phenomenology of electroacoustic music

[mvuent]

Nothing like a Liam thread to get the lads talking. No one wants that electroacoustic weirdo music anymore. Give us a packet of benson gold and six stellas, we're reliving our teenage years.

electroacoustic music is very different from conventional music. but what is it different for? what do all the years of study and rigorous execution that go into this stuff amount to, from a listener's perspective? does it open up experiences that even more "experimental" areas of popular music (like IDM and deconstructed club) do not?

at the same, is there a sense in which it shares a language with hip hop, dub, rave, etc.? would producers in these areas benefit from greater awareness of classic electroacoustic works, as stockhausen suggested after hearing "the piece Aphex Twin of Richard James"?

collective interest in this stuff may have already been exhausted for a while by treelethargy's great thread. but the plan is to use this one for a few attempts to process some of the music discussed there and build on ideas that were brought up. or ones that weren't, really. just not so much posting recs here, cause there's already enough material in the playlist other_life made to last a lifetime.

 

[luka]

I've talked a little about how this stuff reeducated my ear before in the sense that I experience it as a series of discreet events, the corollary of which being that there is no redundancy, no superfluous events (no repetition, no marking time), everything counts in large amounts and that means the attention is poised throughout.

 

[thirdform]

it's organised noise to me apart from organised tonality. whereas harsh noise is just noise that *can or cannot* be organised. it's the sonification of all cybernetic and systems processes.

 

[mvuent]

one idea that came up in the other thread is that this stuff is maybe the ultimate form of psychedelic music, in that it does things with sound that seem "impossible" or miraculous

What you are hearing is the impossible. the sound of dimensions and frontiers yet to be explored.

there are a few directions this line of thought could go in, but one specific type of sonic event that came up was transformation of sounds and, I guess, its deeper implications (that mostly go over my head, but still...)

it's an area of music that requires the artist to explore state of the art things and time and space, etc. independent devotion to the sound of altered realities. . . . it's why i use the term "post-psychedelic", i.e. p-orridge, because it's not intended to be psychedelic and it came after psychedelia, but it still aims to alter reality through the imagination. coherently scrambled. like francois bayle sounding like going deep into VR cogs as was said earlier. there's a point of androgyny too. i think of it like how words are gendered in french. it's playing with the grammar of sounds and their consonants.

sud is kind of the archetypal example for me too, especially the last section where the natural sounds from the beginning become harmonic. makes me imagine the waves, birds, etc. turning into gold or something.

i think that gets across alone what i love to hear in experimental music. transmogrification.

 

[thirdform]

I've talked a little about how this stuff reeducated my ear before in the sense that I experience it as a series of discreet events, the corollary of which being that there is no redundancy, no superfluous events (no repetition, no marking time), everything counts in large amounts and that means the attention is poised throughout.

also this. every second is a self-contained universe unto itself.

the only music i see really trying to continue that sort of multiverse legacy is, bizarrely enough, the type of french speedcore known as flashcore.

 

[mvuent]

I've talked a little about how this stuff reeducated my ear before in the sense that I experience it as a series of discreet events

also this. every second is a self-contained universe unto itself.

so they're essentially just making sample packs then. got it.

 

[luka]

so they're essentially just making sample packs then. got it.

Ooooh sassy!

 

[mvuent]

well...writing what I wanted to about this is harder than expected. in the meantime, thx for your contributions so far luka and third.

 

[luka]

Just say what you hear. Keep it simple. One step at a time. Nothing could be easier.

 

[pattycakes_]

fuck writing what I wanted to about this is harder than expected. in the meantime, thx for your contributions so far luka and third.

Just know, we're always watching.

 

[thirdform]

so they're essentially just making sample packs then. got it.

well, that's an interesting hot take... I must say the hard core marxist in me can very much vibe with that. Albeit i find it hard to apply to xenakis, there is much more a sounds between the sounds thing going on with him.

 

[luka]

so they're essentially just making sample packs then. got it.

Thurd this person is calling us stupid!

 

[luka]

Mvuent just said we are too dumb to be allowed to listen to this serious intellectual music and we should stick to 'euro-rave'!

 

[luka]

I feel 2ft tall!

 

[luka]

I'm going to have to retire. I'm getting too old for this. I'm going to chill, light an incense and listen to some smooth jazz with pattycakes.

 

[thirdform]

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=14738&p=383003#post383003

 

[luka]

It's like prison in here you can't slip up even once or you're guna get cut with the lid of a tin can

 

[mvuent]

is it a fair representation to say that listening to someone like parmegiani is like listening to an interesting collection of foley fx for you? that was meant as a prompt, not a shut down of course.

"In De Natura Sonorum I distanced myself from the power of sound, from what I call the power of Orpheus. Orpheus charmed the plants and animals With his lyre, and in the pieces I composed prior to De Natura Sonorum I was under the spell of the sounds I created. Sounds that evolved and that I found satisfying and I left it at that. People always used to to compliment me on the beauty of my sounds in my first pieces! But beautiful sounds don't necessarily constitute interesting beautiful or interesting pieces of music. Whereas in De Natura Sonorum I set myself many more constraints: I placed the sounds as you do letters, one after the other, so as to create forms and sequences"

de natura sonorum is woebot cannon so maybe it's worth mentioning. is your experience with it consistent with what he says here?

 

[luka]

I don't really know what he's trying to say there. Btw what is foley fx?

 

[luka]

I suppose there's a real physicality and presence to thr sound. Scratching inside the speaker etc. What's your experience?