William Bennett’s latest performance-art project Cut Hands surfaces in at least four different threads (world music, noise, mutant techno and DJ mix), so I’m dragging his increasingly prestigious mongrel squall to squat w/its kindred freaks itt. musically, Bennett’s bolting together ambient, industrial, world music and post-techno into a suggestive but too-restrained clunk ‘n drone, but I’m willing to entertain the possibility of advanced-level prankster trolling via Merchant/Ivory-in-leather-trousers mockery. conceptually, Cut Hands seems to be an intentionally overloaded bag o’ signifiers w/ the interpretive Ouroboros expected from a white “racist” provocateur reverently presenting so-quantized-it’s-gonna-crack “trad” Afro-tribal music alternately sprinkled w/ both skronk and schlock and framed in 19th-century dark-continent tripe that’s juggled w/ post-colonial critique (Cut Hands, ffs) and performance-theory gloss. the joke is essentially so all-encompassing that it implodes into synthetic sincerity, but these three tunes are cool, so w/e:
Backlash: http://youtu.be/6pTA3UfS-YgShut Up and Bleed: http://youtu.be/wdakwL8cfNcBia Mintatu: http://youtu.be/1gZwk3ia7w0
I’ve been meaning to write about Portal f/ a while, so I’m gonna claim their new rec Vexovoid f/ the folk-atrocity gallery before it mistakenly finds its way to the rolling metal thread. all four Portal recs are great, and w/ Vexovoid Portal continue to furrow obsessively towards an elusive Jandek/Burzum/Merzbow continuum that drives them to vomit endless variations of lysergic sewer-metal. I think these kooks grokked a ruined map in Kerry King’s solos and used it to build a horribly misshapen template of groaning-collapse guitars, intermittent and asynchronous drums possibly from a Roland that's been smashed w/ a bat, and goddamn-the-sun vox that collectively power-ooze w/ meth urgency. Portal don’t “rock” so much as they lurch and sink and swell, concocting noise/psych/jazz/metal that’s arguably awful instead of avant-garde, but idgaf ‘cause this is the tr00 death-ambient shit-show that I need to spin f/hours to quiet multiple brain fevers.
Kilter: http://youtu.be/buBWphrRnkcPlasm: http://youtu.be/75SERcv4Wfo
― Hellhouse, Saturday, 23 February 2013 03:35 (eleven years ago) link
at the risk of sounding as dumb as I prolley am, what is the inference of post colonial critique in the phrase 'cut hands'?
― harvester of lols (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, 23 February 2013 07:49 (eleven years ago) link
Posted on one of the Dead C threads, showing it how its done yet again!
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 23 February 2013 09:41 (eleven years ago) link
iirc hand amputation was employed by (some) Euro colonists to discipline African workers for failing to meet production quotas during the 19th and early 20th century. "critique" is prob. too blunt f/Bennett's MO, and while "Cut Hands" foregrounds colonial violence, I think Bennett generally portrays violence as a conduit to truth, and in this particular context as an essential if problematic ingredient to 20th-century African musical contribution (perhaps pushing against Adorno's views on jazz). in any event, I think he's more interested in fostering difference than ideology, making him more trickster than activist. my only ish w/the project is the sketchbook quality of the tunes, which are both too short and oddly stiff (w/drums that sound sampled and sequenced rather than played). I also suspect that Black Mamba's turn towards new age gloop is the result of an intentional play against type f/ added frisson, which is interesting but academic. IMO the entire project should've been built w/Backlash as the cornerstone, but atm noize is critical to my mental health, so grain o' salt etc.
― Hellhouse, Saturday, 23 February 2013 14:21 (eleven years ago) link
'against the door' was if I'm not wrong a whopping great Magma invocation, with more electronics. approval, lots of approval.
― imago, Thursday, February 7, 2013 5:47 PM (2 weeks ago)
Jon was wearing a Magma shirt and belt buckle last night, and Daron laughingly told me that "Against The Door" is their mini-Magma tribute. So a very astute observation.
― EZ Snappin, Saturday, 23 February 2013 16:25 (eleven years ago) link
new purling hiss... not into it
http://blog.irockcleveland.com/2013/02/19/play-me-mercury-retrograde-by-purling-hiss/
― flopson, Monday, 25 February 2013 16:19 (eleven years ago) link
think I'm helping to put them on in a few months. do they bring it in the live situation?
