Re: [microsound] techno-mysticism (ne purple) with a side of Ae

[Joshua Maremont <thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I did not intend to argue that mysticism and fetishism are opposities or 
are mutually exclusive or that one is logically or epistemologically prior 
to the other, but rather that they are in themselves quite different 
phenomena.  I see no reason why fetishes cannot give rise to mystical 
considerations or why artifacts of mystical practice cannot become fetishes 
(as for example in the film "The Fourth Man"), but I do think care should 
be taken in detecting the presence of the one as opposed to the 
other.  Perhaps what I have sensed is that on the one hand digi-music - 
with its album covers, track titles, and sonic focus - has tended at times 
toward a fetishism of the machine, whereas on the other hand public 
discourse surrounding this music has attempted to locate a mysticism within 
these still - to most - unfamiliar sounds; rather than illuminating this 
mysticism, however, the discourse has succeeded more often in a 
mystification - a piling on of a mystical layer not present in the subject 
phenomena - of this music.  Then again it is natural, so to speak, for 
critics and theorists (and promoters) to attempt to locate significant and 
generalized patterns within the various cultural artifacts - albums, 
novels, paintings, etc - about which they write (and here am I doing quite 
similarly), but more than occasionally critical writing runs the risk of 
making a palimpsest of the written-about, and perhaps at times that is even 
the intention.  As one of my philosophy professors was so fond of saying, 
Roland Barthes was run over by a metaphor in the end.  To return to the 
hard drive, perhaps the following might be asked:  (1) does the artist use 
the hard drive within a mystical context (as muse, as divinely directed 
agent of chaos, as portal or passport to another world) or rather as a 
fetishized object or even as a transparent tool (for after all nearly every 
record on the pop charts at the moment was created using digital 
technologies)?  (2) is the brokenness of the device considered as an 
intrusion of super-mundane forces into the creative process or rather as a 
desirable artifact (to be amplified with further deliberate 
disfunctionalities) or undesirable accident (to be eliminated with repairs 
or replacement) of digital work?  (3) does the addition of a mystical layer 
enhance the making or enjoyment of digi-music, or does such an addition 
represent a mystification, an additional opacity in the way of more direct 
aesthetic experience?

PS - All of the posts on this topic have made for quite enjoyable and 
interesting reading, and I am happy to see it becoming a continuing thread.

PPS - On Autechre, I have to admit my favorite to be "Garbage," and I find 
that the melody - which I would not call twee (for this perhaps look to 
ISAN, Sack & Blumm, or B. Fleischmann, whom I also like) given the 
generally funereal minor key - is often the element of a track to pull it 
back from the abyss of obsessive programming, setting a nice balance 
between the rationalized aspects of musical construction and the emotional 
dimensions of listening.  In contrast, a recent digital neo-electro remix 
compilation clearly in the later Autechre tradition lacked any discernable 
melody, and I could barely make it through a single listen.  On the other 
hand, a comparison with the Basic Channel sound is perhaps misleading, for 
whereas these Berliners avoid explicit melodic elements their 
analog-blurred production is evocatively atmospheric and expansively 
textural, whereas Autechre have favored a tight and crunchy digiphilia on 
more recent offerings; moreover, the Basic Channellers are coming out of 
mixed dub and techno current, whereas Autechre are working in the 
syncopated machine funk of electro.  Argh - even I am regressing into 
convenient categories!  But for my own context, note:

NP - Bowery Electric "Lushlife"

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