Marking Your Own/Surrounding Person/Territory In Culture (MYOPIC to MYSTIC)

Started by theotherjohn, September 27, 2020, 07:05:38 PM

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NaturalOrthodoxy

Excellent thread, and I'll read more deeply when I have more time later on. But while I'm eager to contribute before starting work I'll say this - I find it funny that we're discussing the idea we could have "missed the boat" culturally because we don't tend to have outward identifiers or behavioural patterns. I quite like that your average noise/PE fan is "undercover" so to speak. I mean obviously you put aside people who have harsh industrial looking haircuts or wear all black all the time as a statement, but your average harsh head could look like anyone at all, and come from any walk of life. Dom Fernow said in the last Noisextra that noise is "leaving something behind", which is why I find elitism laughable in this genre. none of us went straight to listening to Incaps or GO. We all had some lame musical heritage or other. My musical revelation was hearing Marilyn Manson as a young teen. I'm pretty sure someone else on this forum said that they came to industrial in a round about way from 80s synthpop like Yazoo!

In short, your average noise freak is like a plain clothes police officer, operating under the radar, and I like that.

JLIAT


<RANT>

Quote from: Zeno Marx on October 01, 2020, 06:44:10 PM
When things head in the direction of economics and further reach/bigger presence, though I believe the intent was to discuss the development of noise culture outside of those things, I'm always taken back to the rather heated argument on the ol' Tumorlist, propelled by its moderator Phil Easter (Stone Glass Steel, Iron Halo Device, Malignant Records graphic designer).  He REALLY pushed for noise/industrial culture to make it big, like Graeme Revell.  To cash in on the skill and craftsmanship and value of this music, but it was significantly based on the artists getting paid what he felt they deserved.  So everyone could make a living...a good living...which could only be a positive thing in his eyes, that they could dedicate more time, with better equipment and means, to their art. 

Quote
Wolf Eyes' John Olson Says Noise Music Is Over: "Completely, 100 Percent"


Is Wolf Eyes slowly becoming a rock band?

We've always been a rock band. Now we're what i call a trip metal band.

And at the same time you're playing trip metal, a great majority of what once constituted the noise scene has started playing one form or another of electronic dance music.

A lot of these cats digging into the techno trend don't seem to be too-well versed in the history of dance music and that culture. So what they're coming out with is on the wrong side of naive and amateur. It seems like a lame attempt to get more people to gigs. socialize the music instead of keeping it alien and abstract.

Is noise over?

Completely, 100 percent. That's part of why I'm quitting the label. All the categories, everything has run its course. The whole solo culture of it has invented a million people playing by themselves trying to be geniuses. You're getting a million one-way conversations.

QuoteI threw all my past music career in the garbage. There was no longer any need for concepts like 'career' and 'skill'. I stopped playing music and went in search of an alternative.

I really dont understand those in this thread who want to make noise into nothing more than a commercial product. "You're getting a million one-way conversations." YES, precisely!
QuoteBeyond the rupture of the economic conditions of music, composition is revealed as the demand for a truly different system of organisation, a network within which a different kind of music and different social relations can arise. A music produced by each individual for himself, for pleasure outside of meaning, usage and exchange." (Jacques Atali in "Noise The Political Economy of Music" p. 137.)

that is why noise was or can be so different to music. You dont get blackbirds going to concerts, they all sing. Stand outside a Taylor Swift concert or Justin Biber and you will see 'merch' being sold, or sad 60 year olds outside a Yes concert.

Punk was typified by its rejection of prog rock, learn three chords, form a band and make punk music...it was never about "skill".

However Noise (not Noise Music USA please buy this stuff and make me rich) might be considered as a minor musical genre which needs promoting... why? Well maybe those who think so might have got it wrong? Music has been defined as organised sound, and noise as the very opposite. And what about "art" or should I say "Art" - personal expression, well no, mainly about expression of 'truth', the 'truth'... here one can see why and how in the USA many got noise wrong. Why the founders got it right, i.e. as anti art, as a exposure of the nature of (human) existence... of the revelation of sound AS OPPOSED TO MUSIC. As music the decadent opium of and for the masses.
Noise for many humans is unwanted sound, a by product of motorways and factories, aircraft etc.  but in reality noise is just the sound of stuff, of the waves, of wind, of the universe. Storms are noisy, and Awesome, and real, and unless you believe otherwise not angry gods expressing themselves. i.e. made without 'skill' not for pleasure of commercial gain.

