Re: [microsound] Dusted - Dust Theories 2 .. Alchemical Residues

[Data General <btausig@xxxxxxxxx>]

I'm glad you pointed this out, Tobias.  It's symptomatic of an ignorance
of the history of electronic music that journalists make such an empty
distinction.

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that there is in fact some value
in differentiating between academic, dancefloor, and non-academic
experimental electronic music.

A)We'll define academic electronic music as music composed and performed
in a formally academic environment such as a university, assume that it's
always music of the mind rather than the body, and say that its formal
characteristics are always derived from careful, thoughtful research.

B)Dancefloor music we'll define as rhythmically predictable, absent any
sense of experimentation, and manipulative in that the producer wants
nothing other than to incite dancing.

C)Non-academic experimental electronic music we'll define as
process-based, improvisational perhaps, privileging the mind over the
body. Unlike academic electronic music, the non-academic style can't
necessarily justify itself and suggests no pretense of structure.  It's
the one of the three types best described as avant-garde.

These distinctions collapse violently under examination.  A, B, and C all
criss-crossed intricately in the 20th century, from Cage to Kraftwerk,
from Kit Clayton to Kim Cascone, and most of the above generalizations are
false. But imagine that the categories are real.

Then types A and C are inorganic, which is to say subservient to phenomena
disconnected from basic human need - chiefly, dumb machines and abstract
theories.  Theorizing is a bourgeois pastime, and machines (specifically
when made to replicate human behavior) a threat to man's supposed dominion
over his universe.  The disgust and fear inspired by theory and machines
is the basis of the distinction between organic and inorganic electronic
music.  Journalists, as they do with throw-back rock bands like the
Strokes, assume a reactionary pose.  They seek out and praise those
electronic acts which strike them as situated in the pro-human camp,
anti-machine (by way of hybridizing or even sublimating the role of
technology) and certainly, even aggressively, anti-theoretical.

Type B is organic, but considered so stupid as to be unworthy of the very
title.  Disco =3D electro =3D house =3D whatever those black fags decide to
screw to next.  No experimentation or intellect served up like
breakfast-in-bed to lazy journalists, so might as well be none at all.
That soulful stuff sure would be funny to "spin" at Rolling Stone's
Totally 80's Night, but Derrick May was never quite white enough to help
me cope with my girl troubles.

So who will rescue us from the void?  Who will produce compassionate
electronic music?  I think I speak for most rock journalists when I say
THE POSTAL SERVICE.  Totally non-threatening, subtle as an atom bomb,
and conspicuously silent on the subject of MAX/MSP.

Of course, the Postal Service are the not the first or only electronic act
to be called organic.  It comes up, and Tobias can surely corroborate,
with much more interesting musicians who merit much better discussions.
Boards of Canada, for example, get the same treatment.

In both cases, what is meant by the term "organic" is a clear and positive
emotional message.  Whether in the form of children laughing or breakup
songs, nods to greeting card themes are what wake the journalists up.  If
"organic" truly meant derived from and useful to human beings, then
electronic music, past and present, would have made the distinction
irrelevant long ago.  But in the kind of reviews Tobias refers to, that's
not what organic means.  There, organic means emotionally reconcilable and
not too complicated.

I had a conversation with someone once about the perception of bands like
Adult. and Dopplereffekt.  I suggested that it was impossible not to admit
that their music was unemotional.  My friend granted that they were both
cold, but that alienation was the feeling they desired to express. And
that expression is just as organic - reflective of the modern human
experience - as the joy of a Fennesz record, the gritty sensuality of
Aaron Carl, or the smart humor of Matmos.

So even if A, B, & C were true, the dichotomy of organic/inorganic would
not hold.

ben tausig

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, tobias c. van Veen wrote:

> .. a few words on one of my most favourite of Kim's works:
>
> "It=B9s become commonplace =AD if not absurdly clich=E9 =AD for =8Celectr=
onic music
> journalists=B9 to begin their reviews with some statement of the (apparen=
t)
> =8Ccoldness=B9 of electronic music, proceeding to arrive at the most surp=
rising
> revelation (one conjured either by smug approval or a genuine sense of th=
e
> origin) that the artist under consideration is =8Cwarm=B9 and so unlike t=
he
> =8Ccold=B9 others in her or his =8Corganic depth=B9."
>
> http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/1089
>
>
> best, tV
>
>
> tobias c. van Veen -----------
> http://www.quadrantcrossing.org
> http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
> --- tobias@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> ---McGill Communications------
> ICQ: 18766209 | AIM: thesaibot
>
>
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