From Blag Jesus Sex Machine Sent Mon, Oct 19th 1998, 18:47
From Blag Jesus Sex Machine Sent Mon, Oct 19th 1998, 18:47
On Mon, 19 Oct 1998, Dave Walker wrote: > I was going to ask about this. I can think of many artists who seem to use > dissonance deliberately as an elemental part of their sound. For example, > there's very pronounced (and deliberate, I think) oscillator drift happening > in a lot of Boards of Canada material (which contributes to that whole 70's > filmstrip / Logan's Run vibe, IMO.) Can you stand to listen to their > stuff? I can remember discovering Sonic Youth (around the time > of _Evol_) back in the eighties and having a really hard time > with their tunings until it sort of "clicked" for me and I've loved > them ever since. What about tracks featuring mellotrons (which > seem to be fundamentally incapable of maintaining consistent pitch) -- > can you listen to them? I can't speak for Che, but it's pretty easy to tell when something is deliberately drifting out of tune and when something isn't *in* tune. There's a big difference between polytonal music (which is more than one key) and out of tune music. I can't imagine anyone listening to say "Confusion is Sex" and saying "Geez, I wish Thurston would tune up." Did anyone besides me sing in the choir in high school? Man, those damn sopranos were always dragging us down until we'd end a song a half step to a whole step flat! Arrgh! That was years ago and it still bothers me :) > I picked up a Silver Apples disc earlier this year which is really fascinating > > stuff, but the homemade synths are all over the place tonally, and > now that you mention it I suppose the "queasiness" factor is > maybe one reason I don't play it more often. I really never thought about it until now, but maybe that's why I couldn't stand that record. I guy I used to work with played that record all the time, and I'd always beg him to take it off... that thing was torture, but the most annoying record of them all (for me) is some E.A.R. record (that this guy also used to play) that had all of these super high pitched dog whistle synth sounds that made me feel like my head was going to explode. I couldn't even be in the store when he was playing that record. Arrgh, I'm getting a headache just thinking about it, of course that's a different thing entirely. > > Me, I tend to prefer > > 8 notes per key (out of 12) and no "non-integer" notes. Your mileage may > > vary, and that's cool. Just warn me in a review, ok? I got into kooky just intonation stuff for a while, then I started listening to a lot of African and Indian music, and there's significantly more than 12 notes in those places :) I can listen to most of this stuff with no problem (I actually tried to play trombone in an awful microtonal thrash band band once, which featured me on trombone, an alto sax and an electric OUD player. It was fucking awful. I could also never play microtonally, anyway.. I just can't play the *right* note inbetween the "real" notes... even with the benefit of the slide. Too much of a mindfuck for me.) Sometimes I wish my ears weren't so westernized. Well, the bottom line to all of this for me is this: Out of tune samples can be really annoying. Out of tune keyboards can be equally annoying. Polytonal music can be quite good. Microtonal thrash bands with me in them always suck. Dog whistle sounds are one way to get me to leave a room. Tonality is much more of an issue (with me) with Jazz vocalists than it is with IDM records. .Bil. IAMaCOPIER