Re: [microsound]: What is microsound ? [was: autechre/richard devine//techniques]

[andrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Michal Seta wrote:

> what is microsound?
> I have asked this question several times on this list.  Never got an answer.

A simple answer, but to me Ryoji Ikeda and the majority of artists who release music
on Raster-Noton are typical examples of microsound. Bernhard Günter also, but he's
microsound of a different flavor. Just very minimal (texturally, melodically (if
melody is even present at all), rhythmically, etc.) and sparse, sometimes very
skeletal electronic music. Some of it bares a distant relationship to club music,
some not at all. Perhaps microsound doesn't necessarily have to be electronic since I
wouldn't really object if Reich's "Pendulum Music" or Christian Wolff's "Stones" were
called microsound. I kind of think of microsound as monochromatic music. I think it's
very closely related to minimal art like the works of Ad Reinhardt or Rothko or
Robert Ryman, maybe even Mondrian.
One of the things that attracts me to "microsound" is that its minimalism brings all
the different textural and rhythmical elements in a piece into sharp focus.

> I suppose you can write groovy microsound, no ?

I think a lot of microsound (Noto, Komet, Ikeda for example) "grooves".

Andrei