Re: [microsound] arovane

[Joshua Maremont <thermal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 01:25 AM 5/25/00 -0700, "patrick halbig" <phalbig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> tides l.p.:
> almost sounds like a marketing experiment:
> what aspects will they respond to:  well....some of those Scam records 
> have the requisite melodic melancholia.  Basic Channel depth (appropriated 
> itself) into the mix.  To Rococo et al-----let's redefine pop.

Press releases are always bloated, and the blurbage I have seen on "Tides" 
is not nearly as puffy as some.  The music, however, is the key - remember, 
unlike some more troubling releases, none of the claims of paradigm 
tectonics and socio-political cruciality are reprinted in the liner notes 
here - and "Tides" is simply a beautiful 
record.  Revolutionary?  No.  Hubble telescope sightable at the level of 
galacto-musical history?  No.  Post-_____?  I hope not.  DSP plugin of the 
month trainspottable?  Mercifully not.  And as for the comparisons, Scam is 
hardly audible here, nor is Basic Channel, and the parrot-ready Autechre (a 
word a bird might be able to say rapidly) references are nowhere to be 
found.  To Rococo Rot might be a bit closer, but only in the sense that 
both TRR and Arovane (at least on "Tides") seem to be connecting into the 
Koln tradition of melodic upbeat electronic music in the 1970s.  There is 
some nice use of guitar and much seaside environmental sound, some rhythms 
perhaps not too distant from those of a trip-hop record, and a focus on 
atmosphere over tweakery.  For esoteric GUI wankery, post-structuralist (or 
for that matter proto-neo-situationalist) relevance, or descendance from 
highbrow academic music labs of L'Age d'Or, one will need to look 
elsewhere.  And as for marketing, "Tides" seems about as unfashionable and 
uncalculated as one might make a record these days.  Which is to say - 
emotional, intuitive, and lovely indeed.  But for reading, I am preferring 
Peter Esterhazy at present to onesheets, leaving the latter for others' 
frothing.

np - John Cage "Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano" ($6 Naxos edition!)


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