you cast on it. it is a positive message, but also quite dismal if you break down the reasons for necessary activism.
Quote from: Cranial Blast on November 22, 2024, 04:13:04 AMso black metal for me personally is a bit of sanctuary in anti religious thought, that I felt comforted in a way that I can trust, because all of my own feelings are invested with such notions against religion
Yes, and, for example, Glen Benton from Deicide is very positive person in this aspect :)
Black / Death metal, again, can carry anti-religious message, glorifying Lucifer as a guiding star to spiritual freedom (
Lutomysl), or, quoting classic literature in texts to describe the tragedy of their people and hatred of the enemy (
Drudkh).
The classic image of Satan in these genres has been interpreted differently over the years. For some it is a kind of "absolute evil", the obsession with what brings destruction to all living things in this world, for others it is a symbol of the animal beginning in man (yes, the superiority of the flesh over the spirit, if you want), which is suppressed by social frameworks, religion, etc., and which should be, if not elevated to the absolute, then, at least, "equalized in rights" with morality. There is also the most interesting point of view that all world religions actually serve Satan, because the same Christianity is in fact a death cult, and thus the Devil is already maximally manifested in this reality and rules the world. So here we are back to the issue of context, talking about "positive" or "negative" aspects of genres.
Quote from: GenitalStigmata on November 22, 2024, 08:34:09 AMWhitehouse is perhaps the peak example of mirth and jubilance within noise. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.
Absolutely. If you look at the British creativity from the point of view of a sociopath, then yes, it's the most joyful music with lyrics about the most beautiful things in this world :) The specific sense of humor in PE is also a manifestation of "positive energy", for sure. Another thing is "positive" for whom.
Quote from: GenitalStigmata on November 22, 2024, 08:34:09 AMWhitehouse is perhaps the peak example of mirth and jubilance within noise. If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.
Neither do I. Just to be safe, you'd better suck my cock.
Not one to take risks here.
Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on November 20, 2024, 01:22:44 PMQuote from: Haare on November 19, 2024, 12:24:30 PMWatch the Incapacitants movie & read the Rrron Lessard book, then think again. Noise can be a very joyful thing, "the true sound of love", as Emil Beaulieau put it. In this world of vile shit, I don't need more negativity from the stuff I listen to.
I think I may have written about it, perhaps in Finnish. I don't think "true sound of love" really excludes any topic - but I would understand love, not as depictions of romantic love, but noise artists dealing with things that he feels passionate about, that come out very naturally, things his mind and life revolves around. Some have a great interest and pleasure in something - be it ballerina shoes or decaying rural buildings... but it does not exclude things like photography of human corpses ready for mass grave, hah. Just the idea that noise should be something particular, something inherently dark is absolutely incorrect, but also would be foolish to think some of us would not absolute love images of tied up ladies and headless corpses and these may be called "negativity" only because other people feel that way.
The real meaning of love is truly embodied by noise. Most noise artists create out of total respect, which is true love, not greed and not fame. The framework of noise is so wide it negates most people which is why the world of noise is so small. Many of the popular themes in noise are negative but purging energies of negativity keeps one grounded, like a battery or circuit which is a dualistic experience. Noise transcends positivity and negativity, it's more like an oscillation to me.