Whitehouse
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Martin D
Well-known member
He is but not sure that matters, Nicky Crane was gay, Tony Wakefield's wife is jewish etc. You can still be a dick regardless.
The article is an OK "cut and shut" job but surely someone should focus and check all the bollocks he talks about Afro Noise. We all know he wrote the whole album under false names, which completely changes the context but all he has to say it seems is "I met a voodoo priest" and he gets a way with it. Even the bollocks about how complex his music is, it's not, I could show you how to program that in 30 minutes. It surprising how easy his back story is to pick a part that no-one has really done it yet.
Leo
Well-known member
not defending bennett per se but is that really so unusual in music? psychic tv put out two "jack the tab" acid house "compilations" that were both just them using made up names, and there are plenty of singer/songwriters living in brooklyn who act like they're sheltered away in some rural Appalachian mountain backwater. brian jones "met" the Master Musicians of Jajouka and the beatles "met" the Maharishi, and both proceeded to "borrow" from those cultures.
and as easy as cut hands tracks might be to replicate, i still think it sounds pretty original.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
John Fahey / Blind Joe Death springs to mind as well.
I might be being thick, but I don't see how clearly Bennett writing the stuff himself and then crediting it to invented African musicians (rather than doing the opposite) constitutes "erasing" African musicians. There's plenty here that's problematic in terms of exoticism and "othering", but I'm not sure that that's the best way of putting it.
Also, that article maybe goes in a bit heavily for guilt by association when he tries to tar Regis and BEB / Kiran Sande with the same brush - wouldn't it be natural to assume that they're just industrial fans and are being a bit naive or irresponsible about some of the dodgier politics in that scene rather than jumping to the conclusion that they're actually fascist sympathizers?
I might be being thick, but I don't see how clearly Bennett writing the stuff himself and then crediting it to invented African musicians (rather than doing the opposite) constitutes "erasing" African musicians. There's plenty here that's problematic in terms of exoticism and "othering", but I'm not sure that that's the best way of putting it.
Also, that article maybe goes in a bit heavily for guilt by association when he tries to tar Regis and BEB / Kiran Sande with the same brush - wouldn't it be natural to assume that they're just industrial fans and are being a bit naive or irresponsible about some of the dodgier politics in that scene rather than jumping to the conclusion that they're actually fascist sympathizers?
john eden
male pale and stale
I think a white guy inventing an entire afro noise scene, which is what the Extreme Music From African album seems to amount to, is well dodgy. I didn't like the identity politics stuff in the piece either but there is an argument that Bennett's Afro-Noise project has gained ground when actual african noise musicians have not (elements of Konono #1, for example). I wouldn't personally call that "erasure" tho.
I think there's enough material out there about Sol Invictus and Death In June now for people to make up their own minds. If people sell their records or include their tracks on mixtapes then it is fair enough to have a go at them about it.
Whether they are naive or active sympathisers we will never know (in the same way that we will never know if Doug P "is" a Nazi).
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
Carlos Castañeda got away with it for more than a decade to the tune of millions of books sold and a literal cult of devotees. never underestimate the confluence of ignorance, gullibility and hero-worship. especially in a field like music criticism where most people have little if any contextual knowledge and the line between journalism and promotion is extremely hazy.
when I said tragedy/farce above I specifically meant that all this fascist coyness, compared to the literal life and death choices artists were making their art and politics in the interwar period, seems like a stupid, inconsequential game. and in Western Europe/the U.S., it mostly is. But it can become real very quickly – look no further than Greece, where an anti-fascist rapper was murdered by a Golden Dawn member last September. or to Eastern Europe with its long history of violent anti-fa/fascist confrontation. I mean, there's certainly many, many more important things in the world than Bennett's nonsense, but talk itself is important, both in that it influences action and in its perpetuation of culture and ideas.
I also have no sympathy here for Regis, BEB, etc. not only are these things well established, but they're not 15-year old kids hearing this shit for the 1st time. these guys are heads who run super hip labels and are serious industrial fans. I find it inconceivable they'd be totally unaware. which, whatever, just they can't complain when someone calls them on it.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
If it's truly the case though, where's the PC-dance leaders? If in the 90s, you could have an Alec Empire type serve as a somewhat reactionary to the teutonic tendency in his dance scene, why is there not anti-racist reactionary music to "industrial" people who play with these fascist themes/imagery? Why isn't there an industrial policing?
