Re: [microsound] what electronic music communicates [was: being 'political']

[Damian Stewart <damian@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Quintus Frimschlowder VIII wrote:
> your listeners uniformly. Music is generally better-suited to communicating 
> feelings, rather than specific words and non-musical concepts. It's context 

I think electtronic music is about communicating headspaces, actually. 
One of the things that make electronic music unique is concentrated 
mental space... this is especially the case techno/electronica, 
*especially* Wolfgang Voight style stuff where the music is basically 
non-structural, just a small gesture repeated for given interpretations 
of 'repeated'. What you've got is a small segment of time that 
represents a much much larger chunk of refinement down to a single 
experience..

When I compose, I will keep on working on a piece until I can listen to 
it the whole way through without wanting to make changes. IE, until I'm 
happy with the exact psychoacoustic effects it has on me... I still see 
charges of 'inhumanity' and 'soullessness' levelled at electronic music, 
which is ironic because the noises that make their way onto a recording 
usually represent refinement to create a noise that at least one person 
on the planet finds wonderful and amazing.

Although... one of the strengths of Aphex Twin's work is that he doesn't 
do too much in the way of refining like this. Sometimes listening to his 
work I get the sense that it has been written utterly irreverently.. 
sitting in a studio he just lays something down, lays something else 
over the top with minimal thought, thinking to himself 'yeah! that 
sounds good! yeah! uhhrrm... all right, now i'll squeal like a pig over 
the top' or whatever, does that, goes 'yeah! cool!' and calls it a night 
and a track.

A response I'm working towards in my own music is the giggle.. If I 
write something and kind of let myself get carried away without thinking 
too much, and then at some point in the future sudden listen critically 
and find myself giggling, then I feel like I'm doing something 
interesting. Bloody hard to bring about that state of mind though.

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