From Ryan Richard Whitehead Sent Mon, Oct 13th 1997, 04:53
From Ryan Richard Whitehead Sent Mon, Oct 13th 1997, 04:53
NOT NEW RELEASES, BUT THE FIRST THING THAT CAME TO MIND i'm on the abrasive side of the divide between intelligent and music, so i begin to think "how can i change one's mind." a virus, a stain of contamination. of course exposure must be surruptitious. you should check out the OVAL disks if you haven't. listen to them first if possible because many people find them to be dross, a useless waste material produced in the wake of true synthesis, industrial genius. "systemisch" is available on thrill jockey. oval was the beginning of my theorizing of IDioMatic music so you will have to indulge me-- THE NON THEORY, ie a funny story. imagine this: we have a tool, say a hammer. this is the first hammer man has seen. he tries to use it to do the things that rocks used to do: smash nuts, skulls, whatever. he takes great joy in this. eventually these activities became vocations and primordial man is frowning. eventually he thinks: "these things are not part of the form of the hammer, but byproducts of its form. only by doing with the hammer what only a hammer can do will i find the joy in it." however, the hammer has little idiomatic individuallity, so caveman begins to apply this idea to other artifacts. since he plays the guitar, as all cavemen do, he exploits it idiomatically. Jimi hendrix was this caveman with an electric guitar. Derek Bailey on the acoustic. They pull the strings off the neck, they rap the body with a fist, they stick plastic between the strings, run a ridiculous wattage through it and light it on fire with an acetylene torch. this is idiomatic. ok, oval is the equivalent with a cd player. this is what cd sampling becomes when it is used idiomatically--the sample is not metaphorical or metonymic, it is not intended to take you elsewhere by telling you to "rock the funky beats" or making you think of "Let's Dance" era Bowie by dropping a Chic bassline. it is the sound of a cd skipping--literally. synth sounds and smooth washes are created out of intentionally scratched and manipulated cd's. patterns are drawn on their bottoms with felt tip pens. the sounds pause and swell, shift by. it's lush with disjunction as its parasite: only through the parasite does the host become possible. the thick banquets of synth sound are only possible through the technology which makes these disjunctions possible--even when you do not hear them they lurk. oval made me realize the fragility of the CD format, the record format in a new way: my cd's and records which are scratched produce fantastic sounds when i stop thinking about what they are supposed to sound like. does this mean i'm going to mangle all of my cd's and records...of course not, but i know what beautiful parasites they hide. rhythm is never asserted (so rarely that is), but it makes itself known through swells. these words...throbs, swells, waves of sound, oceanic, unfathomable . . . they are organic, but this is not organic music. it is the disjecta of synth music . . . it's a boundary medium, a transparent humor. the album "diskont 94" is also great. more scrapes, more experiment, definitely in their ouevre but not a repeat. they never assault your ears, rather they present that harshness in a defamiliarized way. instead of exposing you to unmitigated extremes of decible violence, they show its vulnerability to more than intrigue, but a certain transparent and quizical reverie. these are albums unlike any other albums. on record they are dirt cheap. buy these and listen to three times in a row. ryan whitehead