Martin D
Well-known member
That's a fair point, I guess until someone starts asking some serious questions and pulling his story apart there will be threads like this until he goes under a bus.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I should point out though I've actually just gotten back from seeing him, as he opened for the Godflesh Reunion.
I enjoyed the set, as it was a break between Godflesh and Pharmakon, but it was surprisingly basic at times. Didn't hurt me being one of the four people dancing to it (metal crowds x_x), but all of the complaints about it definitely registered... THAT BEING SAID, I feel like this was absolutely necessary for just how stupidly dull the audience for it has become; not so much on the Downwards/Blackest Ever Black side of things, but in the case of "EXTREME MUSIC" culture.
I enjoyed the set, as it was a break between Godflesh and Pharmakon, but it was surprisingly basic at times. Didn't hurt me being one of the four people dancing to it (metal crowds x_x), but all of the complaints about it definitely registered... THAT BEING SAID, I feel like this was absolutely necessary for just how stupidly dull the audience for it has become; not so much on the Downwards/Blackest Ever Black side of things, but in the case of "EXTREME MUSIC" culture.
(official version of article at Ngoma Sound)
i'm sure he was aware of King Leopold's favorite punishment for Congolese rubber plantation workers when he chose the name Cut Hands.
There are fundamental differences between Bennett's particular exploration of "human transgression" and "artistic immersion in taboo areas of human expression" and someone like Hermann Nitsch, whose obsession with ritualistic sacrifice is not specifically related to current events or power imbalances in the real world, or entangled in actual dynamics and history of racism and international conflict.
William Bennett is a European working from a position of privilege afforded by the colonial spoils of his country, who makes exclusive use of the culture of the victims of colonialism. Cut Hands almost entirely consists of direct transcriptions of rhythm patterns from cultures and people formerly enslaved by Europeans, yet the context of a European using these beats is not addressed. The meaning of a white man directly appropriating the creative labor of people previously enslaved, and currently still economically exploited by white men, is not even touched on, at all, in or around the work.
Further, with the name of the project he references the widespread colonial practice in not only Africa, but S. America and Caribbean, like Haiti, where a lot of the rhythms he uses comes from, of punishing slaves by cutting their hands off. Elsewhere William's work makes use of explicit images of violence suffered by Africans, while actual violence from the legacy of colonialism and enabled/sustained by current western economic imperialism has been, and still is taking place, on a massive scale, in Africa. The safe non-transparency, the alleged neutrality of "leaving the work open to interpretation", where the artist refuses to answer any questions, reveal political motives or position, or take any kind of moral stance, in a case like this, is not only not enough, but is problematic.
Is silence not consent?
When does art collude, by virtue of its silence, with the structures which sustain systematic injustice? Does the combination of depicting violence and refusal to take a position in relation to it, not reenforce structural relationships which perpetuate violence? Relationships which, for example, is indirectly but surely responsible for the violent killing of 8 million people in the Congo during past decade alone.
If one doesn't speak out against violence and injustice perpetrated by one's own culture, by a violent and unjust global economic system from which one benefits, while reveling in images of that violence and injustice, does it not mean pardoning or even giving tacit approval?
When does poetic license become, at best unethical shirking of responsibility, and at worst complicit in crimes against humanity?
Whether he is a paid member of the BNP or not is besides the point, which is reproducing colonial attitudes as well as cynically exploiting images of wide spread suffering caused by colonialism and exploitation, in a pornographic sense. And it's not about if his interest or love of the music is genuine or not, it is the way he is largely presenting African music as his own, and the meanings which accrue around the context of him doing so.
If he is, as the statement on his blog says, an "anti-racist" and "anti-colonialist" and "anti-fascist", maybe he should directly address and confront these issues in his work, and with text or images position the work in unmistakeable solidarity with the global south. The work may have the potential to raise awareness of how multi-nationals have kept the Congo in conflict, for instance. He is articulate and intelligent, why not get directly involved politically and stand with the people, against injustice? (or does this even make sense at all? Here I am reminded of a part in a recent documentary film in which a Native American answers a white woman who asks "what can i do to help?" with: "don't march with us. just stop consuming so much.")
In the end he is using the awesome power of African rhythms for self aggrandizement, which amounts to nothing more than bullshit art-school libertarianism, garden-variety-Satanism, and "will to power" for sad, emasculated white men. To these people, like Boyd Rice, "Do What Thou Wilt" means doing evil, and "Beyond Good and Evil" means freedom for the privileged to exploit the powerless, with zero accountability.
i'm sure he was aware of King Leopold's favorite punishment for Congolese rubber plantation workers when he chose the name Cut Hands.
