Whitehouse
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CrowleyHead
Well-known member
Oh, so nonsensical tribal warbling vocalese isn't inherently racist when used for 'exoticism'?
Leo
Well-known member
There can be some great, legitimate things that come out of an artist from one culture interpreting the sounds of another, no? Like how Villalobos and Luciano bring a Chilean influence to German techno, Japanese guitar bands do their take on crazy 60s US garage or psyche bands, Adrian Sherwood/Mark Stewart/the Slits/various white artists from Bristol bring a different UK take on dub, a million UK producers doing their versions of Chicago house, etc. All of those borrow from cultures other than their own, and none of them are racist.
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bad taste maybe, but not automatically racist. it depends on specific context.
Terry Riley and La Monte Young using Indian Classical scales, tuning, and ideas certainly wasn't the least problematic: no one has ever even thought of exoticism because it was done in such a respectful and simply amazing way.
No, exoticism is not necessarily racism. appropriation is not necessarily racism. neither is borrowing or stealing ideas to make your own version of anothers' music, even if you are from the global North and the original made in the South.
What Cut Hands is doing, however, is the equivalent of a German putting harsh noise over stripped down Jewish music, using images of tortured and slaughtered Jews on the album cover, under the name Gas Oven.
(and refuses to say anything about it other than "i'm not racist", because, you know, it's "art")
What Cut Hands is doing, however, is the equivalent of a German putting harsh noise over stripped down Jewish music, using images of tortured and slaughtered Jews on the album cover, under the name Gas Oven.
(and refuses to say anything about it other than "i'm not racist", because, you know, it's "art")
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CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I think offering up impersonations of third-world vocal stylings, no matter what the mentality behind it is, in order to provide some sort of color for your music is automatically racist by default. If you have Native American style chanting and tribal drumming, but you have no claim to it nor do you have a context for using it with true value, it's at the least tasteless and offensive.
Though I think nobody'd accuse these groups because unlike Bennett, they're far too precious and not trying deliberately to agitate; though it's hard to see if he is agitating with this project either (though the ambiguities of his motives and actions often get called to task)
And as I stated earlier, I think a key difference is intent, which he hasn't stated. In somewhere like the American Hardcore scene you would show vicious examples of brutality like that, not as torture porn, but as a source of 'jarring' education. If my hold out for Bennett is right and he has the capability to mean it in this regard, it's still exploitative, but the intent changes radically. If not, all the accusations in this group are still valid, but if some German did make a bunch of screaming noise over pictures of the Holocaust? As someone who's half-Jewish I'd obviously feel at odds, but I know of bands who'd use imagery like that to define part of their mental outlook. In at least one case, because they were Jewish. So I'd at the least need to gauge intent and perspective before determining the mechanics behind the logic.
Ultimately though, Bennett's attitude of refusing to take responsibility for it leaves it in limbo. Maybe his attitude is something dull like "Oh, they've NEVER gotten me", or maybe he really is aware of how stupid he can come across.
Though I think nobody'd accuse these groups because unlike Bennett, they're far too precious and not trying deliberately to agitate; though it's hard to see if he is agitating with this project either (though the ambiguities of his motives and actions often get called to task)
And as I stated earlier, I think a key difference is intent, which he hasn't stated. In somewhere like the American Hardcore scene you would show vicious examples of brutality like that, not as torture porn, but as a source of 'jarring' education. If my hold out for Bennett is right and he has the capability to mean it in this regard, it's still exploitative, but the intent changes radically. If not, all the accusations in this group are still valid, but if some German did make a bunch of screaming noise over pictures of the Holocaust? As someone who's half-Jewish I'd obviously feel at odds, but I know of bands who'd use imagery like that to define part of their mental outlook. In at least one case, because they were Jewish. So I'd at the least need to gauge intent and perspective before determining the mechanics behind the logic.
Ultimately though, Bennett's attitude of refusing to take responsibility for it leaves it in limbo. Maybe his attitude is something dull like "Oh, they've NEVER gotten me", or maybe he really is aware of how stupid he can come across.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
You should see the rest of the Trevor Brown output, including the stuff he's done for Bennett. 
jesus fucking christ. how can anyone defend this shit?
