Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Not to mention that empiricism is a theory, when clearly stated. But that's probably another topic.
Reynolds hardcore continuum event
- Thread starter heva
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jonny mugwump
exotic pylon
i remember how hilariously late the mainstream music press came to rave/ jungle (aside from Reynolds and barely anybody else) because the whole idea of understanding music through actual dancefloor participation rather than pub-bound headphone silliness was entirely anathema.
the dismissal of wonky fascinates me as it just sounds so fucking fresh- i've not been this excited about a dancefloor genre for years. is this dismissal then a failure to appreciate the music in it's necessary context- on the floor?
we would not be having this conversation at all without people like K-Punk, Eshun and Reynolds of course, i really believe that. But, electronic music like this HAS to involve participation- it simply cannot just be understood at home. this has always been the case since the late 80's and i wonder if this is what's beginning to happen now.
the dismissal of wonky fascinates me as it just sounds so fucking fresh- i've not been this excited about a dancefloor genre for years. is this dismissal then a failure to appreciate the music in it's necessary context- on the floor?
we would not be having this conversation at all without people like K-Punk, Eshun and Reynolds of course, i really believe that. But, electronic music like this HAS to involve participation- it simply cannot just be understood at home. this has always been the case since the late 80's and i wonder if this is what's beginning to happen now.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
The legacy of Reynolds as a writer is utterly unfuckwithable - he could spend the rest of his life writing about how acid jazz revivalism is the only vital youth movement in the UK at the moment and it wouldn't take away from the massive importance of Energy Flash and his earlier rave writing. And I think he's still a very good and perceptive critic when he's writing about individual records - look at his stuff about the Arctic Monkeys, for instance: whether you agree with him or not, whether you like the music or not, it's basically interesting writing.
But I find his recent writing on the UK club scene pretty poor because where his older stuff was theory that grew out of living and understanding the scene, his newer stuff, (and other nuumological attempts to deal with dubstep, funky, wonky, bassline, donk and everything else that's been going on since grime - there are far worse offenders than SR) seems to be more about an outsider trying to shoehorn the culture into the theory without really knowing what's going on on the ground. Which seems to be almost the opposite of what he was originally doing.
I don't think it's 'buffoon empiricism' to expect someone writing about a scene to write about what the scene is like rather than making broad generalizations of what they think the scene probably ought to be like to fit their idea of how the grand narrative should go.
Edit: I'll actually go further than that and say that an 'experience first, theorize second' approach doesn't just give a better description of the scene, sometimes (in the informal case of rave blogs at least) it actually gives more interesting theory, because the theory actually has to develop and grow and maybe say something challenging and unexpected in order to take into account new and unexpected permutations of stuff, rather than carrying on serenely saying that everything is as you predicted and anything that isn't as you predicted it isn't interesting because it doesn't fit the theory. These days I find Blackdown more interesting from a theoretical point of view than SR or K-Punk as well as from an empirical point of view.
Again, maybe the reason the nuum and Reynolds' other ideas seemed so interesting in the first place is that they actually dealt with things that were unlike most of what had gone before, and hence had to work out new ways of looking at what was going on. Trying to look at the funky / wonky / dubstep / hipster / grime / blogline / ghetto mishmash in terms of the nuum and finding it boring as a consequence is actually a bit reminiscent of the people who looked at hardcore in terms of albums and auteurs and career development and major artists and decided that it was boring and irrelevant.
But I find his recent writing on the UK club scene pretty poor because where his older stuff was theory that grew out of living and understanding the scene, his newer stuff, (and other nuumological attempts to deal with dubstep, funky, wonky, bassline, donk and everything else that's been going on since grime - there are far worse offenders than SR) seems to be more about an outsider trying to shoehorn the culture into the theory without really knowing what's going on on the ground. Which seems to be almost the opposite of what he was originally doing.
I don't think it's 'buffoon empiricism' to expect someone writing about a scene to write about what the scene is like rather than making broad generalizations of what they think the scene probably ought to be like to fit their idea of how the grand narrative should go.
Edit: I'll actually go further than that and say that an 'experience first, theorize second' approach doesn't just give a better description of the scene, sometimes (in the informal case of rave blogs at least) it actually gives more interesting theory, because the theory actually has to develop and grow and maybe say something challenging and unexpected in order to take into account new and unexpected permutations of stuff, rather than carrying on serenely saying that everything is as you predicted and anything that isn't as you predicted it isn't interesting because it doesn't fit the theory. These days I find Blackdown more interesting from a theoretical point of view than SR or K-Punk as well as from an empirical point of view.
Again, maybe the reason the nuum and Reynolds' other ideas seemed so interesting in the first place is that they actually dealt with things that were unlike most of what had gone before, and hence had to work out new ways of looking at what was going on. Trying to look at the funky / wonky / dubstep / hipster / grime / blogline / ghetto mishmash in terms of the nuum and finding it boring as a consequence is actually a bit reminiscent of the people who looked at hardcore in terms of albums and auteurs and career development and major artists and decided that it was boring and irrelevant.
