RE: [microsound] purple

[Matthew Allen <matthew@xxxxxxxx>]

	Gareth your observation here has really been the driving force
behind the romantic ideals of the 'cyberpunk [now outdated term for sure]'
Aesthetic that has taken hold in the last 20 years (oh im about to feel
old). Its not just music but technology in general that usually gets the
whole mystified/romatiscised treatment. Usually this spawns from an artist
or a writer who doesnt quite understand whats going on and then will make
things up to fill in the cracks. However im not really sure this is such a
bad thing. Take Gibson for example. A man who literally had very little
knowledge about computers when he started writing Neuromancer. He basically
redefined how average people approach technology. He made it accesable by
romanticising it. And in the end others who knew little about computers (or
even those who knew alot) grabbed onto his ideas and did their best to make
them real. In the processing creating many interesting ideas and
technologies. 
	I see sorta the same thing happening with music currently. There
will be many people who will read a piece like Mr. Young's 'Worship the
glitch' or see the term Laptop jockey, DSP slut, or Glitch Techno bandied
about and be inspired by that made up culture. These people who may have
never heard a mego release in their lives may then turn around and create
pieces of music which they percieve to fit in this category. These peices
could be wholy original and unique piecves that could then go on and inspre
others to do more. 
	I guess what im getting at is that their is nothing wrong with
colorful evangalists creating genres in their minds and romanticising
aspects of the work. It seems to breed more unique and interesting work.

m.

NP Darkness at noon; Richard H Kirk


-----Original Message-----
From: Gareth Metford [mailto:gmetford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, March 27, 2000 10:20 PM
To: 'microsound'
Subject: RE: [microsound] purple


> i know i've resorted to "laptop" as an adjective one too many
> times in the last month.

Something which has come to worry me a great deal over the last year is the 
degree to which some of the discourse surrounding 'glitch' musics tends 
towards the mystificatory. Speaking as someone who actually *uses* 
sequencing software, hard drives, synthesisers etc. on a daily basis, and 
is aware of just how determined these devices are in practice, how 
essentially banal is their operation, it disturbs me to read phrases like 
'the hard drive's gigabyte wilderness' (from Rob Young's piece 'Worship the 
Glitch' in The Wire #190/191). Not simply because this is a phrase which 
wilfully misinterprets technical phenomena, transforming a piece of 
equipment with very specific operating characteristics into a symbol of the 
unknowable, the beyond-reason, but because it is knowingly applied to a 
music which very often adopts technical phenomena as its subject matter, 
often to deliberate de-mystificatory ends (cf Oval, Terre Thaemlitz). 
Hence, the abuse of technical terms becomes a critical abuse, a deliberate 
practice of disinformation, a political act. To what extent such 'poetic' 
realignments of technical vocabulary are used in order to *preserve* the 
music critic's traditional priestlike, interpretive role is, I think, a 
question worth asking.

Gareth

--

Gareth Metford (Nonlinear / Qubit Records)

Email: gmetford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nonlinear website: http://www.qubit.demon.co.uk/nonlinear


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