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mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
Does people feel that Adam Ant, specifically on this track, is being wrong?
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
Maybe? I don't but it's obviously doing things in a 'wrong' way.
Despite Zhao's disagreement, I believe intent plays a drastic part of the game. We don't know why Bennett is even doing something so based in African music, what his obsessions with Africa are (I know he blogged about it significantly, and had really strong words accusing Paul McCartney of racist remarks about Africa. Ironic considering the current debate!) and how he's trying to angle this.
The fact of the matter though is when you're attempting to utilize racial elements in your music, what you're thinking and doing puts in a great amount of impact. I can't help but feel severe disgust at persons like DCD/Jarboe using Third World Otherness, the same way I don't like white pop artists doing it. The key difference though, is I expect sloppy, ugly novelty from pop artists, it's part of the trade. How am I supposed to take you seriously as an 'intellectual' artist if you're trying to grant yourself 'otherness' in such an obnoxious way as trying to deny your privilege in society? The constant grasping amongst goths at esotericism via the culture of others because they reject their own...
Despite Zhao's disagreement, I believe intent plays a drastic part of the game. We don't know why Bennett is even doing something so based in African music, what his obsessions with Africa are (I know he blogged about it significantly, and had really strong words accusing Paul McCartney of racist remarks about Africa. Ironic considering the current debate!) and how he's trying to angle this.
The fact of the matter though is when you're attempting to utilize racial elements in your music, what you're thinking and doing puts in a great amount of impact. I can't help but feel severe disgust at persons like DCD/Jarboe using Third World Otherness, the same way I don't like white pop artists doing it. The key difference though, is I expect sloppy, ugly novelty from pop artists, it's part of the trade. How am I supposed to take you seriously as an 'intellectual' artist if you're trying to grant yourself 'otherness' in such an obnoxious way as trying to deny your privilege in society? The constant grasping amongst goths at esotericism via the culture of others because they reject their own...
are you equating this Adam Ant video with straight appropriation of African music under a name which references colonial torture of Africans?
mistersloane
heavy heavy monster sound
No, not equating it. Just wondered what people thought. I always thought it was an amazing song.
I think you can read the name "Cut Hands" as referencing colonial torture, but I think in its original reference and song, it's about killing oneself as being a solution to a problem, not the meaning that you're putting on it, which is valid, but just saying.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
Ultimately, this evasive, self-serving d-bag isn’t worth talking about beyond the general principle of always calling this bullshit out for what it is
But I would like to explain the difference between Cut Hands and Adam Ant, because it's illustrative of what's so wrong with Cut Hands
"Kings of the Wild Frontier" is pure noble savage. The noble savage is dehumanizing, it's an other. It’s a human you define in terms of yourself rather than as their own complete being. It makes native people an idealized relic of the past rather than very much alive and still dealing with racism and often, crippling poverty. The song also, by making the noble savage an ideal for the uptight, civilized white person (its own stereotype) to ease his own suffering, erases the actual, physical suffering of natives. So, none of that is great. However, it’s also relatively benign as these things go. It can even be positive, in a misguided way, in its admiration.
Cut Hands is calling yourself Smallpox Blanket, presenting American Indians in a lurid, sensational way that denies their fullness of being and then hiding behind a dubious claim of anti-colonialism. Cutting Hands is calling yourself Hutu Power and making “extreme noise from Rwanda”. It’s not noble, it’s just savage. Brown-brown, vodou, pidgin. Cut Hands Africa is a place of dark wonder, child soldiers, primitive religion. It’s a place of people getting their hands cut off. It’s not a place of functional human societies with schools and businesses and families. There’s nothing to admire but much to gape at; the horror, the horror.
It's not just one thing, but the entire presentation.
It’s totally possible to use negative, painful symbols in positive or at least nonnegative ways, but because their default meaning is painful and negative, you have to be very clear about what you mean by them. And Cut Hands is the opposite of that.