So we have 'music' on one side, a fairly insignificant phenomena in the cosmos, and 'noise' the actual sound of the cosmos. So why is noise so much more than music is that it expresses reality as it is without the human perspective, and all that goes with that.

Noise made by humans as a rejection, as absolute nihilism – not Mr Olson 's rock band...

Here is the philosophical equivalent, which I was censored for posting on noise wiki, obviously those there are very talented artists.... its about nothing, boredom and angst, not about stickers and T shirts... and when expressed in sound, well noise, HNW ... HN...

Nothing: Some notes taken from Heidegger's (German Nazi) What is Metaphysics?
 
The proper study of a subject is a Science. Each science is specific.
 It studies its subject and nothing else.
 What this nothing is, it ignores.
 Yet when it seeks its essence, what it is, it needs this nothing, what it is not.
 
So.
 
What is this nothing?
The above question deprives itself of its 'Nothing'
 The IS (BEING, THING-ING) deprives the NOTHING.
 
Thinking is always about something. How then can we think about nothing.
 This is logical, must this logic stop us?
 Well logic uses negation!
 Is nothing part of logic's negation? Or is negation part of this nothing.
 
Premise: Nothing is more 'original', foundational than negation.
 
Then this nothing is essential to logic's negation.
 If we question this nothing, we must be able to encounter it.
 "Nothing is the complete negation of the totality of beings."
 How then can we know this nothing if we cannot know this complete totality of beings?
 The totality of beings is the whole, undifferentiated A Unity.
 
Boredom. We can be bored with a thing.
 
We can be bored with everything, a profound boredom. Nothing can present itself as not being boring. (how many of you into noise have been here? I mean HNW IS BORING)
 
This boredom is bored with the Whole, the undifferentiated unity, the totality if beings. (things).
 This totality conceals the nothing we seek.
 
Can we experience this nothing in the face of this experience of the whole.
 
Yes – in profound anxiety. (familiar?)
 
Anxiety with what, in particular.
 With nothing in particular, with nothing, with anxiety of the whole.
 
This reveals the nothing.
 In profound anxiety we experience the nothing.
 
This doesn't annihilate being as a whole.
 
This nothing annihilates itself, we experience this, and so it reveals fully beings as such.
Beings as such not from our perspective but from the perspective of nothing.
Beings as they are - strange – different....
 
Only from this ground of nothing can we see the essence of being.
 
To BE, is to be held over into this nothing. To be there, Dasein. Authentic 'Being'. !!!!!!!!
 
This is transcendence, to be above all.
 
The revelation of nothing = no selfhood, but experience of nothing and so of freedom.
 
This opening of being to nothing is rare.
 
We normally bother with trivial particulars day to day.
 Superficial. (Pop / Rock Music.. Shopping Malls and HMV...)
 
Nothing then permeates metaphysics, and metaphysics is the knowing of the underlying and foundation of reality. (i.e. the dreadful chaos of the cosmos = NOISE)

As most wont have bothered this far.. i'll add another German's thoughts on this...
Quote

And do you know what "the world" is to me? Shall I show it to you in my
mirror? This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end;
a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller,
that does not expend itself but only transforms itself; as a whole, of
unalterable size, a household without expenses or losses, but likewise
without increase or income; enclosed by "nothingness" as by a boundary;
not something blurry or wasted, not something endlessly extended, but
set in a definite space as a definite force, and not a sphere that might
be "empty" here or there, but rather as force throughout, as a play of
forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many, increasing
here and at the same time decreasing there; a sea of forces flowing and
rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with
tremendous years of recurrence, with an ebb and a flood of its forms;
out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the
stillest, most rigid, coldest forms toward the hottest, most turbulent,
most self-contradictory, and then again returning home to the simple out
of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of
concord, still affirming itself in this uniformity of its courses and
its years, blessing itself as that which must return eternally, as a
becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness: this, my
Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating, the eternally self-
destroying, this mystery world of the twofold voluptuous delight, my
"beyond good and evil," without goal, unless the joy of the circle is
itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward
itself--do you want a name for this world? A solution for all its
riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most
intrepid, most midnightly men?-- This world is the will to power--and
nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power--and
nothing besides!
 

