Re: [microsound] microsound+melody

[Sean Cooper <scooper@xxxxxxxx>]

>It's interesting that a lot of time is spent purging melody from minimal
>/microscopic music.  I don't believe that the two are mutually exclusive.  I
>think in a form based on technical innovation, if the innovation is
>compromised and the work relies on melody to 'carry' the work, this can be
>seen as a fault.  But there are certainly cases where the two co-exist
>without compromising each other, and simply extend the boundries of that
>particular aesthetic or even merge it with other forms to create a new
>beauty.
>Thoughts?

agreed. indeed, the *revival* of melody in certain tracks by post-digital
producers has resulted in, for me, some of the most enjoyable instances of
the music. a few examples:

.. oval, "episonik" (from aero-deko)
.. nobukazu takemura, "icefall" (from scope)
.. kohn, "ohnoch" (from kohn2)
.. pita, "track 3" (from get out)
.. neina, "equivocal" and "symmetry" (from formed verse)
.. fennesz, 
.. autechre, "corc" and "dropp" (from lp5 and ep7, respectively)
.. various tracks by shuttle358, arovane, phoenecia, etc.

oddly, melody seems one of the more obvious areas for application of the
aesthetics of failure or discontinuity preferred by many artists (pehaps
that's why people avoid it?) , since melody is a key locus of continuity in
music. perhaps it's the ambivalence inherent in a discontinuous take on
continuity that appeals to me. i go back and forth, but as a listener one
of the joys of experimental music is to hear music which manages to utilize
new technologies to explore established musical syntaxes in a
'redistributive' fashion -- the tracks listed above i would describe as
using melody in this way. and while it's possible that melody's rarity
value in post-digital music and the contrast provided by the preponderance
of more "difficult" computer music (i love this stuff, too) is elevating
these tracks in my eyes/ears, i still think there are so many interesting
possibility opened up by the techniques and technologies of post-digital
music in application to melody -- or, as it were, in service of a new
conception of melody...

sc