There are fundamental differences between Bennett's particular exploration of "human transgression" and "artistic immersion in taboo areas of human expression" and someone like Hermann Nitsch, whose obsession with ritualistic sacrifice is not specifically related to current events or power imbalances in the real world, or entangled in actual dynamics and history of racism and international conflict.
William Bennett is a European working from a position of privilege afforded by the colonial spoils of his country, who makes exclusive use of the culture of the victims of colonialism. Cut Hands almost entirely consists of direct transcriptions of rhythm patterns from cultures and people formerly enslaved by Europeans, yet the context of a European using these beats is not addressed. The meaning of a white man directly appropriating the creative labor of people previously enslaved, and currently still economically exploited by white men, is not even touched on, at all, in or around the work.
Further, with the name of the project he references the widespread colonial practice in not only Africa, but S. America and Caribbean, like Haiti, where a lot of the rhythms he uses comes from, of punishing slaves by cutting their hands off. Elsewhere William's work makes use of explicit images of violence suffered by Africans, while actual violence from the legacy of colonialism and enabled/sustained by current western economic imperialism has been, and still is taking place, on a massive scale, in Africa. The safe non-transparency, the alleged neutrality of "leaving the work open to interpretation", where the artist refuses to answer any questions, reveal political motives or position, or take any kind of moral stance, in a case like this, is not only not enough, but is problematic.
Is silence not consent?
When does art collude, by virtue of its silence, with the structures which sustain systematic injustice? Does the combination of depicting violence and refusal to take a position in relation to it, not reenforce structural relationships which perpetuate violence? Relationships which, for example, is indirectly but surely responsible for the violent killing of 8 million people in the Congo during past decade alone.
If one doesn't speak out against violence and injustice perpetrated by one's own culture, by a violent and unjust global economic system from which one benefits, while reveling in images of that violence and injustice, does it not mean pardoning or even giving tacit approval?
When does poetic license become, at best unethical shirking of responsibility, and at worst complicit in crimes against humanity?
Whether he is a paid member of the BNP or not is besides the point, which is reproducing colonial attitudes as well as cynically exploiting images of wide spread suffering caused by colonialism and exploitation, in a pornographic sense. And it's not about if his interest or love of the music is genuine or not, it is the way he is largely presenting African music as his own, and the meanings which accrue around the context of him doing so.
If he is, as the statement on his blog says, an "anti-racist" and "anti-colonialist" and "anti-fascist", maybe he should directly address and confront these issues in his work, and with text or images position the work in unmistakeable solidarity with the global south. The work may have the potential to raise awareness of how multi-nationals have kept the Congo in conflict, for instance. He is articulate and intelligent, why not get directly involved politically and stand with the people, against injustice? (or does this even make sense at all? Here I am reminded of a part in a recent documentary film in which a Native American answers a white woman who asks "what can i do to help?" with: "don't march with us. just stop consuming so much.")
In the end he is using the awesome power of African rhythms for self aggrandizement, which amounts to nothing more than bullshit art-school libertarianism, garden-variety-Satanism, and "will to power" for sad, emasculated white men. To these people, like Boyd Rice, "Do What Thou Wilt" means doing evil, and "Beyond Good and Evil" means freedom for the privileged to exploit the powerless, with zero accountability.
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CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I want to argue that there is something in his exposure. Look, Dissensus is one thing, but the general range of people at least in my age generation and a bit younger and older who gather to something like a Whitehouse are generally very racially 'numb'. They don't relate or find any common human thread in the great racial abuses of European White Males in the history of mankind, they get boxed into their privileged in a way that they isolate themselves from the humanity of other people unless the other establishes a willingness to conduct themselves in accordance to what they deem proper.
When I was on the floor to Cut Hands, and watching Bennett do several comical 'shimmying' movement in reaction to the music, I recognized that the energy in this sort of music was lost on the audience, who were a typically metal-leaning crowd of white males who are socially self-castrated babies who place great comfort in the notion that their lives mean so much because of their 'struggle' and for whom the notion of privilege is too far gone from them to observe. They lacked the abandon to do something like dance, or to absorb the information in the presentation in their rigidity. This experience was so far out of their scope, it meant nothing. But it is probably the ONLY TIME they're going to come close to grasping that concept, and I'd like to dream that just maybe one of those overgrown dorks left it scratching his head and wondering what all that was about, and looked up Cut Hands and Bennett and didn't just fall into the Power Electronics rut.
