Re: [microsound] wash, rinse, repeat

[scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>one approach to subverting the system which I may have posted here (don't
>remember off hand) is:
>http://overdubtampering.blogspot.com/2008/01/please-allow-us-to-introduce-ourselves.html
>http://overdubtampering.blogspot.com/

>kind of a mutated version of 'drop-lifting' and also what the RIAA was
doing by >introducing 'damaged' content as torrents


This is interesting.
But difficult.
If, as they imply in their manifesto, that the substance of the
transformations is merely adding and subtracting a piano or accordion - a
'soft' alteration - then I'm not sure how this is functioning. Alterations
like that would certainly generate interesting intersections (as with the
'Not my copy' scenario described in the manifesto), and would probably
generate some sort of vaguely interesting sort of doubt amongst
downloaders... but the pop music listening experience, the way the average
person listens to popular music, is extremely powerful, powerful enough to
subsume any 'soft' alterations. Even something like Banksy's Paris Hilton
hack reeks so much of the P.M.L.E that the subversive parts are almost
entirely lost. On the other hand, 'hard' changes - deep tissue surgery on
the listening experience - is almost certainly going to place the
experience outside of the pop music discourse. If we Merzbow-ize the new
Mandy Moore (this is an extreme example, but one can imagine "damanged"
mp3's might have a similar status - incorrect and thus discardable), we no
longer have access to the machinery of the P.M.L.E. Now, it could be that
this abrupt escape could be powerful, but there's no doubt present in this
equation - this experience could never be mistaken for a P.M.L.E. Is there
a place we can perch where we can still have access to the machinery of the
P.M.L.E, but turn that machinery to another end? 

As I imagine it, 'soft' alterations are like putting a mouse in the beer
bottle - funny, disruptive, but ultimately absorbed - the beer bottles keep
coming. With 'hard' alterations, we may bomb the factory and shut it down,
but where does that leave /us/, except with one less beer factory, one
among many. Is there a third option?

- Scott


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