Re: [microsound] the black, the white, and the Mutek @ Stylus

[dbuchwald <dagmar.buchwald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Tobias,

thank you for this article.  I never expected the situation to be as serious as
that ... Who could ever doubt that a technoDJ is not only a musician, a composer
in his/her own right but that /she's experimenting all along ...?  I am not
talking about commercial techno/trance but about those guys who took their cue
from Jeff Mills&Co and really set the standards for DJing as an art form.  There
are several ways to produce experimental music and one of them is the creation
of a soundstream by DJing.

What you wrote about "durée" being created in a techno set is really true.  I
had rather mystical experiences with nights in an underground techno club here
some years ago (no, I am not into drugs, I don't even drink alcohol).  The group
mind/soul of the dancers forming one rhythmic body -- fascism?  Not every
situation in which I give up complete control in order to fuse with a larger
movement is fascism.  I think it depends on the attitude of the larger
movement.  In my experience in 'our' underground club -- which has been closed a
few years ago -- that movement was very peculiar, very family, full of respect,
almost filled with awe.  There were people I didn't know (actually I came to
really talk to them only after the club was closed) and yet I did know them: on
a different level.  I knew their style, how they moved, how they interpreted
music.  When people dance this way and that way, rather respectfully listening
as if waiting for something, and then something of a 'groove' begins to form in
one area (sometimes only betwen two people), the groove broadens to an
attractor, more and more people groove in and then the wave emerges and you know
and feel 'we know what we are doing here,' our bodies know, we anticipate the
next move of the DJ, we motivate his next move -- if you've experienced that,
you know what I am talking about.  Sometimes one could provoke the wave
willfully or infect clumsy dancers with the rhythm. Fascism would be:  a group
structure stronger than the indivduals, dictated by one guy.  But here every
indivdual was responsible for the groove to develop, a singly clumsy dancer
could spoil it, or a few people could infect him with the rhythm.  It was as if
several attractors were rivalling, but, of course, the music was on our side.

There was one most special movement, when a few of us had just formed the
'groove' and the music stopped for some reason (technical problems).  And
without even hesitating for a second or looking directly at each other all of us
simply continued to move in the groove ... without effort, without a sound, we
just continued for several minutes.  There were even more people joining us.
When the music came back on again, the DJ picked our groove up and the wave
continued as if the music had never stopped.  In a way we were composers, all of
us at that moment.  Tracks I've danced to -- I know their structure so well,
because my body knows their choreography, anticipated it with the first
experience.  When the wave begins, ordinary time stops, one is able to know what
is coming as if one was creating it.  People who only sit and listen to music
will just not know what I am talking about.

And it's also not just dumb four to the floor.  Of course, a certain regularity
needs to be there in order to create the groove.  But once the wave begins, the
DJ can start experimenting; it's enough when we're in sync, we follow the
experiments -- that's why techno dancers use all their body, head, feet, arms,
hands, sometimes different parts of the body move to different elements of the
music.  As if it was merely the bass drum!!

Thanks for that article,

Dagmar

"tobias c. van Veen" wrote:

> hey everyone,
>
> A dissection I wrote of Mutek 2002 for EMR (which demised shortly after) has
> now been re-published at:
>
> http://www.stylusmagazine.com [front page]
>
> Direct link:
> http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/article030210page01.html
>
> It raises questions of rhythm v. experimental, the role of the DJ, the
> racial codifications of music, Brinkmann's appropriation of '70s disco
> records, the DEMF, and the possibility of affirmative sonics before
> representation.
>
> best,
>
> tV
>
> tobias c. van Veen -----------
> http://www.quadrantcrossing.org
> http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
> ------------- tobias@xxxxxxxxx
> ---McGill Communications------
> ICQ: 18766209 | AOL: thesaibot
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: microsound-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> For additional commands, e-mail: microsound-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> website: http://www.microsound.org

------------------------------