To quote the famous Achebe essay on The Heart of Darkness
replace “break-up of one petty European mind” with “self-promotion of one petty European producer”
And Conrad at least had a clear view of the suffering caused by colonialism, if not the ability to empathize with the sufferers as fully human. Cut Hands has neither.
Conrad was also a product of racist times, which shouldn't excuse him, but Bennett, working 100+ years later, should have far less excuse still.
(And of course Conrad was a genius, whereas Bennett is a mediocrity. Just that I wouldn't want to be accused of equating their talents. Only their views of Africa.)
But I would like to explain the difference between Cut Hands and Adam Ant, because it's illustrative of what's so wrong with Cut Hands
"Kings of the Wild Frontier" is pure noble savage. The noble savage is dehumanizing, it's an other. It’s a human you define in terms of yourself rather than as their own complete being. It makes native people an idealized relic of the past rather than very much alive and still dealing with racism and often, crippling poverty. The song also, by making the noble savage an ideal for the uptight, civilized white person (its own stereotype) to ease his own suffering, erases the actual, physical suffering of natives. So, none of that is great. However, it’s also relatively benign as these things go. It can even be positive, in a misguided way, in its admiration.
Cut Hands is calling yourself Smallpox Blanket, presenting American Indians in a lurid, sensational way that denies their fullness of being and then hiding behind a dubious claim of anti-colonialism. Cutting Hands is calling yourself Hutu Power and making “extreme noise from Rwanda”. It’s not noble, it’s just savage. Brown-brown, vodou, pidgin. Cut Hands Africa is a place of dark wonder, child soldiers, primitive religion. It’s a place of people getting their hands cut off. It’s not a place of functional human societies with schools and businesses and families. There’s nothing to admire but much to gape at; the horror, the horror.
It's not just one thing, but the entire presentation.
It’s totally possible to use negative, painful symbols in positive or at least nonnegative ways, but because their default meaning is painful and negative, you have to be very clear about what you mean by them. And Cut Hands is the opposite of that.
To quote the famous Achebe essay on The Heart of Darkness
replace “break-up of one petty European mind” with “self-promotion of one petty European producer”
And Conrad at least had a clear view of the suffering caused by colonialism, if not the ability to empathize with the sufferers as fully human. Cut Hands has neither.
Conrad was also a product of racist times, which shouldn't excuse him, but Bennett, working 100+ years later, should have far less excuse still.
(And of course Conrad was a genius, whereas Bennett is a mediocrity. Just that I wouldn't want to be accused of equating their talents. Only their views of Africa.)
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padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
4 other things I want to mention shortly
1. The "jarring education" defense is so, absurdly stupid. It was embarrassing in 1980 and it's 100 times worse now. You know what’s jarring? Starvation and mass rape enabled by an endless state of war. You know what’s not jarring? A fifty-something British dissimulator making a buck off peddling the Dark Continent to ignorant noise scenesters. I'm certainly not on a soapbox but there’s a million ways to engage with this stuff in a real, non-terrible way if you want to.
2. Can the PC talk. No one said ban. Defining something isn’t censorship. Even Achebe said, I believe, he was never against teaching Conrad, just that it should be taught in context.
3. Haiti is one of the poorest countries on Earth, for very identifiable if complex reasons (the linked essay is 30 years old but highly relevant; I’m no expert but I think, especially with the earthquake, if anything it's probably worse now). Vodou, mischaracterized as devil worship, has long been claimed by the Pat Robertsons of the world as a reason for divine punishment of Haiti and the true cause of its problems, and there’s a general notion of that in the culture. Cut Hands is awash in vodou imagery; loas, Damballah, Erzulie. I'm not demanding a detailed breakdown of the issues but, you know, some acknowledgement that it’s not just a spooky, mysterious backdrop for beats would be nice.