I'm not pretending that Bennett and his approach isn't appropriating or overly colonial at a minimum. But if Bennett maybe spent more time going out of his way to be aggressively more vocal about the material's influence and subject matter (if it's truly pertaining), and how it pertains to him in a way beyond 'sonic impact on humans' it would have redemptive elements in the exposure to something outside of his original audience's scopes (because after all, it's only fairly recent in his career he's been viewed in the 'dance' field). Unfortunately, most interviews I see gleam over the material and his relationship, and focus on "So, what's the label like" and "Dude, you were in Whitehouse!" I think if someone aggressively made him state the intent in a interview without putting him on the defensive (because the guy definitely seems a bit 'precious'.), we could finally determine just HOW hes trying to use this.
Of course, that could also be really disheartening for me as I enjoyed the work, but better an answer than this waffling.
When I was on the floor to Cut Hands, and watching Bennett do several comical 'shimmying' movement in reaction to the music, I recognized that the energy in this sort of music was lost on the audience, who were a typically metal-leaning crowd of white males who are socially self-castrated babies who place great comfort in the notion that their lives mean so much because of their 'struggle' and for whom the notion of privilege is too far gone from them to observe. They lacked the abandon to do something like dance, or to absorb the information in the presentation in their rigidity. This experience was so far out of their scope, it meant nothing. But it is probably the ONLY TIME they're going to come close to grasping that concept, and I'd like to dream that just maybe one of those overgrown dorks left it scratching his head and wondering what all that was about, and looked up Cut Hands and Bennett and didn't just fall into the Power Electronics rut.
I'm not pretending that Bennett and his approach isn't appropriating or overly colonial at a minimum. But if Bennett maybe spent more time going out of his way to be aggressively more vocal about the material's influence and subject matter (if it's truly pertaining), and how it pertains to him in a way beyond 'sonic impact on humans' it would have redemptive elements in the exposure to something outside of his original audience's scopes (because after all, it's only fairly recent in his career he's been viewed in the 'dance' field). Unfortunately, most interviews I see gleam over the material and his relationship, and focus on "So, what's the label like" and "Dude, you were in Whitehouse!" I think if someone aggressively made him state the intent in a interview without putting him on the defensive (because the guy definitely seems a bit 'precious'.), we could finally determine just HOW hes trying to use this.
Of course, that could also be really disheartening for me as I enjoyed the work, but better an answer than this waffling.
Martin D
Well-known member
From Twitter:
@cuthands
absolutely wrong, it's from my 2003 song 'Cut Hands Has The Solution'
This is in reply to the above picture and link, asked him prove otherwise but I think like all racists I've ever met, he like they keep making the same statements over and over, surely Bennett has made enough statements now for people not to trust anything he says, pretty much like his excuse that Buchenwald is just a word. Jump in on the timeline if you wish.
@cuthands
absolutely wrong, it's from my 2003 song 'Cut Hands Has The Solution'
This is in reply to the above picture and link, asked him prove otherwise but I think like all racists I've ever met, he like they keep making the same statements over and over, surely Bennett has made enough statements now for people not to trust anything he says, pretty much like his excuse that Buchenwald is just a word. Jump in on the timeline if you wish.
I just find out the artist who did art work for the cut hand albums. Here is the link http://mimsydeblois.tumblr.com/ Just appalling. Not even the level of colonialism / orientalism. Oh well...
Leo
Well-known member
this strikes me as veering a bit close to being the PC police. a million artists have used related types of imagery, should we also banish tribal tattoos? (ok, maybe that but...)
IDK. i get where you're coming from and agree with 95% of what's been said on this thread but it makes me uncomfortable when either side starts to take things to an extreme of intolerance.
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CrowleyHead
Well-known member
Unfortunately "Goth" colonialism is like... second nature? One million bad attempts at tribal (racist) warbling by Dead Can Dance or Jarboe are springing to mind at a fast pace.
I know it's hypocritical after was so lenient to Bennett earlier in the month, but I guess it's different woes with differing subcultures.
I know it's hypocritical after was so lenient to Bennett earlier in the month, but I guess it's different woes with differing subcultures.