― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 11 December 2002 13:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
Momus, I read the essay and enjoyed it too.
I've been chewing on electronic music for a few years now, from an art school perspective. I've been inventing my own instruments by recycling old machines as I've been researching, and I've found that these sounds being utilised by laptop boys and gurls are not really that new. They are variations on things we have all experienced already.
Is there any reason to debate the sounds that are made? Does it matter how they were made? If some quasi snare rush sound is made on a laptop or a tape loop covered in chewing gum, do we ever see this when listening to the record? If this is a music debate, uh, what are you getting at? I've read as many of the linked articles as my limited language will allow, and it would seem rather a waste of time to chatter over the sources or techniques, as they are not what we consume at the end of the day.
On listening to the mp3's of the gongs home made instruments, I thought the idea of making new or marginal musics was alive and well; progressing at it's own rate without the need for validation by a techno boffin.
I feel rather happily naive. The other points here are interesting to read, but rather, um...un-neccessary?
― barryc, Wednesday, 11 December 2002 14:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ralph Pintz, Thursday, 12 December 2002 06:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
I don't think we could imagine the same being true even a hundred or so years later. A child prodigy Wagner? or Debusey? or Richard Straus? Let alone anything 21st Century.
― phil jones (interstar), Thursday, 12 December 2002 17:15 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Owen, Friday, 13 December 2002 13:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Momus (Momus), Friday, 13 December 2002 14:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
m.
*oh--but from now on, of course, the future & all pasts willexist simultaneously--
PS in 1986 i carried a battery-powered cassette recorder into ascience museum that had some old analogue synthesizer on display,& recorded an hour of improvisation based on heavily distortedsine-waves. i am hoping this will someday be seen as a precursor to"sinecore"
― michael helsem, Friday, 13 December 2002 17:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g (graysonlane), Friday, 13 December 2002 18:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g (graysonlane), Friday, 13 December 2002 18:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g (graysonlane), Friday, 13 December 2002 19:04 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Honda (Honda), Friday, 13 December 2002 19:17 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g (graysonlane), Friday, 13 December 2002 19:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g (graysonlane), Friday, 13 December 2002 19:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g (graysonlane), Friday, 13 December 2002 19:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
― carson garhart, Sunday, 15 December 2002 00:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
have you heard the early Oval disc "Wohnton"? There's a singer crooning (in german) over most of the works, and it's amazing... my favorite Oval disc by far.
by including a human element over the more mechanistic backing, it somehow reminded me of my favorite john coltrane recordings (love supreme) where a solid rythem is pushed and pulled almost off track by more experimental solos.
if this is what is happening now w/ glitch pop, i welcome it.
― jfulton, Monday, 16 December 2002 03:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
― David Holl, Friday, 20 December 2002 17:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
which is your favourite track on the current Scratch Pet Land record?you have mentioned it many times i remember...
― Peter Lersch, Friday, 20 December 2002 19:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
it is of note that only the most pedestrian of discourses, commentaries, and scrawlings on this topic focus on things like simple chronologies and histories of laptop usage (a kind of technological frontiersmanship). ("mr. so-and-so was doing this back in 19xx and so therefore, anything momus has to say must be trainspotting." or something to this effect, as we can observe in the postings above by mr. Mike Taylor) these are to be ignored.
far exceeding these trifles in depth of meaning, the actual aesthetic/s being employed and their relationship to the technology is sadly and too often ignored. but even this is old hat, when we cite the piano-forte's precident as an example. a vast improvement over the harpsichord (in terms of dynamics, hence the name) the piano was hands-down a more advanced technology. however, the possession or usage of this tech. one became quite interesting when composers like beethoven (not the first to write for this instrument, mind you) began to take full "advantage" of the increased dynamic range of the instrument, and give us both the poundings and gentle strokes of his music for that instrument. this was the breakthrough in terms of musicality, composition and aesthetics.
and so it is, and so it goes with the laptop. the "hybrid" lappoppers (tsujiko, momus, and a few others)are the sound du jour because theirs is an aesthetic that makes use of laptop's true nature...that is to say that the laptop doesn't care what kind of sound it actually makes (the piano does, the guitar does...their bodies prefer certian scales and intonations, or they quickly come to be in a state of disrepair) and they interpret this not a kind of post-digital enslavement, a binding to the "limitations" of the machine, but as a kind of free ticket to be so "bold" (refreshingly novel) as to "return" to pop (of course they never left) by lucidly hacking their way through the dense, almost impenetrable forest of error the seems to surround most stupefied laptoppers, to their art, which in later times, might even be regarded as beautiful in its intransitiveness.
