Quote from: urall on Today at 03:30:55 PMI agree there's seems to be less room for harsher/cruder noise coming from the 'scenes' i prefer to listen to in Belgium. The rare occasions i talk to someone in Belgium/Brussels about noise (outside the usual suspects like Dries and some others), not a lot of people have an idea who Sewer Election or Grunt or.. are This example just as an observation, not a judgement
This is another interesting point: although the noise and the sound art scene both share an interest in sound and try to push the boundries of what one can do with sound, they seem to have a different 'frame of reference'. You mention Sewer Election and Grunt, one could easily add all the names for example listed on the
'canon of power electronics' topic. Point is, where did you get your inspiration from? Who are your 'heros' so to speak. The people on this forum will have a more or less overlapping frame of reference, but as you mention some people that are into experimental music have never heard of some names you think are 'canonical'. They come from a different angle.
To refer back to the Club Moral WCN podcast: when asked what DDV and AMVK thought of the 'current noise scene', especially DDV didn't seem very enthousiastic, talking about how people just appear to be copying the pioneers of the 80s and 90s. What happened since then is pretty simple, noise/power electronics became a genre with certain innovative bands in the formative years inspiring new generations of artists who give their personal interpretation on the genre. DDV explains earlier that in his days there was no 'noise/industrial genre', I recently read a Merzbow interview where he said the same thing. Whereas some early groups like Club Moral and Throbbing Gristle originated from the broader art world, they were subsequently marginalized because they were 'fascists' or smth. They were driven further 'underground' so to speak and now this underground has become more autonomous and largely independent from the art world.
Anyway, what's funny is that, although when asked, DDV was very sceptical and critical about the current noise/industrial scene, he later sort of admits these are the people who 'get' what he is doing and understand what he stands for. He seemed very reluctant to do another performance within an art circuit, because there he keeps getting the same "wow that was really something 'special'" reactions, while he was much more enthousiastic about the reactions he got from the crowd at Tower Transmissions festival! haha.
Bottom line is, that over the years noise became an independent, autonomous genre and this goes back to what Duncan refered to as 'hyper genrification'. In wanting to establish itself as a genre, to gain credibiliy, noise had to differentiate itself from sound art, punk, metal, electronic music etc. This situation in Belgium is now that we have all these independent systems existing side-by-side instead of collaborating more with eachother, because obviously these 'exclusive' genre labels are just abstractions and completely ignore that music fans usually like more than one music style and would be open for crossovers (except metalheads, joke).
One more thing though about genres: I personally think genre labels are very helpful and also nessecary to make sense of the current diverse music palette, however I've always rejected the notion of being a 'metalhead' or 'noisehead' and being blind to everything outside of 'your genre'. I have (strong) preferences, but that doesn't mean you can't be open for other stuff.
Quote from: urall on Today at 03:30:55 PMThere are exceptions evidently, artists who are noise 'mainstream' like Pharmakon, Aaron Dilloway, etc.. more people are aware of or are interested in.
This is also something I want to bring up, firstly indeed the Pharmakon gig earlier in May attracted a considerable crowd and people seemed to be really on board with it. More striking however, there was a Merzbow - Iggor Cavalera - Eraldo Bernocchi show in September in Brussels, Botanique. I was a few minutes late due to circumstances and upon arriving at the venue I was really amazed that the largest space in Botanique was completely filled and I had to squeeze myself somewhere in the corner where the sound was horrible. Still an amazing gig though, but who are all these people all of the sudden so interested in noise? haha.
Quote from: urall on Today at 03:30:55 PMLast year i mailed 10 venues/spaces in Brussels and i got maybe 2 replies saying they weren't interested in doing something together, the rest didn't even bother.
This is pretty sad, definitely not very encouraging for people who want to organize noise gigs... I guess Dries talked about similar experiences above. I wonder why they don't like the idea of doing a noise show? Are they afraid not enough people will show up?
