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Re: [microsound] Re: [mcrosound] mnmalsm + 1 "i"



greets *.*,

> Each is bound to its own genre. But
> subtraction also defines a telelogical direction: a tendency to subtract
> more and more towards the absolute limit case of silence.

This is interesting; I'm glad I posed all the questions, and was a little
obnoxious (to which I apologise). I wanted to see where this all was going.
I don't pretend to offer the answers; these questions are the sort you ask
to get a sense of where an inquiry has placed its beans. Then you get
growing. Moreover it's time to stretch the list out a bit.

I'll take the "genre" here as a grain of salt, as clearly '60s minimalism,
in the words of its practitioners such as La Monte Young, borrowed,
appropriated and incorporated patterns and musics from cultures, traditions
and sounds "outside" the respective genre of the avant-garde of Western art
music (which perhaps is nothing less than such a neverending borrowing, as
far as I can tell, think Bruitism, the "African" poetry of the Cabaret
Voltaire, etc.). Much of the same can be said for "minimal techno" in its
encounter with AfroFuturism, its movement from Kraftwerk to Detroit to the
world (a poorly reduced way of saying that cultural networks or circuits of
transaction constantly reinvent the wheel. Will Straw talks a little about
this in _The Subcultures Reader_, where he makes the clai, correctly, that
electronic music reinvents itself at each local node and in turn effects the
genre as a global whole).

Philip Tagg also talks about how techno music employs the "Phrygian mode"
(he says it emphasizes background over melody, but I think the point here
would be percussion; in any case, the gesture is that techno employs forms
of rhythm and repetition to emphasize a structure rarely found in the
Western canon, although I would like a musicologist to compare Gregorian
chants to techno refrains) [1].

Hopefully this answer's Julian's inquiry concerning "minimalism's"
influences from non-Western forms. What I would wish to be cautious of is
approaching contemporary minimalism with a framework derived from the
"Western tradition," in the narrow to the "modernist" sense, in the
categorization of mastery, fashion, addition, the category, and so on. I'd
favour an approach that inquired as to the ways in which contemporary
minimalism, rather than as a derivative, purely aesthetic, or second-rate
manifestation (as mere repetition without "addition"), or even as "reactive"
(in the way that the educationally trained '60s minimalists turned to other
cultures as a way to overthrow, flee or remix modernism), seeks to inscribe
itself, write itself, delimit its own history, sound out its own spaces and
thoughts (including as to what constitutes its "own," "spaces" and
"thoughts"). I don't mean in any sociological sense, or methodology,
although sociology might play a part, in looking at what artists have
produced in terms of commentary but also in what has *not been said*, what
has disappeared, as the limit of minimalism: an apparent silence (on certain
things, about certain things, including relations to Western art music).
This silence would contain an echo of what might be other to the frameworks
proposed.


> But subtraction also defines a telelogical direction: a tendency to subtract
> more and more towards the absolute limit case of silence.

Let us consider: what would teleology come to mean when the limit is
silence? Is silence here an end or purpose, or contain that which towards
minimalism designs itself? Could not the same be said for the perceptible
occurrence of "a" sound as such a teleological limit as well? (The limit of
hearing sound--at all--as telelogical limit of minimalism). This would also
require a dialectic: maximum sound as the negative limit of minimalism. And
what would comprise a maximalist sound, a sound at the limit, and beyond it,
of all sound? Would this not be the explosion of noise that harbours
deafness, and thus, silence?

What is beyond silence? Is there a parallel here to the unspeakable, or,
unthinkable?

Is this a transcendental limit (but also a practical one of hearing)? Is
this a dialectic of noise/silence?

And we face Cage's claim: there is no silence.

The purest of minimalisms (silence) would be the recognition of all-sound,
for Cage (and practically: the heart always beats, in the isolation
chamber). The same could be said for noise, in the inverse.

So the telos here is not reached, nor is it necessarily the single
purposiveness or destination; it is not only deferred but I am not sure
silence is the telos toward which "minimalism" tends (which or what
minimalism? this question needs to be given to a contextualization as
described above). At the general level, the telos is deferred (or perhaps,
disseminated) to hear phonos in all-sound, as quiet or as loud as this sound
is. The potential of all-sound to be as music (always-already music).
Douglas Kahn favours this reading of Cage.



re: Hawtin .. Julian I think you asked if:

>If this is the kind of subtractive process you are referring to

>"I recorded, sampled, cut and spliced over 100 tracks down into their
>most basic components. I ended up with over 300 loops,        ranging
>in different lengths. I started to recreate and reinterpret each track
>and then put the pieces back together, as if an audio jigsaw puzzle ­
>using effects and edits as the glue between each piece". '" [DE9:
>Closer to the Edit] "



This isn't actually what I was referring to. That's Hawtin's DE9 mix CD,
which came later. I'm referring to the founding charter of M_Nus records and
his work with the 12 records that formed Concept 1-12:96 (1996).

http://m-nus.com/projects/concept/1.96.html
http://plus8.com/3.0/bc_cs.cgi?ls=1&label=%3D%27Concept%27

Check out the M_Nus logo:

http://www.m-nus.com/


I tried to find the press release for the launch of M_Nus but couldn't. I'm
pretty sure this is where he ponders the aesthetic of "subtraction." He's
also mentioned subtraction as a conceptual and pragmatic practice in the way
he's created his musi(k), including Concept. Anyone out there? Graham?

best,

    tobias



[1] Tagg, Philip. (1994). "From refrain to rave: the decline of figure and
the rise of ground." Popular Music 13:2, 209-222.



tobias c. van Veen -----------
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org
http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
--- tobias@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
---McGill Communications------
ICQ: 18766209 | AIM: thesaibot


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