PLAYLIST with COMMENTS/REVIEWS

[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.

[Zeno Marx]

but it's also nice to think of this style being hijacked from the clowns of the past.

I can't really agree with this sentiment.  It isn't that I want it imprisoned to academia, but in the antithetical, I appreciate it hasn't been requisitioned and polluted with nonsense.  There's plenty of room to hybrid it, ie Brume, without it becoming a playground for adolescent crap.  For me, in its finest hour (Bayle etc), it's already respectfully reduced to ear candy and comedy.  Maybe one of the virtues of concrete and electroacoustics is that they are inherently laborious.  That alone is going to weed out a lot of people.  Going into it, there's a serious work ethic note from the start.

Is Eric La Casa an academic?

[eyestrain]

but it's also nice to think of this style being hijacked from the clowns of the past.

I can't really agree with this sentiment.  It isn't that I want it imprisoned to academia, but in the antithetical, I appreciate it hasn't been requisitioned and polluted with nonsense.  There's plenty of room to hybrid it, ie Brume, without it becoming a playground for adolescent crap.  For me, in its finest hour (Bayle etc), it's already respectfully reduced to ear candy and comedy.  Maybe one of the virtues of concrete and electroacoustics is that they are inherently laborious.  That alone is going to weed out a lot of people.  Going into it, there's a serious work ethic note from the start.

Perhaps I am being a little too forgiving here, hah!

Is Eric La Casa an academic?

Not sure about the man himself, although I've seen his work dissected in that way. He didn't come to mind, but I'm glad you mentioned him. Only heard the two discs with Peyronnet on Herbal Int., and they are damn good.

[Baglady]

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.

Have you listened through the whole deal? I picked it up myself, but I'm busy 24/7 until january, and this one demands alot of time, energy and mood. The two first discs are both VERY good, but I haven't listened any further. How are the later, more digitally assembled  pieces compared to the early "stations"?

[acsenger]

Ákos Rózmann's Tolv Stations 7CD set is fucking magic.

Also, how does it compare to the Images of the Dream and Death 3LP (if you know this release)? I have this triple LP and while I quite like it, I don't like it so much that it makes me want to get the 7CD box. It's a bit too monotonous for me. If, however, the 7CD box is more varied, I might just have to get it.

[eyestrain]

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.

Have you listened through the whole deal? I picked it up myself, but I'm busy 24/7 until january, and this one demands alot of time, energy and mood. The two first discs are both VERY good, but I haven't listened any further. How are the later, more digitally assembled  pieces compared to the early "stations"?

The Thanksgiving holiday gave me ample time to sit through. Got about halfway done with a second round, but other matters called. Hoping to give it another whirl this weekend. As a sort of quick and lazy description, the later discs get more "dark" and monolithic. When the more obviously digital-type sounds enter, it's very much like the DLP extract that came out a year or two ago. Which I thought was excellent. I would also say that discs 3-6 (maybe) are way more focused on voice than disc 7 (which was the DLP) is focused on orchestral manipulations. That one's also about as cold and modern as it gets. Hard to react to it yet, and for many months, in detail, but I was most engaged with the middle passages. Very possessed and discombobulating.

Ákos Rózmann's Tolv Stations 7CD set is fucking magic.

Also, how does it compare to the Images of the Dream and Death 3LP (if you know this release)? I have this triple LP and while I quite like it, I don't like it so much that it makes me want to get the 7CD box. It's a bit too monotonous for me. If, however, the 7CD box is more varied, I might just have to get it.

Much, much more going on with Tolv Stationer than that album. Also without all the aggressive and (for me) slightly-tasteless volume peaks that kinda ruin Images... album for me. Still, it's certainly not without its monotony; considering the massice length of it.

[WCrap]

musique concrete was basically just a term for music made with 'fixed sounds' (tape) as opposed to music made by / composed for instruments. it was sort of invented by the paris composers of the GRM. Other (french) studios or 'schools' named it acousmatic music, which is basically 'music for speakers'. so in the true meaning of the term one could of course use it for almost all electronic / tape-music / even noise, but that wouldn't make sense really. the terms gets thrown around quite randomly nowadays for all kind of tape/collage music, but it has nothing to do with this really. back then it was also used for studio compositions with recorded instrumental music.

i never understood the hate for 'academic' avantgarde music, that the word is often used as an insult around here (and elsewhere in the 'underground scene'). the academia / university studios were just the only ones back then who had the fundings and interest in electronic equipment and radical sonic experiments. before that it was all chamber music at rich people's homes or orchestras at concert halls. most of those 'academic' people and 'art fags' where in fact more 'punk' and subversive than most nowadays noise people. even if it was happening at (mostly) well-funded studios the work was actually sub-cultural and public presentations caused quite some trouble in the early days.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Perhaps one reply could be:

back then

If we'd be commenting to old academic music with significant achievements, but most likely more often something more recent what appears somewhat lame or pretentious.

One quite simple observation could be difference of conceptual art relying only to idea level vs. sheer uncontrolled energy what is good piece of noise.

One can be sure this attitude exists within "artfag" scene who don't feel anything common with juvenile "underground noise".

I would guess there are plenty of people who can handle both, at least to certain extent.

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

i never understood the hate for 'academic' avantgarde music, that the word is often used as an insult around here (and elsewhere in the 'underground scene'). the academia / university studios were just the only ones back then who had the fundings and interest in electronic equipment and radical sonic experiments. before that it was all chamber music at rich people's homes or orchestras at concert halls. most of those 'academic' people and 'art fags' where in fact more 'punk' and subversive than most nowadays noise people. even if it was happening at (mostly) well-funded studios the work was actually sub-cultural and public presentations caused quite some trouble in the early days.

I speak only for myself but with the experience of having my own efforts, and on occasion even me as a human being, devalued over and over by various high brow "artistes" and "connoiseurs", where much of this so called academic stuff gets used as a stick, my reaction has been one of fuck you, fuck your idols and fuck everything you associate yourself with. My experience is that the so called art fags are the nastiest most bitter back biting shits around. Consequently my defences come right up whenever I see hints of academia and artsiness. Same goes for a hand full of so called pioneers of yesterday clogging up the genre with their nowadays respectable and limp efforts. There's much attitude around and with a little bit less of that my hostile stance would change to a friendly one. But I don't see it happening so I stay hostile and run with the scum. Music is war!