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



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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