momus is part of a group of thinkers who's musings thankfully transcend (but still make use of) the cult of the laptop.
merry x-mas from tokyo, momus!roberthttp://www.tognet.org
― robert duckworth, Tuesday, 24 December 2002 08:11 (twenty-one years ago) link
― robert duckworth, Tuesday, 24 December 2002 11:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― OCP (OCP), Tuesday, 24 December 2002 12:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
'supercollider is an environment and programming language for real time audio synthesis'
and that
'msp is a visual programming environment for building real'
Alarmingly, it also tells me that
'msp is a psychiatric disorder which involves caregivers intentionally harming children so that they can bask in the attention they receive for their own'
― Momus (Momus), Wednesday, 25 December 2002 01:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jeremy may, Wednesday, 25 December 2002 07:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jens (brighter), Wednesday, 25 December 2002 08:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
forum!!!! u can all cum on my glasses.
― vincent tuquedenne, Thursday, 26 December 2002 11:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Keither, Thursday, 26 December 2002 19:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
hmmm
I wonder if they sit down with 'failing in an interesting way' as a goal?
Is traditional indie music 'succeding in a boring way'?
I have to hear some of this shit.. (I mean stuff)
― Julian Standen, Monday, 30 December 2002 04:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
Something bizarre has just happened. I put on Dat Politics after reading momus' essay. Then I engaged once again in the neverending discussion with my mother about generation gaps and the evolution of aestethics. Nothing fancy, she was once again complaining about my hairstyle and I wanted her to understand that kids today have fuzzy hair like mine, and girls do like it even though she doesn't. As an example, I asked, do you like this music?She always whines about my music sounding too 'metalic' and unlike 'real music'. 'Where's the melody?',she wonders. But then about Dat Politics she said, with sincerity: 'I like it. It's got something...it's touching'
Damn!
― mario 3 (mario), Wednesday, 1 January 2003 01:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
Besides, aren't sound dusters renewing R'n'B's face?people like The Neptunes and stuff. I haven't heard much of that stuff but I know a hardcore sound duster (a fan of mego, childisc and the lot who disses Momus for writing about that music just for the hip factor) who is getting heavily into that stuff
― mario 3 (mario), Friday, 3 January 2003 00:30 (twenty-one years ago) link
The reason I'm interested in the progression of the 'glitch' and 'blip' is for this is related to my current dissertation on bjork, where I'm relating the path of Bjork songs/albums to display the merging between technology and nature/organic, using the metaphor of the cyborg and the goddess, with the outcome being the cybergoddess; the musical outcome is still inconclusive, Bjork's Vespertine certainly incorporated the best of both world's, in the usage of electro-acoustic samples, but is it possible for the organic and digital to be entirely combined in a musical form?
BTW this is my first post, so go easy! ;)
― Robert Price, Thursday, 13 February 2003 11:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
despite the 'all if full of love' video, i'm not sure how much bjork wants to do the cyborg persona thing... esp. on Vespertine she seems more concerned w/ bio-strangeness, psychadelic runny noses and stuff. or... the electronic angle of it seems to efface its technological implication for bodily fx. organic?
― Honda (Honda), Thursday, 13 February 2003 19:47 (twenty-one years ago) link
I guess at the very least, the digital manipulation of organic sounds could be seen as forming a link to the metaphor of the cybergoddess, I guess like the cybergoddess metaphor, the merging of the technological and organic/natural can take many forms.
― Robert Price (Robert Price), Sunday, 16 February 2003 13:59 (twenty-one years ago) link
http://www.cafeshops.com/graywyvern
― graywyvern, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 19:06 (twenty-one years ago) link
― graywyvern, Wednesday, 23 July 2003 19:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sspeedy, Saturday, 30 August 2003 21:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
Link updated
― Off, Saturday, 30 August 2003 22:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
so go out plug MAX/MSP, Metasynth, Supercollider, PD, SMS, KoanPROor write your software and do some dust!
― Giorgio S, Tuesday, 7 October 2003 23:45 (twenty years ago) link
― RU, Tuesday, 9 August 2005 10:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 9 August 2005 13:28 (nineteen years ago) link
There should be a comma before "or something".
― RU, Friday, 12 August 2005 07:43 (nineteen years ago) link
A military regime in democratic disguiseThat lies in all impunityThat takes apart what it tookPeople years to buildPublic institutionsThat promised a decent life
― reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, 14 October 2018 19:50 (five years ago) link