on assumptions

[Philip Sherburne <psherburne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[sorry, resending as i can't figure out whether this went to the list or
only to ian...]

>I think microsound (someone remind me what the fuck microsound is again? 
>oh yeah, some made-up 'hip' genre name that some people identify with, 
>that's right.) is materialistic. 

A few points for consideration: 

1) If you revisit Kim & Sean's original "mission statement" for the
microsound list, you'll recall that they wrote, ".microsound is not a
'genre' mailing list, since this proliferation has occurred largely without
regard for stylistic boundary."

2) If we took for a moment the assumption that microsound is *not* a genre,
we might be able to think more productively about the music we discuss,
including its material underpinning (as in,
historical/developmental/economic -- NOT as in "materialistic," which is
really shorthand for "consumeristic"). If we move away from the idea that
microsound is a genre in and of itself -- and I know that I'm as guilty as
anyone in the reification of the term into a set genre -- we might be able
to open up our discussion to include forms of music that aren't made on a PC
or a Mac, that don't entail the same logic of obsolescence that has led to
the charge that microsound follows the logic of capitalism, etc. We could
start talking again about artists like AMM, labels like GROB, etc. I realize
that Sean & Kim's intention was to discuss digital/post-digital strategies
in contemporary music, but insofar as the term "microsound" works as a
purely sonic descriptor, it offers a forum for discussion of musical and
sonic strategies regardless of platform -- and these, in turn, might lead us
away from our anxieties about who has a Titanium Mac and who doesn't.

3) The accusation of a given genre as "hip" is really pretty useless; it
speaks only to the accuser's anxiety about culture and cultural capital, and
says nothing about the formal or social structure of the medium itself.