I could say IMO (which obviously the above is not) or I hope i've not offened- but maybe offence, disturbance in those who are offened by unwanted stuff, is something for them to ponder. I never got noise, as music.

[/RANT]

FreakAnimalFinland

Quote from: theotherjohn on September 27, 2020, 07:05:38 PM
Of course, there must be much more to noise and PE culture than stickers and t-shirts for spreading a message beyond the music or project (not that they are to be completely discounted methods!), so please feel free to list examples here - maybe consider what the intent and outcomes of such a project (and their audience) using such a medium is, and also what makes it unique to the "spirit" of noise/PE compared to another subculture? Whether it's the common or mass-manufactered (pins, totebags, hoodies, patches, posters/flyers, clothing lines), more limited/DIY efforts (fan clubs, graffiti, original artwork, handwritten letters, detritus from a recording session), audiovisual methods (non-official concerts/bootlegs, unedited recording samples/stems, radio shows/podcasts/social media etc), or even the truly bizarre or unusual (memes, cults, rituals, tattoos/body mod, naming your firstborn after a noise project etc), all are worthy of discussion.

I am personally quite bored with the notions of "promotion" or "PR" lurking into noise. Some say it may be hypocrite talking, when label puts out releases, sends out promo mails, occasionally uploads tracks seemingly for nothing else than promotional purposes etc etc.. Yep, I know. It is difficult subject. Nothing like that was originally *planned*. Personal passions slowly mutate into daily work. Projects that existed without external motivator, becomes driven by more focused idea of making album that is presented for "audience".

Nevertheless, what I am turned off, is that I always considered noise to be in opposition of commercial mainstream culture. It would not have to be antithesis in every aspect of it, since same formats, same transportation, same venues, etc may be used. Yet it feels that many things that used to set the industrial noise apart from mainstream culture has been blurred. And furthermore, it is not like underground would have penetrated the mainstream. Somehow corrupted, infiltrated and abused it for its own advantages, but exactly opposite!

Ideas of special releases would be equal to bubblegum packages, rather than piece of art seeking to have effect on person experiencing it. Consumerism being on level that you just absolutely can not justify yet another tote bag and shirt being published with anything else than admitting what it is. Consumerism.

I have friends who have created utterly obsessive dislike for band clothing. I am not like that. Band shirts are basically 90% of what I wear. Yet I see the level of dislike when people become like walking billboards. I absolute loathe the popularity of things like brand clothes - especially in context of underground music. I simply do not get the obsession to be advertisers, walking billboard street team of Adidas, vans or whatever.

So, when topic mentions:
Quote from: theotherjohn on September 27, 2020, 07:05:38 PM
merchandise, promotion, advertising, propaganda, signals/symbols, ephemera and other material/psychological aspects that help spread a project's name, ideas or message - both to those "in the know", as well as to potential outsiders.

I am totally in opposition of "noise branding". Of course one may say you will be known for something regardless do you want it or not. That's fine. What I can not stand, is the process of contemporary branding process. Where even moderately positive words like propaganda, signals, symbols, and such are actually merely excuses used in process of branding.

This leads to questions like some already mentioned. Like what noise needs from "outside world" that it would be good to grow, spread wider? I am in all favor of a lot of currently transgressive and "underground" ideas and aesthetics to reach more people, but generally it would be good if it happens in terms of what is good in noise. Not that noise is branded and commercialized to fit the needs of consumer society. When you got bags full of unused patches and stickers, pins piling up in containers, it is almost like caricature of what underground could be.

