A few bits

[Michael Upton <jetjag@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Janne Mårtensgård <janne.martensgard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

An interesting question is this: can totally deaf people experience
> something that hearing people would classify as sound? This would have to be
> completely brain-manufactured, i e  hallucinated hearing ... The only way to
> know this would have to be to ask someone who once could hear but now is
> completely deaf, since people who has been deaf since birth wouldn't be able
> to tell if these "hallucinations" were of the auditory kind or not (no
> frames of reference etc).

I've been dipping into a book called 'Seeing voices' by Oliver Sacks (you 
know, 'Awakenings' etc) in which various post-linguistically deaf (ie. 
became deaf after learning a spoken language) people attest to having 
mental records of people's voices, etc. that they "hear" having learnt 
lip-reading. They also talk of phantom sounds, etc. (like phantom limbs - 
where people feel a limb even after it's been amputated).

My understanding from what I've read of the book so far is that those who 
are born without any hearing have so little conception of what hearing 
might involve or be like that the idea of an auditory hallucination isn't 
worth discussing... it'd be like asking a person with all senses intact if 
they sometimes sense the nyeepnyoopnyopness of their surroundings, ie. 
completely meaningless. :-)

I've just been listening to the Andrew Thomas CDR release on Involve, 'So 
You Wanna Be a (Death) Star'. Judging-by-peers disclaimer: yeah, it's the 
same record label that's released me, but, well, it's so utterly different 
from what I do, or what Aspen (label owner) does that I think the label's 
as good as irrelevant.

The CDR's 12 very short tracks - it clocks in at around 25 minutes. The 
majority consist of bass tones, clicking a lot as they stop and start in 
stereo space, interleaved with sudden bursts of other sounds.. the common 
element through all tracks is the way the sound sources are chopped nice 
and roughly so that tracks are defined by constant clicks. Somehow the 
sound is simple and raw enough to avoid sounding like Oval or something. 
Apparently most sound sources are from 4-track tape recordings, lending a 
nice Sigma Editions-style blur to the proceedings that I certainly get 
right into. This is most evident on a track consisting of stumbling piano 
lines.. yum.. Some tracks also have what once was a drum machine rhythm 
somewhere in them. I keep thinking of the Solvent tune called 'Half Eaten 
Drum Machine', which seems like a damn apt description for this as well... 
a bit like an incredibly lo-fi Atom Heart work-out, with the over-all 
result almost more texture than anything else.

Umm.. to be honest I'm never sure how to review this kind of music, because 
I feel like people approach it for so many different kinds of pay-back. 
*shrug* I'd recommend 'So You Wanna Be A (Death) Star' if you like 
relatively "open" or "simple" this-listy music with an affective element to 
it. Thinking mood wise of eg. Sigma Editions stuff; Neina; and yeah, Oval 
circa 'Systemisch' I guess.

I also just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying this list. I don't feel 
like saying particularly much, but look forward to receiving the digests 
and feeling like there's some people at least engaging with topics in a way 
I'm interested in, whether or not their outlooks are anything like mine. Yay!

Michael

np. 'There's a Riot Going On' - Sly and the Family Stone (perhaps not _too_ 
relevant ;-)

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