Lets start with my favorite thing nowadays on boards, getting first to root of meaning of the word:
QuoteScience (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world. An older meaning still in use today is that of Aristotle, for whom scientific knowledge was a body of reliable knowledge that can be logically and rationally explained.
And if we're talking about experimental music, perhaps we could simply talk of experimental science?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_scienceTo me, it would seem that in the field of our pseudo music, the pseudo science dominates. And, that it simply operates in manners of tests & experiments, not really the conclusions. Science would be rather the form of alchemy.
One could say bands like Con-Dom, could be seen as scientific noise. The repeated references to Pawlows dogs, how the gigs and recordings over and over again prove the conditioned responses build in majority of listeners. It may not be only the sound itself, which might be topic of this, but I would guess this is much more valid approach than attempt to find some... ehm.. brown note!
To me, it's not necessary to call it "scientific". But I am pretty interested in effect of sound, merely as listening pleasure. What is the difference of hearing material what is limited to area of human hearing, compared to material what goes beyond the hearing. And perhaps compared to material which is restricted to highly compressed substitute audio, which only focuses on sound that is playable via laptop speakers. If material is played with accurate stereo image, with proper speakers, with proper volumes, how it affects the listener compared substitute what is just tiny fragment of the original sonic content?
I'm not sure, but I recall there was discussion about something what could be perhaps labeled as "concrete sound". Not to be confused with any other than the pure meaning of concrete: "capable of being perceived by the senses; not abstract or imaginary". This, being something, what merely by hearing, will give you idea of source, loudness, magnitude, etc. If you hear synthetic / "acousmatic sound", it may be anything. It's volume and power is defined by playback device. If you hear heavily manipulated and processed sound, you may hear huge metal junk crash, yet it sound artificial due simply usage of small objects and synthetic effect processors trying to imitate or create massive space.
With real concrete sounds, you will instantly connect it to something. When you hear car crash in Haters album, it is the pain of steel. You hear the screech of burning rubber, the collision, and the splinters of metal exploding to every direction. When you hear the dog barking and shotgun thundering in Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, it's like instant shivers from the visions of hostile rabid dog and the power of shotgun impact. Human voice being very easy to mention. You know what loud shouting sounds like compared to talk. Merely hearing electronic sounds doesn't deliver necessary illusion of volume, but depending if narration is spoken or shouted, it may result the feeling that electronics are loud as fuck, since you barely hear the shouted voice. Or that they must be quiet, since someone is able to whisper over the sound...
I don't know can you call it "scientific", but I'm 100% sure, that some of these artists are aware of things such as mentioned above, and they consciously choose something like that. They want to employ the sound that delivers distress and confusion .. or in other hand, the utmost joy like the fire crackles to pyromaniac listener. They may combined voice of child crying to dog barking and it delivers instantly more disturbing and uneasy listening than brutal wall of Big Muff crackles. They may use the sounds physically created, in ways that you will feel the magnitude of musical elements. Not the equipment. Not the processing, but the physical core of sound. Like difference of sledgehammer hitting the steel structure of huge boat. And not the couple screws rattling inside contact mic'ed tuna can, routed via reverb...
To me, one could call it scientific, since in the end, it's about the tests how you (as creator of sound also!) react on the sound. But at the same time it's to be understood it's pure pseudo science. It's perhaps more to connect with spirituality. Physical matter transforming into spirit.
I don't personally care much, when it transforms from pseudo- to utterly
pretentious. I don't like the pasted on rituals. I don't like excuses applied to material to justify utter boredom & lacking vision. But those are sometimes subjective issues.