So when there is a process of attempting to have wider reach for people, there is all the promotion, advertising, spreading name of project - I tend to ask... for what reason? I'd prefer to read good interview. I would prefer to hear what it is that artists is looking for to express. I am fine with just creating kick-ass noise that satisfies the thirst for hearing such sound. Generally I would hope and desire for more. That there is something more to it, some alternative, displaying the true heritage of noise where is was most definitely just another style of music, that follows the same logic and purpose as learned from pop culture.


So, absolute yes for reaching more people. Hesitant no thanks, if it happens with watering down art form to be nothing else but one shallow side note on pop culture.
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net

Zeno Marx

Quote from: JLIAT on October 02, 2020, 11:51:41 AM
I really dont understand those in this thread who want to make noise into nothing more than a commercial product. "You're getting a million one-way conversations." YES, precisely!
I think some of this, for some people, can be explained pretty easily.  When arguing with Mr.Easter, for example, I seem to remember thinking that not only was he an outsider in an industrial/noise culture sense, but he was also an outsider to DIY/underground culture that **I** associate with punk and metal.  You know, the greasers.  Not putting that on a pedestal, either.  I simply got the impression, if memory serves, that he didn't come from that angle, so "selling out" was of no concern or no considerable negative consequence to his perspective.  They say the same thing about people who grew up in the social media age, that because they're being sold to 24/7 --and not only by corporations and business, but even by their own friends and all the people they follow-- that the idea of "selling out" makes no sense to them.  They consider themselves a product themselves.  It's like a foreign concept to think of consumerism and commercialization as negative.

I'm not on this side a bit, and I'm also not attempting to be the devil's advocate.
"the overindulgent machines were their children"
I only buy vinyl, d00ds.

JLIAT

Quote from: Zeno Marx on October 02, 2020, 05:44:03 PM
Quote from: JLIAT on October 02, 2020, 11:51:41 AM
I really dont understand those in this thread who want to make noise into nothing more than a commercial product. "You're getting a million one-way conversations." YES, precisely!
I think some of this, for some people, can be explained pretty easily.  When arguing with Mr.Easter, for example, I seem to remember thinking that not only was he an outsider in an industrial/noise culture sense, but he was also an outsider to DIY/underground culture that **I** associate with punk and metal.
....
I'm not on this side a bit, and I'm also not attempting to be the devil's advocate.

I'm not aware of the argument with Mr Easter...  Ok so many now into these 3 different genres Industrial / PE/ HN HNW might have come via the punk / metal route, but they came into these genres, which were already established and which had little or no origin in them, or in fact in certain cases  "music".

Maybe there is an "DIY/underground culture"  associated with punk and metal. - but both were very mainstream popular music genres, and I cant see how then can such a scene be underground "underground, is a term to describe various alternative cultures which either consider themselves different from the mainstream of society and culture, or are considered so by others.  " Punk topped the UK charts as did Metal. So how is it underground?  Punk and metal were mainstream, both taught to degree level in many universities....

Throbbing Gristle formed in 75, (contemporaneous with punk), whose origins was Fluxus & the prostitution exhibition at the ICA, COUM Transmissions who operated in the UK from 1969 through to 1976. As I said Bennett cites Yoko Ono and De Sade, is critical of rock bands, guitars and punk, formed Whitehouse in 80.  Those discovering Noise et al who think its an extension or development from punk and metal as far as i'm aware are simply wrong. It may have been their route into noise...OK, fine, but that is no account of noise's development. There might be some 'scene' which has been established in the USA? which relates / conflates noise, PE and Industrial with a DIY culture of Punk and Rock, fine, but I cant see it has anything to do with these genres origins or motivations.  Nothing particularly wrong with that other than missing the point that noise is not some minor genre of popular music which needs promotion, and thinking it has anything to do with human skill and talent is equally mistaken.

holy ghost

Just so we're crystal clear here you're..... asking for an explanation on how punk and metal could be considered part of the DIY/underground?

JLIAT

Quote from: holy ghost on October 02, 2020, 07:23:14 PM
Just so we're crystal clear here you're..... asking for an explanation on how punk and metal could be considered part of the DIY/underground?