4. "West" and "white man" are every bit as much unclear constructs as "Africa" and "black". History and its relation to the present (i.e., any picture of current economic imperialism in Africa that leaves out China is hugely lacking) are not illuminated by such constructs. I'm not singling Zhao (and Achebe) out; this is a widespread phenomenon in academia. Starting with justified anger at legitimate causes even people who should know better slip into creating their own black/white duality of the evil European and the good native (a more positive noble savage). But this is very much a side issue (and different discussion), I just wanted to mention.
1. The "jarring education" defense is so, absurdly stupid. It was embarrassing in 1980 and it's 100 times worse now. You know what’s jarring? Starvation and mass rape enabled by an endless state of war. You know what’s not jarring? A fifty-something British dissimulator making a buck off peddling the Dark Continent to ignorant noise scenesters. I'm certainly not on a soapbox but there’s a million ways to engage with this stuff in a real, non-terrible way if you want to.
2. Can the PC talk. No one said ban. Defining something isn’t censorship. Even Achebe said, I believe, he was never against teaching Conrad, just that it should be taught in context.
3. Haiti is one of the poorest countries on Earth, for very identifiable if complex reasons (the linked essay is 30 years old but highly relevant; I’m no expert but I think, especially with the earthquake, if anything it's probably worse now). Vodou, mischaracterized as devil worship, has long been claimed by the Pat Robertsons of the world as a reason for divine punishment of Haiti and the true cause of its problems, and there’s a general notion of that in the culture. Cut Hands is awash in vodou imagery; loas, Damballah, Erzulie. I'm not demanding a detailed breakdown of the issues but, you know, some acknowledgement that it’s not just a spooky, mysterious backdrop for beats would be nice.
4. "West" and "white man" are every bit as much unclear constructs as "Africa" and "black". History and its relation to the present (i.e., any picture of current economic imperialism in Africa that leaves out China is hugely lacking) are not illuminated by such constructs. I'm not singling Zhao (and Achebe) out; this is a widespread phenomenon in academia. Starting with justified anger at legitimate causes even people who should know better slip into creating their own black/white duality of the evil European and the good native (a more positive noble savage). But this is very much a side issue (and different discussion), I just wanted to mention.
Martin D
Well-known member
He said that to me when I asked.
doesn't really matter does it.
Again, it's like a German putting harsh noise on top of Jewish music and calling himself Gas Oven, and then say:
"NO! It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the holocaust!!! It's a reference to my grand mother's kitchen!!!"
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blacktulip
Pregnant with mandrakes
Adam & The Ants had the best clothes of any band ever, but listening to this for the first time in ages it sounds like someone reconstructed music from the brief descriptive section of a contemporary NME review alone.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I don't want to belabor a dead horse, but something topical
in today's NYT there is an editorial by David Brooks about the media around the Nigerian kidnappings and Bring Back Our Girls. Brooks is a card-carrying member of American punditry, usually by far the most parasitic and worthless branch of the American political classes, but this particular editorial has many good about non-African portrayals of Africa vs. actual modern Africa and how those things clash. It also quotes the great "How to Write About Africa" by Binyavanga Wainaina, which immediately put me in mind of Cut Hands. I encourage everyone to read it, because it is very good, but I will quote some relevant excerpts here.
Extreme Music from Africa liner notes
You may say, but Bennett says he's against racism and colonialism and all that bad stuff.
What say you, Mr. Wainaina?
alright, now I'm truly done with this topic
in today's NYT there is an editorial by David Brooks about the media around the Nigerian kidnappings and Bring Back Our Girls. Brooks is a card-carrying member of American punditry, usually by far the most parasitic and worthless branch of the American political classes, but this particular editorial has many good about non-African portrayals of Africa vs. actual modern Africa and how those things clash. It also quotes the great "How to Write About Africa" by Binyavanga Wainaina, which immediately put me in mind of Cut Hands. I encourage everyone to read it, because it is very good, but I will quote some relevant excerpts here.
Binyavanga Wainaina said:
Extreme Music from Africa liner notes
William Bennett said:
You may say, but Bennett says he's against racism and colonialism and all that bad stuff.
What say you, Mr. Wainaina?
Binyavanga Wainaina said:
alright, now I'm truly done with this topic