― an average girl realizing that leggings aren't helping the cause (DJ Mencap), Monday, 25 February 2013 16:27 (eleven years ago) link
when i saw them they were touring off that woodsist lp which was imo their worst release so they played a bunch of that... the material off hissteria or the s/t rips p hard but isn't as drugged out/crazy effects as i would have liked, at times they cand sound pretty classic rock bar band. the good moments were really good and i would catch them again
― flopson, Monday, 25 February 2013 16:33 (eleven years ago) link
new track is way too dinosaur jr for me
― flopson, Monday, 25 February 2013 16:37 (eleven years ago) link
i've never been into in the side of the band that's not blown out ott hard rock freak out though
― flopson, Monday, 25 February 2013 16:39 (eleven years ago) link
i'm digging all the new purling hiss stuff
― rave revue (electricsound), Monday, 25 February 2013 22:20 (eleven years ago) link
i would LOVE to hear a cleaned up 'run from the city'
― rave revue (electricsound), Monday, 25 February 2013 22:21 (eleven years ago) link
is fake techno time travel? discuss.
http://freemusicarchive.org/curator/FMA/blog/The_Real_Scoop_on_Fake_Techno
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Tuesday, 5 March 2013 22:20 (eleven years ago) link
new Hiss is solid, but i agree with flopson that they're best at blown-out-freak-out-ing.
Hissteria is an all-time classic hard rock/guitar record, imo
― alpine static, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 00:06 (eleven years ago) link
surprised to hear heavy influence of critically loathed breakcore/chiptune (names none dare speak) + liberal chunks of mutant techno, hipster house, Imminent Starvation/Converter, Space Streakings, Fuck Buttons, Mindflayer, Pan Sonic/Vladislav Delay, Shit 'n Shine, Brainiac/Six Finger Satellite, Not Not Fun, Heatsick, Dan Deacon, Black Dice, Dominick Fernow, Digital Hardcore, etc. (Harms inadvertently drags everything under the FT banner, but w/e.)
"fake techno" seems a bit #seapunk/#vaporwave f/shit that's been building f/ over thirty years, but at least won't give the purists a collective stroke like "hipster house" (not to badmouth stroke-gifting to purists). Mincemeat, Mutwawa & Humanbeast are entertaining enough tho & fit the thread.
― Hellhouse, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 01:44 (eleven years ago) link
yeah I like the fake techno handle cuz it short circuits the usual microgenre authenticity concern trolling and returns a brownout of non-aspirational definition by absence etc
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 03:49 (eleven years ago) link
negativespacecore, wave manqué, ooh la la
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 03:55 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYGl-l0Toig
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 18:33 (eleven years ago) link
I like this one better tho, les rallizes dethai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWSe3mv3ZN8
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 18:51 (eleven years ago) link
i'm gonna admit that i don't understand these two posts at all (except ooh la la, that i get)halp
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Tuesday, March 5, 2013 9:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Tuesday, March 5, 2013 9:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 19:00 (eleven years ago) link
no time to unpack, focus on the ooh la la for now
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 19:05 (eleven years ago) link
ok la la
― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Wednesday, 6 March 2013 19:10 (eleven years ago) link
otm
― flopson, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 23:55 (eleven years ago) link
EZ guess:
"fake techno" a kind of fuck-off notion analogous w/ the vehement olde tyme punk-rock disavowal of playing/enjoying/aesthetically taking part in rock 'n roll to psychologically demolish its accreted/ponderous traditions and clear the maximum amount of cultural space f /new endeavors (negativespacecore).
tl;dr:
my toxic-distillation-cartoon-takeaway from "fake techno": techno has an obsessive next-level/futurist narrative that's "progressive" but also a fucking drag b/c it's so conservatively maintained. this DNA-level code is an engine of sonic innovation, but also breeds cultish trainspotting fuckwad frenzy, curdles techno production into joyless, cold-war creepcraft, and at its very worst plays out like a perpetual-motion-Fleshlight-lubed-w/-Axe-dialectic-to-doucheville. you might say, then, that fake-techno-as-wave-manque is willing to pass on the fruits of techno's cultural capital for a license to royally fuck shit up, accepting the inevitability of general mockery, accusations of ineptitude and lack of recognition from the lol gatekeepers of techno proper (whoever the fuck they are, idk this is myth/#artdrone/making-shit-up-as-I-go). (EIII as we speak getting ready to disavow any mention of negativespacecore and wave manque.)
ps: I really like techno, but I'm an old way off the demographic chart f/ Mincemeat, so w/e. they're prob. just blowing shit up f/ laffs and good f/ them.
― Hellhouse, Thursday, 7 March 2013 03:30 (eleven years ago) link
"Fake" seems like a huge cop-out. More like "I suck at techno, I'll just call it fake"
― brimstead, Thursday, 7 March 2013 03:50 (eleven years ago) link
At least vaporwave n shit revels in its inherent shittiness
― brimstead, Thursday, 7 March 2013 03:51 (eleven years ago) link
Fake Techno's a term I used to describe my music starting back a couple years ago. I was working with a lot of effects and feedback loops trying to approximate the structure and sounds of techno, and it sounded good but without drum machines, synths, music making stuff, it didn't really work. It wasn't noise but it wasn't techno so I decided it was the fake version of techno.
