Re: [microsound] stockhausen, tolsma: same plight, different planet OR "kicking jeremy off the list, there's a stupid idea"

[Andrei <andrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2001, Guillaume Grenier wrote:

> One thing that does affect the way I post comments on the list is the very
> presence of artists who release microsound(-ish) works.
> 
> Maybe that's just me(*), and maybe that shouldn't be the case, but I feel
> really uneasy posting critical, negative (insert your own adjective)
> comments about works released by those artists. So I don't.
> 
> What do people think here about this issue?
> 
> * I don't think it's just me, though.

Yeah, I feel that way too, so I'm gonna just gonna deviate momentarily and
say that personally I don't care for Mr. Cascone's work, at least not
the couple of albums I've heard. I was listening to "Cathode Flower" the
other day and despite all the philosophical pretensions and use of
"advanced" software it just sounds like a static ambient album to me. 

There are other artists on this list whose work I find overrated.
In fact I find there's so much pretension in this "microsound" scene. This
whole austere, minimal thing is so formulaic and worn out at this point. I
mean I don't even buy Raster-Noton cds anymore cuz I don't really expect
to hear anything new. I get the impression that a lot of artists think
there is something intrinsicly artistic about making that kind of music
and backing it up with pseudo-intellectual theories. There's a lot of 
pseudo academia around. Like people who are familiar with the work of
Stockhausen, Xenakis, etc. think that because they've discovered those
composers' works somehow they've become "serious" artists after having
spent the last 10 years or whatever making techno or ambient or
whatever. I just wanna see some real effort and intellect put into 
people's work. That's what I think made the music of people like
Stockhausen or Xenakis so impressive. I sound negative, but all I really
want is to hear some fresh music.

Andrei