No - i'm saying in the terms of what an underground scene is,  punk / metal being mainstream cant be, if any underground scene these days exists, which i doubt.

And that the origins of noise and its 'aesthetics' nothing to do with Punk or Metal.

holy ghost

Trent Reznor and NIN are huge and sell out stadiums so by your definition industrial and noise can't be considered underground either......

Zeno Marx

Quote from: JLIAT on October 02, 2020, 06:58:31 PM
Those discovering Noise et al who think its an extension or development from punk and metal as far as i'm aware are simply wrong. It may have been their route into noise...OK, fine, but that is no account of noise's development. There might be some 'scene' which has been established in the USA? which relates / conflates noise, PE and Industrial with a DIY culture of Punk and Rock, fine, but I cant see it has anything to do with these genres origins or motivations.  Nothing particularly wrong with that other than missing the point that noise is not some minor genre of popular music which needs promotion, and thinking it has anything to do with human skill and talent is equally mistaken.
I definitely don't think it is an "extension", though for some, it arguably could be, thus it could also arguably be for some a developed thing.  I also don't think this is a USA thing.  In the 80s, Japanese punks and thrashers were messing with noise and industrialism.  I hope I'm not missing your point here.
"the overindulgent machines were their children"
I only buy vinyl, d00ds.

JLIAT

Quote from: holy ghost on October 02, 2020, 07:52:08 PM
Trent Reznor and NIN are huge and sell out stadiums so by your definition industrial and noise can't be considered underground either......

The definition was not mine but wiki, which gives NIN as Industrial rock industrial alternative rock electronic rock industrial metal dark ambient... and sure by the late 80s Industrial which began in what could be considered as an underground scene in the mid 70s had exerted a wider influence.  And i think noise - Jap Noise... had some significant performances in venues such as The Royal Festival Hall.

The avant garde gets (or got) subsumed into the common place. But given the Wiki definition above - it uses the term " alternative rock " alternative to what?  Like the term 'experimental' - its become just a tag.


JLIAT

Quote from: Zeno Marx on October 02, 2020, 08:03:05 PM
Quote from: JLIAT on October 02, 2020, 06:58:31 PM
Those discovering Noise et al who think its an extension or development from punk and metal as far as i'm aware are simply wrong. It may have been their route into noise...OK, fine, but that is no account of noise's development. There might be some 'scene' which has been established in the USA? which relates / conflates noise, PE and Industrial with a DIY culture of Punk and Rock, fine, but I cant see it has anything to do with these genres origins or motivations.  Nothing particularly wrong with that other than missing the point that noise is not some minor genre of popular music which needs promotion, and thinking it has anything to do with human skill and talent is equally mistaken.
I definitely don't think it is an "extension", though for some, it arguably could be, thus it could also arguably be for some a developed thing.  I also don't think this is a USA thing.  In the 80s, Japanese punks and thrashers were messing with noise and industrialism.  I hope I'm not missing your point here.

Its not that noise hasn't been used in music, The 1812 uses real cannons, 'I want You' on Abbey Road uses white noise...

My point is that noise, HN HNW as being different from other music, it can carry no message, it requires no human skills... it can be such that deliberate or accidental, and the results carry no clue, such that the term 'music' is difficult.

I mean fire up audacity, use the generate white noise, then apply Bass Boost freq 500, boost 30 and you have HNW. I just did, what does it mean, what is it that makes it significant?





holy ghost

Back on topic of "should noise be bigger?" I feel like in 2020 noise is the biggest it's ever been. I'm trying to put my finger on why, but you have Troniks selling out of CDs in a few days, deluxe reissues coming at you faster than you can swing a dead cat around, multiple podcasts, zines and tons of interest/acceptance in this stuff. Is this just me or has noise reached a level of acceptance different from even a few years ago?

KDH

Quote from: JLIAT on October 02, 2020, 08:31:21 PM
My point is that noise, HN HNW as being different from other music, it can carry no message, it requires no human skills...
I could swear just yesterday I listened to a beautifully and humanly skillful and meaningful noise tape multiple times on repeat.

W.K.

