Lorenzo Senni

[IdleRich]

In this thread Rich assumed I was talking soulboy.

Come on man that was a joke, I obviously didn't really think that.

 

[pattycakes_]

Otherwise much turkish music goes in harder than motown, yet it wouldn't be right to call it soul, in that sense, maybe even racially insensitive, depending on how it was framed.

It's played with soul

 

[pattycakes_]

Come on man that was a joke, I obviously didn't really think that.

That was the post that broke the camels back, Rich. I hate soul now.

 

[chava]

Breakdowns are not allowed. Period.

 

[luka]

It's impossible to talk about this stuff really. Too much of it comes from the gut. How do you distinguish between a trick and just not getting it? You can say someone uses cynical techniques like sticking big breakdowns in trance tunes in order to prompt certain feelings, but then people put big breakdowns in jungle tunes in order to prompt certain feelings. You can talk about the loss of the human, but then people probably said the same of Kraftwerk. You can talk about irony and pastiche, but that's been going on for decades. There's a component beyond language.

It's not impossible it just means you need to try harder.

 

[luka]

There also has to be some good faith obviously. You can't have people pretending that life is rational and intellectualised or it is 'woo woo' (ugly, boorish term). That's not a way to open up understanding, it's just the kind of gaslighting you get from corporate HR departments

 

[version]

There's no way you can explain without it ultimately coming down to taste and subjectivity.

 

[version]

You can't say whether something has soul or not because two different people could hear it and have polar opposite responses. You'd then have to find some way of demonstrating one of them was inferior or deficient in some way which you'd again have to discern based on taste and subjectivity. It's a bottomless pit.

 

[pattycakes_]

You can

 

[luka]

There's no way you can explain without it ultimately coming down to taste and subjectivity.

Explain what? You can talk about things without being so crass as to try and explain them.

 

[luka]

You can make observations, you can grope for common ground and shared experiences.

 

[luka]

You can try, within the group, to create a language that that describes the shared reality you've agreed upon.

 

[luka]

The word subjective should be banned. There's no such thing as the subjective. It simply doesn't exist.

 

[version]

You can try, within the group, to create a language that that describes the shared reality you've agreed upon.

Right, but we haven't agreed on one because nobody can actually say what it is and we're stuck on taste and preference.

 

[luka]

Cos we've been very lazy and don't deserve any treats

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

This word we're talking about is something you either know & feel or not

you are not just saying "I feel this". that would be unassailable. all personal reaction to art is valid, some of part it is obviously inarticulable.

you are saying "this is truth, and I know what what it is". I, James Brown, Cornel West, whoever, we know, but not everyone does.

you are saying e.g. that I and others who know, have a better ability to discern this truth. we are, literally, more soulful.

that - as demonstrated by the quoted YT comments and infinite other examples - is exactly what is nonsense

you can't have it both ways - personal knowledge and thus unassailable, but also a universal artistic quality equaling truth

if it "goes without saying" , then you - no one - can say this has soul and this does not.

either it's articulable and can be defined, or it's inarticulable in which case, whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent

look at your arguments - what is soul? the soulful. why is it soulful? because it's played with soul. or, because Cornel West (or whoever) says it is.

it's either soul in terms of itself (meaningless), in relation to some equally meaningless synonym, or because x authority says so

but no person has any more inherent ability to discern artistic truth than anyone else. not you, not me, not Cornel West or James Brown, no one.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I don't remember everything I said about depth, but I'm sure I never made a claim for it as a universal quality that I possessed special understanding of

I'll just repeat: transcendence is a personal matter

 

[chava]

There's no way you can explain without it ultimately coming down to taste and subjectivity.

No it's a matter of ethics. Do you want your emotions manipulated by music or not?

Or: it's a matter of information theory or cybernetics. How much excess info can your brain process and is it advisable?

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

to avoid confusion - we need to be clear about separating soul, the Black American artistic tradition, from soul, the supposed universal artistic quality

of course the former exists, includes James Brown etc - I have and would continue to place disco, house, etc in an "electronic black soul continuum"

but when I do I'm referring to a specific artistic-historical tradition with specific aesthetic signifiers, not some universal authenticity or lack thereof

if you want to say something does or doesn't have soul in that sense, yes, of course

 

[pattycakes_]

I don't remember everything I said about depth, but I'm sure I never made a claim for it as a universal quality that I possessed special understanding of

I'll just repeat: transcendence is a personal matter

The Depths

'Deep' means different things to different people. Let's have a thread where we post a piece of deep music and talk a bit about what makes it deep to you and why you like it. I'll start with one of my favourite recordings of all time Found this on a La Monte Young themed post back in the...

dissensus.com