Eno

[padraig (u.s.)]

and again, I don't say these things or their artistic goals are exactly the same

no two artworks have exactly the same goal any more than any two artists are exactly the same person

just that they're in the same milieu, that On Land isn't magically on some unique, aloof island

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

if you pursue luka's position the only way it can end is with a retreat into unknowable, unanswerable mysticism

how does it make you feel being a question with no correct answer

it's a fine and totally valid way to discuss art, just not a non-subjective one

 

[linebaugh]

There's shared emotional associations- minor keys and major keys universally registering as happy/sad, at least for western music. I imagine reverb associations are similar across individuals, same with light and heavy atmospherics and etc. Theres a shared symbolic system were all drawing from. I know these are low blow responses, but I bring it up to ask where exactly does the phenomenon become undiscernible?

 

[mvuent]

no two artworks have exactly the same goal any more than any two artists are exactly the same person

just that they're in the same milieu, that On Land isn't magically on some unique, aloof island

if you want something that was truly unique at the time, look at Metal Machine Music

if none of the works we're talking about are literally the same thing, i.e. formally identical, how does one distinguish between a work that's "truly unique" vs a work that's "in the same milieu" as other works? to me it seems like a subjective categorization.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

you're right, I concede "truly unique" to be hyperbole

 

[luka]

they are not emotional associations

 

[luka]

the wind is not an emotion, geese are not emotions. This is really very silly.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the idea was just that compared to ambient Eno, it's harder to find contemporary things that are as close to Metal Machine Music

which I do think is true, even if you can talk about Stockhausen, Xenakis, LM Young, electric Miles, etc

but I concede it's at some level a subjective categorization

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the wind is not an emotion, geese are not emotions. This is really very silly.

you're fixated on the word "emotional"

your association with the wind and geese is subjective

you may associate something with wind and geese. if I don't agree, how do we decide which one of us is "right"? we can't.

how is a person who listens to On Land who has never seen or heard of geese included in the supposed universality of your association? they aren't.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

you're right tho, this is silly, watching you tie yourself in knots over an indefensible thing

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

over Brian Eno, of all things

after years and years of watching you loathe everything about tasteful middle-class British art

 

[luka]

A goose honking is a goose honking you fucking weirdo!

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

On Land is music for British graphic designers to drink tea to. if that was it its goal, it succeeds admirably.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

A goose honking is a goose honking you fucking weirdo!

a goose honking is a goose honking

your mental association of a goose honking is your mental association of a goose honking

do you not see how that's not the same thing?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

don't get worked up, now

 

[thirdform]

Well of course I disagree. I think on land is what it presents as. Inhabiting a landscape. Not a psychic landscape a material one. With geese. And that lends it its own space and atmospherics.

taken the bait then eh.

 

[thirdform]

either way that's not true, objectively. Eno's concepts are very traditionally tied to ascension and resolution, hence the perpetual drones. In indian/arabic/turkish classical for instance, the drone works as a root timbre which everything builds off. Unless you're going to claim that the drone in eno is the soil (which is not exactly going to make you many friends when you out him as a british lebensraum advocate.) his music is always too structured to present a terrestrial landscape. whereas a lot of musique concrete presents the landscape in a more faithful form, even if there is a structure, it is much more chaotic, like the earth. In this sense pure drone a la Elianne Radigue is far more radical than Eno's huxterism because it is simultaneously affirmation and negation.

 

[thirdform]

I like droid a lot but he's taken too many psychedelics and needs to temper his sufism with sinful deeds.

 

[thirdform]

this is always the problem with the ambient advocate. to truly moderate oneself one must succumb to debauched excess. If you practice everything in moderation you're practicing moderation excessively. so you're not.

 

[luka]

I was talking about on land. The other stuff is boring. Ben Watson is always going on about ambient being music for Nazis. His argument is the same as yours. It's anti time, anti histicorical materialism. It's probably true.