Re: listening experiences, I suppose it's a bit like eating fine food off a paper plate, or drinking good whiskey out of a plastic cup... you're still enjoying the same thing, but the presentation or the receptacle feels "improper" somehow to the value/standards/privilege bestowed upon the experience. Of course, part of what should make Noise unique is that it should go largely against these fetishistic constraints, but with the passing of time it maybe has just become yet another collectible and commodified genre with its valuable trinklets. Most likely, that's due to it having such a limited audience/budget/availability of resources in the first place? And yet, the ubiquitous tools of this early culture like the C90 tape and the xerox machine (or more everyday objects like tin cans, chicken wire or pigs' ears) should mean that anyone could effectively assemble their own releases, using what is available at that given time. That's not discounting the sound aspect of the Noise itself with others blatantly borrowing or stealing other people' sounds to add to their own releases, and thus disrupting the importance of the Artist as sole creator. Thus, all noise releases should unselfishly just make up a small part of the larger body of Noise, which is the great work that deserves celebration. Noise as a Cathedral?
To get back to personal preferences, I do find it disconcerting that if I do listen to Noise via digital means, there is an overwhelming sense of distance and distraction involved. There is a level of sameness to looking at artwork via a screen that has multiple other functions not related to Noise or music surrounding it, and said artwork that's included with a release fits nicely into the same uniform size of a square thumbnail in the same place on the screen (you can thank the iPod for this commodity conformity). Similarly, there is too much ease with how I can quickly skip or scrub through a track on Bandcamp for example, or see the loud or quiet parts of a track through its waveform on Soundcloud (again, the iPod resulted in single tracks taking precedence over albums). The waveform aspect surely has had an effect with how people record something these days too; no more just pressing 'record' on a tape player, hoping for the best until you press 'stop' and then listening back to the results (or like with analog photography, using up a roll of film and then processing it to see how the photos turned out). It becomes more analytical than anything, like I'm watching jagged lines of prices on the stock exchange and seeing when something sold high or low. This level of pre-selection involved with digital means results in a search for ultra perfection; an ironic counterpart to the overabundance provided by unlimited digital resources that are not constained by older limitations like recording mediums by the minute, or recording studio time by the hour, or records or tape runs by the pound/kilogram or cubic yard/metre.
Which is why, personally, I prefer to experience Noise in a live setting - either watching/listening to it being made or making it myself with hands on equipment, or via a medium where the concept of duration is removed or out of your control. You don't know where it's going to go and you have no preconceived notions of how long is left (either by a reminder of what minutes/seconds have passed or are left, or what 'track' is now playing). Your hands aren't on a computer mouse or a keyboard, or your thumb resting on a phone's screen or a remote control. You're not watching the tape heads spin smaller or larger (with the concern of the tape snapping), or the needle move ever closer to the label (with the concern of it bouncing or skipping), or the CD/phone/computer display show the track and time passed or left (with the concern of getting an obtrusive notification). It's just the Noise and you're as present in the moment as you can possibly be.
