PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

[eyestrain]

Peterson, what is your definition of music concrete?  You've piqued my interest, and I'm not finding anyone else calling Remnants or Shredded Nerve music concrete.  Where would you start with each of these projects?

I'd say Shredded Nerve is not too distant from many works by Aaron Dilloway, minus the quietness of many of Dilloway's tracks. SN gets a little more hectic, noisy, but as Peterson said, not true noise.

There will be a dedicated mini-issue of Eyestrain coming out in the next month focusing solely on Justin's work as Shredded Nerve - reviews of all works, a review of collaborative performance with Pleasure Island, as well as an interview. PI is also working out a cover image for extra impact/appropriateness.

SN's my favorite "newcomer" in 2014. 6 stellar releases thus far and plenty more on the way.

[eyestrain]

Sshe Retina Stimulants - Krionika Soshiki (Slaughter Prod./Urashima): Haven't heard too many SsRS albums that really caught me, so I was unsure about this one getting the Urashima treatment. After a few listens, I'd conclude that this is totally justified! A real beauty of a record, and not the sort of wall-ish atmosphere of his early works or the modular atmosphere of his current works. There's a real nice friction of beauty & hideousness. Lush synth lines are buried under piercing (not quite Prurient level) feedback mounds. The appendages are maybe a little more harsh and simple-minded, but the inner part of the album (A and B sides) are something like the recent Neutral LP without the The Shadow Ring-type elements. (Best comparison I can make...)

Might I also mention, in regards to Urashima, that it is extremely odd to me that the Hypnosis and Caen LPs from April are still available; these were some of my favorite LPs of this year - not to mention Mauthausen Orchestra's Bloodyminded from 2012! I'm befuddled because somehow the label is able to move 99 copies of endless HNW LPs on the other hand. Strange world.

Kevin Drumm - Tannenbaum (Hospital Prod.): One of those albums of pure ambient bliss that is just 100% perfect tone for me. Maybe what Zeno mentioned feeling for Organum's Sorow. Must have played this album a dozen times or so since receiving it this past week. Sent me to dreams, woke me up, carried me through a whole day's worth of chores, dazed me through early morning drives from the night shift - just seemed to be a constant companion all week. I don't have much to express about the music itself - just think of all the minimalist gurus and some modern drone tendencies and use your imagination. If this kinda thing is for you, then you're probably gonna love these two discs. The first one, "Night Side", definitely holds the most power for me. It's also the least dynamic. Disc two is composed of shorter, slightly intense tracks.

Graham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet - Air Supply (Erstwhile): Not much at all like the Photographs 2CD from last year. This is less minimal field recordings, and more expressive play that is fairly typical of these two. Love those quick, tense bursts of noise - reminding me of Dave Phillips - that unexpectedly throw you out of your chair just as the mellowness really sets in. Probably easiest to relate this more to Lescalleet's output - nice long drones, composed from a variety of tones (and probably sources...probably not all electronic-based either). Not too much of the field recording/oddities that Lambkin frequently offers. Not something to go utterly gaga over, but this has been great this week.

Also, listened to a rip of the Consumer Electronics Estuary English album from the Corrupted Delights blog (thank you)... not for me. Not at all. Blech.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Peterson, what is your definition of music concrete?  You've piqued my interest, and I'm not finding anyone else calling Remnants or Shredded Nerve music concrete.  Where would you start with each of these projects?

I'd call loop-based composition that often include elements of traditional music (melody, rhythm, harmonics) but that is organized in such a way to be somewhat reductive, minimal, and direct. To me, anything from Steve Reich to certain pieces by Vivenza would fall under the term.

To me it feels that "musique concrete" as "genre" or description (even if I use it myself occasionally) is quite vague. If it originally meant, as far as I've understood, to be music made out of pre-recorded sources. Where sounds exists before composition (opposed to traditional music, where composition is done for instruments to be performed). Nowadays so much stuff in many music lies in pre-recorded elements what are just mixed/adjusted/cut/edited to place and material is more based on what came out of existing sounds than some composition? Therefore where one draws the line? If noise is solely based on building material from pre-recorded sounds, what is it?
Or if you start to include actually composed stuff you play for the stuff, would it qualify? If for many decades already musique concrete has been combined with electronic music, I'm quite sure most of the time I'd personally just use some sort of "experimental music" or "experimental noise" (if it's more innovative than just total blast of energy) as term as such vague umbrella term seems suitable in moment when very narrow & specific term from 60+ years ago doesn't seem to fit many artists. In moment when idea was introduced, probably good. Many years later, not sure how much such "genre tag" works.. But, yes, I tend to use it myself when it's something not-so-noisy pre-recorded sound manipulations. Especially from real artists, not noise boneheads, hehe

Liebestod  "Liebestod" tape
Jesse Sanes know from band called Hoax.

Self released tape? Contact infos?

Try google if something comes up, as I don't have any details. Just got it from other person along trade.