Dude no just keep workin at it or go back to yr feedback fx and loops (blaugh)
― brimstead, Thursday, 7 March 2013 03:53 (eleven years ago) link
Or just call it industrial
― brimstead, Thursday, 7 March 2013 03:54 (eleven years ago) link
Sorry, having an Andy Rooney moment :/
― brimstead, Thursday, 7 March 2013 03:55 (eleven years ago) link
unmusic
― ò_ó, ó_ò, õ_o (Lamp), Thursday, 7 March 2013 04:47 (eleven years ago) link
mmm no hellhouse it's more like if u were to hear someone say "so... u heard about this 'fake techno' stuff?" they would not sound cool, and *that's* cool
― flopson, Thursday, 7 March 2013 06:09 (eleven years ago) link
yer both right imo
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Thursday, 7 March 2013 06:17 (eleven years ago) link
"Punk" seems like a huge cop-out. More like "I suck at rock, I'll just call it punk"
― brimstead, Wednesday, March 6, 2013 10:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Thursday, 7 March 2013 06:18 (eleven years ago) link
following on from HH's point
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Thursday, 7 March 2013 06:19 (eleven years ago) link
..hehe
― flopson, Thursday, 7 March 2013 06:19 (eleven years ago) link
but also breeds cultish trainspotting fuckwad frenzy
we might want to chill just a bit
― Josh and D.A.M. (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 7 March 2013 06:40 (eleven years ago) link
always felt like imago wd like/wd've liked nøught, to get timetravelly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYzc7T3A8ak
― Fizzles, Thursday, 7 March 2013 07:17 (eleven years ago) link
― Fizzles, Thursday, 7 March 2013 07:18 (eleven years ago) link
's okay it's fake criticism.
xxp
― Hellhouse, Thursday, 7 March 2013 11:46 (eleven years ago) link
hey Fizzles, I already discovered them during a search for online reviews of Lapsus Linguae! Not much of their stuff around but it fucking rules, yes :)
― c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le beurre (imago), Thursday, 7 March 2013 13:04 (eleven years ago) link
Oh, are Nought not still going or is the "timetravelly" in reference to the thread title?
I assumed they would keep on gigging only in London and never releasing anything forever. I prefer to imagine that the one album that does exist doesn't exist as it was such a pale shadow of their live selves, so I guess that was a good decision in a way.
Please get a time machine and see their late 90s trio lineup live, before the first drummer broke his arm and the bassist/double-bassist was replaced by a hardcore dude and the album was sat on for years; must've seen them ten times in two years, counting the ever-growing length of Ignatius, longer longer every gig before the drill came in...
(At that point they were quite tightly intertwined with Camp Blackfoot, who I believe imago is aware of. Suspect there was some bad blood at some point though. I'm not who I was then either. And, sorry to wander in. I'm not really sure what musical essence this thread is a quest for, so it's been on my to-do list to spend a spare hour or two listening to all the youtubes until I work it out, but here I am just babbling away anyway.)
― susuwatari teenage riot (a passing spacecadet), Thursday, 7 March 2013 13:12 (eleven years ago) link
wait, so in a nutshell: musical dilettantism wrapped in a hyphen-heavy word blanket?
― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Thursday, 7 March 2013 13:46 (eleven years ago) link
y
― Hellhouse, Thursday, 7 March 2013 13:53 (eleven years ago) link
i didn't go to art school, this is not a language i speak :)
― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Thursday, 7 March 2013 13:55 (eleven years ago) link
you're still talking about edward's post? idkwtf is going on in hellhouse's post but i'm surprised you can't parse edward's, and there is only one hyphen in it
― flopson, Thursday, 7 March 2013 16:51 (eleven years ago) link
ok this part is good & u should understand this: "you might say, then, that fake-techno-as-wave-manque is willing to pass on the fruits of techno's cultural capital for a license to royally fuck shit up, accepting [anticipating] the inevitability of general mockery, accusations of ineptitude and lack of recognition from the lol gatekeepers of techno proper"
― flopson, Thursday, 7 March 2013 16:54 (eleven years ago) link
I barely went to school let alone art school
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Thursday, 7 March 2013 16:57 (eleven years ago) link
another day another banger from selma oxor. she's playing the nrmal festival today in monterrey so if any of y'all are there report back 'kay?
https://soundcloud.com/selmaoxor/selma-oxor-perra-sucia
― unprepared guitar (Edward III), Thursday, 7 March 2013 22:45 (eleven years ago) link
Nought are very much still going, possibly better than ever - saw a fantastic gig just the other week, with Alex Ward (ex Camp Blackfoot) and his new project Dead Days Beyond Help. Timetravelly was the fact that Redrag is from some time ago, as you say. Don't think there was any bad blood as such, and the former Camp Blackfoot core have put together an excellent and vv strange CD of Camp Blackfoot-y new material to be released later this year.
― Fizzles, Friday, 8 March 2013 17:05 (eleven years ago) link
stoked! camp blackfoot album is excellent, yeah. let me know next time there's a gig!
― c'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le beurre (imago), Friday, 8 March 2013 17:15 (eleven years ago) link