why electronics?

[Philip Sherburne <psherburne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A couple of things --
After the initial raised-hackles tone of some of the recent Canada/US
cross-border bitching, I do agree that it's pretty damned interesting to
compare scenes -- I'm always jealous of the liberal arts funding Canada has,
but as Virginia's post points out, maybe that's not always a good thing.
(Still, I have yet to come across something like Silophone in the US -- and
it does seem like there's much more *public* soundwork in Canada than in the
US... the most interesting public soundwork here I'd come across, Rhode
Island's Riverfire (or whatever it's called) was altered from its first
year, when it was based on Eno-esque tape loops of varying length, creating
a shifting and immersive environment, to freaking Ktel Classical Hits, to
lure the masses.)

But to continue...

>My "why electronics?" musings continue. I encourage everyone on this list 
>to indulge themselve in some non-electronic noise/music activity, if you 
>aren't already.  

Sort of along these lines, I've just recently been indulging/immersing
myself in some amazing improv work, not totally non-electronic, but not
nearly as digitally based as I'm used to. First there's AMM, who I *finally*
got around to checking out -- 1988's "Inexhaustible Document," and now the
new one whose title escapes me. They're both extremely subtle, needless to
say beautiful albums, but what's great about them is the primacy on
*listening*. I love repetitive music, more than most people, I suspect, but
listening to AMM I realize how powerful it is NOT to know what lies around
the corner. 

Along those lines, I just discovered GROB (www.churchofgrob.com), thanks to
a new CD from Werner Dafeldecker and Boris D Hegenbart -- I can't say much
about it beyond the fact that it's improv, it uses percussion, guitars and
electronics, and again it's amazingly rich, complex, live music that
requires a mode of listening totally different from what I'm accustomed to.

Cheers
Philip