[Zeno Marx]

I gave the entire Remnants soundcloud a listen and then Hanging in the Balance and the Failing to Maintain preview tracks on Shredded Nerve's bandcamp.  I think your definition might be a bit too fast and loose, but I can also see why someone today would slap the term on Shredded Nerve, especially some of the work on Hanging in the Balance.  To me, that's just good ol' experimentalism.  Good stuff, too.  Didn't think as much of the material he has on his soundcloud.  Thanks for bringing him to my attention.

[Baglady]

OBSCURITY - Damnations Pride/Ovations To Death LP (ToTheDeath)
Despite having tons of new stuff to dig into (Dilloway, Ákos Rózmann, Spoils & Relics, Egoproblem, Mefisto etc) this is the only thing I feel like hearing today. Especially the Damnations Pride demo. The snare sound gives me a denim ripping hard-on. The best metal demo to have come out of Sweden in the eighties.

[eyestrain]

SN's my favorite "newcomer" in 2014. 6 stellar releases thus far and plenty more on the way.

6?! I know of 4. Can you point me in the direction of the ones I'm not aware of?

He has a C10 titled "In The Shadow Of What Never Was" (up on his bandcamp I believe) as well as a split C10 with Clavicula Salomonis titled "How Wonderful To Know". These were being sold recently at shows. He's also mentioned LPs for Chondritic Sound, Wendy Prodz and a tape on Narcolepsia. Busy man!

[RyanWreck]

True "Musique Concrete" is electroacoustic music made with either unconventional items foreign to Music (junk metal, field recordings of storms, people talking, etc) or by using musical instruments in unconventional ways like using water droplets hit a xylophone or putting a mic inside a guitar as you smash it. Some of the more important releases to the concrete "scene" are albums like John Cage's "Variations" (specifically Variation 1 but a lot of that series could fall in with Concrete), "Requiem" by Michel Chion, some of the stuff Karlheinz Stockhausen was experimenting with back in the 60's like "Kontakte", etc. But overall Mikko is pretty spot on in that the definition is now very vague and is constantly used out of context.

There is a really cool old news piece that some local news team from the UK did in the 70's that actually  makes for a very good introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ea0sBrw6M   (watch the whole thing, it gets really good around 3 minutes).

David Ernst wrote a book simply titled "Musique concrete" which would probably be a good read for those interested.

[Duncan]

There is a really cool old news piece that some local news team from the UK did in the 70's that actually  makes for a very good introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ea0sBrw6M   (watch the whole thing, it gets really good around 3 minutes).

Heh, the BBC is a touch more indepth than 'some local news team' but great link nonetheless.

[Zeno Marx]

But overall Mikko is pretty spot on in that the definition is now very vague and is constantly used out of context.

How long has this been happening?  I don't read much experimentalism print, so this is news to me.  Does it have any specific origins?  Like did The Wire start to throw around the term at some point?

[RyanWreck]

But overall Mikko is pretty spot on in that the definition is now very vague and is constantly used out of context.

How long has this been happening?  I don't read much experimentalism print, so this is news to me.  Does it have any specific origins?  Like did The Wire start to throw around the term at some point?

Most projects that primarily make use of sound collage and field recording's or heavy use of samples, even silly mashup stuff, is being tagged with "Musique Concrete" (some of it is finally being renamed by reviewers into really retarded and ridiculous genre names like Plunderphonics and Vaporwave) even if they're pretty much just experimental electronic artists such as People Like Us, The Books, DJ Shadow, Oneohtrix Point Never, etc. For legitimate modern, post-2000 Musique Concrete I would suggest "The Breadwinner" by Graham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet, Annie Gosfield, Luc Ferrari "Les anecdotiques" and some of the stuff from the guys who were in AMM like Keith Rowe or John Tilbury.

There is a really cool old news piece that some local news team from the UK did in the 70's that actually  makes for a very good introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ea0sBrw6M   (watch the whole thing, it gets really good around 3 minutes).

Heh, the BBC is a touch more indepth than 'some local news team' but great link nonetheless.

Yep feelin' dumb, I should have read the description of the video on YouTube. I always figured the BBC was like FOX or NBC in America in that they had had a primary mother channel and that different areas had their own local channels, like FOX 32 Chicago, KVU Fox Las Vegas, etc.



Anyway, getting back to playlists:

Vasculae ‎– "Prolapse" - (2013, White Centipede Noise) - WCN was (still is?) easily one of the best Harsh Noise labels coming out of the States, every single release is solid and this tape is no different. Vasculae plays a slowly evolving style of static washed Harsh Noise exposing itself at a very deliberate pace. Certain textures and patterns are spotlit, put under a microscope so to speak, but they never are so singled out or play themselves into becoming "wall noise". Very good tape, and if I remember correctly is a project from a member of Pedestrian Deposit. *edit* Yea it's Jon Borges.