Quote from: holy ghost on October 02, 2020, 09:29:46 PM
Back on topic of "should noise be bigger?" I feel like in 2020 noise is the biggest it's ever been. I'm trying to put my finger on why, but you have Troniks selling out of CDs in a few days, deluxe reissues coming at you faster than you can swing a dead cat around, multiple podcasts, zines and tons of interest/acceptance in this stuff. Is this just me or has noise reached a level of acceptance different from even a few years ago?

I wanted to type a whole lot of words about how much more industrial techno has become for the last few (lets say 10, 15) years, even after the Hands and Ant-Zen years, but then I was thinking old hardcore / gabber labels where also quite industrial in their own way and I could be sitting here all evening spending my night convincing people that are already convinced, or will never be convinced so before anyone is going to be bored me rambling about techno on a noise forum I just going to leave the first paragraph:

'How much I dislike JLIAT posts, he does have a point in how one 'sees' noise and industrial, how people (want to) see the narrative of a genre, the scene or people involved in it and how much he or she is willing to diverge to other genre's or artists that are related or have crossovers in sound and theme, but are obviously different and not part of the traditional noise or industrial scene. Or what someone wants to identify with, because after all, noise can be as much music as a cultural identification. Same with this forum, is it a noise forum? Yes, obviously, but even then it only attracts a narrow band of all noise listeners worldwide, so everyone will be in some way oblivious what the other will see'

In the end, we are all just a bunch of idiosyncratic weirdos, of course there is no way to be marketable to a bigger audience.   
Straight murkin' riddim blud, absolute vile gash

FreakAnimalFinland

Quote from: holy ghost on October 02, 2020, 09:29:46 PM
Back on topic of "should noise be bigger?" I feel like in 2020 noise is the biggest it's ever been. I'm trying to put my finger on why, but you have Troniks selling out of CDs in a few days, deluxe reissues coming at you faster than you can swing a dead cat around, multiple podcasts, zines and tons of interest/acceptance in this stuff. Is this just me or has noise reached a level of acceptance different from even a few years ago?

I think releases selling out are not so good indicator, unless you know how big editions are. I think a lot of Troniks CD's were like... 200. Sometimes even less! I recall some years ago those White Gold CD's being 150 or so?! When Troniks was doing ltd 100 -200 LP's back in the day, they would also sell in blink of an eye. Now that one releases absolutely classic bands in small edition, divided to couple labels, I would assume it is not sign of growing popularity. Just a fact that CCCC or Dead Body Love are so good, they can move small edition fast.

I think zines has suffered a bit from lack of distribution? Considering that a lot of guys mainly sell via discogs, and there are not that many "old style" distributors who would carry zines in bigger quantities. Postage is becoming so annoying that its hard to keep price good enough compared to content of zine...

Podcast format - I have no idea how many people listen, but it is thousand(s) for more established ones. I think format would allow a lot potential, for more makers to do things. Now that Harsh Truths is going to hiatus, it is mostly Noisextra what we have? So popularity of podcast in general is hard to estimate if there is one to follow?

We have talked about this with some friends, and in Finland, which is certainly not comparable to many other countries, noise may have unusually big popularity. it may not always correlate with sales or audience at gigs, but at least most people involved in "underground music" are familiar that there exists things such as noise or power electronics. Same for artists.

In finland, it was already some years ago when PE bands played in biggest metal festivals, interviews in radio and TV, and such. I think visibility may be good if stuff is something people can handle. Finn PE is something that may be counterproductive to be too visible, haha...  This is something that may be worth to note in discussion of "popularity". In what ways it is counterproductive for artist as well as probably even genre. Again, speaking of what I see other people say, how in hindsight they feel that they were nothing but prank on stage. Just gimmick to somewhat amuse or amaze people, instead of... taken seriously for what they do. Not talking about shitting on stage on rubber mask type of seriousness, but that pure noise in itself, when attempted to popularize/normalize, seems like it may just.... go to waste.
E-mail: fanimal +a+ cfprod,com
MAGAZINE: http://www.special-interests.net
LABEL / DISTRIBUTION: FREAK ANIMAL http://www.nhfastore.net