[eyestrain]

Most projects that primarily make use of sound collage and field recording's or heavy use of samples, even silly mashup stuff, is being tagged with "Musique Concrete" (some of it is finally being renamed by reviewers into really retarded and ridiculous genre names like Plunderphonics and Vaporwave) even if they're pretty much just experimental electronic artists such as People Like Us, The Books, DJ Shadow, Oneohtrix Point Never, etc. For legitimate modern, post-2000 Musique Concrete I would suggest "The Breadwinner" by Graham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet, Annie Gosfield, Luc Ferrari "Les anecdotiques" and some of the stuff from the guys who were in AMM like Keith Rowe or John Tilbury.

Just food for thought (this is coming via wikipedia): "Plunderphonics is a term coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative. It has since been applied to any music made by taking one or more existing audio recordings and altering them in some way to make a new composition. Plunderphonics can be considered a form of sound collage."

Never heard of Vaporwave though, haha.

[Zeno Marx]

From music concrete to plunderphonics.  geez.  While we're here, I've yet to hear any Oswald plunderphonics that wasn't truly awful.  He managed to ruin one of my favorite songs, and theoretically, it would be perfect for warping ("Dark Star").  It's already plenty twisted on its own.

As for what I feel is music concrete, that could be difficult to define, yet relatively easy to categorize.  It's sort of an open term, but with easily recognizable elements.  You could listen to just about any one of the artists mentioned in these threads and hear parallels.  And then you could listen to something like P16.D4 and realize, "This is close, but it isn't music concrete."

http://www.special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=189.0

http://www.special-interests.net/forum/index.php?topic=1190.0

[Andrew McIntosh]

I suppose musique concrete was the term used for composers - that is, actual trained and practicing composers normally in the "serious" music field - who used and manipulated raw sound from tape and later samples. Then, when more publically accessible multi-track recording gear became available to we the unwashed, more people began to simply experiment with sounds, found them good, and kept going with it. Perhaps often in complete ignorance that there were at least a few decades before them of "serious" composers doing exactly the same thing.

At least, that's my potted version of the history. I've often seen a distinction between the high and low of sound culture even though I also see that it's been very much blurred in the last couple of decades. So suffice to say musique concrete is more a term for "serious" music, the upper brow of the scale.

[RyanWreck]

I suppose musique concrete was the term used for composers - that is, actual trained and practicing composers normally in the "serious" music field - who used and manipulated raw sound from tape and later samples. Then, when more publically accessible multi-track recording gear became available to we the unwashed, more people began to simply experiment with sounds, found them good, and kept going with it. Perhaps often in complete ignorance that there were at least a few decades before them of "serious" composers doing exactly the same thing.

That's seems like one of the better breakdowns of the style. The earliest forms were definitely saturated with classically trained musicians and composers. It seems like Serialism, Electroacoustic's and Concrete were all starting right around the same time within a pretty tight knit circle.

I would say that the artists mentioned earlier like Lettera 22 are definitely an offspring of the sub-genre itself but not purely concrete. A lot of the stuff coming out of Sweden, Denmark and Italy right now on labels like Dokumentarisk Agenda, Second Sleep, Joy De Vivre, some Posh Isolation (Blodvite, Alleypisser, En Tragedie, etc) are clearly under the influence of Musique concrete and "library music" whether conscious of this or not no matter how the fans and artists decide to characterize and define the style. It's definitely one of my favorite styles of Noise going on right now and hope it catches a few more waves before fading out.

Never heard of Vaporwave though, haha.

You're not missing much, it's quite silly. The style is based more off of its subject matter and content rather than any sounds, though generally source sounds and loops are used it can be very ambient and drone like or kinda faster paced with a almost cut-up feel. But the entire drive behind it is nostalgia and attempting to give a musical interpretation of the extreme commercialism of the 80's and 90's by incorporating sounds common to that era like modem dial tones, popular commercial jingles and infomercial samples, the built in loops that would come on cheap Wal-Mart keyboard's, mall and elevator music, etc. Like I said, silly. I don't like the trend of building and defining genres on subject matter alone when the music itself is pretty much already part of an existing genre. it would be like saying Power Electronics is just Noise or Industrial about sex and violence, which we all know is fucking retarded.

[eyestrain]

Exactly why I love this forum!

I would have to agree with the assessments that true musique concrète is more with that unlistenable, bland academic/serious milieu. The term certainly gets thrown around a lot in regards to underground/contemporary artists - a lot of times questionably, but it's also nice to think of this style being hijacked from the clowns of the past. I would hope that in my naïve descriptions of modern works on here, that I always called it concrète-ish, or -like, or -type, etc... I think there's very few supposed virtuosos that I actually enjoy. If we can pretend that Spectralism falls in there; well, I think I like quite a few then: Rădulescu, Dumitrescu, Dufourt, Saariaho... but that must be a mistake on my part.

As far as (sort of) old-timers nailing it, and since this is a playlist topic: Ákos Rózmann's Tolv Stations 7CD set is fucking magic. Was uncertain if I should go all out on a near-7 hour piece, but I'm so glad I did. Way more variety, intensity and perfection than I had counted on. I like SOMA when he does this and doesn't make more guitar drone. Kudos.