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Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Slothrop OTM.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
amen to that. running across his enormous piece on 2-Step a few yrs back (whilst trying to dig up info on Dizzee Rascal, who I think I'd read about in a magazine - this was like late 2003) on some random website was, as stupid as this sounds, a minor life-changing moment. I'd spent most of my teenage yrs playing in punk bands, thought all dance music was interchangeable commercial rubbish (that's what being an American will get you - grew up in Chicago & had never even heard of House music). it wasn't the what & who in the article - back then I had no clue what 99% of it was about anyway - but the way it was written, the thinking behind it. I'd never read anything like it (still haven't I reckon), it was like my gateway into this alternate world somewhere beyond white guys (including me of course) with gtrs.
that I dunno about but then again I just don't care in the least about most of the current things he writes about - Animal Collective & donk & that. on the other hand the random reflective moments (who was the best UK 70s hard rock vocalist? and so on - btw my $'s on Phil Lynot) are frequently pretty great.
yeah I always figured Blackdown to be his natural successor (I mean that as the highest praise if you read this Mr. Blackdown). though really pretty much anyone attempting to write seriously about dance music these days - at least English language - is treading in his wake. it's funny b/c of course SR wasn't even a dance music guy - Reynolds Retro is full of stuff about like Godflesh & On-U Sound & awful late 80s UK indie rock.
tbh honest I think it's just part of getting older. a similar thing happened to the generation of writers who developed all that rockist stuff - they developed all those concepts to help win the struggle for rock & rock journalism to be taken at least semi-seriously and once their position was cemented they got reactionary. not that this is limited to music or within music to writers of course. so to win his crusade for jungle SR developed all this stuff which made sense at the time - the mistake is in thinking that the nuum stuff (pirates & so on) drove the music when in fact it was the other way around. I think a big part of the problem is that during the halcyon days of ardkore & jungle there was no overarching theory, and theories are always better at explaining the past than the present.
*EDIT* oh and one more thing. mostly this whole business just makes me a little sad, like watching a favorite band from childhood try to rehash all their old ideas b/c they don't have any new ones.
mos dan
fact music
both in the fact article - indirectly alex with the 'resentful generation' tag, and directly wordthecat with his wilful misunderstanding of chris saying "music-is-music" as an ultimate but liberating reductionism - a comment on writers' ultimate inability to shape and describe the strange, non-wilful movements of disparate people who make music.
as i say i continue to be in awe of a lot of reynolds' writing, but this was what first spiked my enthusiasm a bit.
exactly, i hope so
lol! which blog? it's not on his blog now.
I think trying to reduce the whole thing to a theory vs empiricism debate is a bit of a cheap shot - not that I'm saying that's your position of course, you're not Kode 9 (right?
my point was that there isn't an over-arching theory that applies right now, but that's *okay*. no need to panic just because the nuum doesn't really hold weight anymore.
exactly my point. like, have the aforementioned heard 'strange fruit' go off at fwd? or a lil silva or marcus set in a club? is that impudent, small-minded empiricism, to suggest that that might be important?
or, my point would be, the future.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
except then it's not explaining, it's predicting. which may seem like semantics, but I think it's an important distinction to make.
jonny mugwump
exotic pylon
i truly shudder to think what i would be listening to if i hadn't fallen under he spell 20 years ago. wanky probably.
haha, yes it's worth trying to come up with new speculative soniconcepts, but i don't think the criticism is totally anti-theory.
the next mission is to create new theories that represent an alternative to the idea of the hardcore continnum rather than just criticising it for not fitting or at worst not being real enough.
the most miserable thing about this , and also the one quote everyone has picked up and used is bok bok saying the hardcore continnum doesn't work cos you couldn't talk about it to a few people that make music, 'Imagine talking about the hardcore continuum with Oddz & Eastwood. I don't know if it would hold a lot of water for them (or whether they would even care)." - Alex Sushon, 10/01/08'
i mean what a wholly patronising and utterly grim statement, also talk about 'generational resentment' it sounds as if mr sushon is suggesting these guys were born yesterday with no maps or compasses.
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who?
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Just his normal one, came up in my reader, guess he's took it off now?!
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
What were his comments that made people start this discussion and start dissing the nuum? Saying grime is dead?
swears
preppy-kei
I think Reynolds' contention is that the HCC isn't actually a theory, it's a real thing that exists, and he just came along and named it. He said as much in his FACT talk. I'm inclined to agree, even as a teenager I could see a clear line between rave, jungle, drum n bass, garage, 2 step, etc... before I had ever heard of Reynolds. Hearing a tune like "RIP Groove" for the first time, I could hear the jungle feel in it straight away.
Although I don't know how much it really holds up now though, or if any genre after 2step comfortably fits into it.
Anyways, here's a great gek piece on the subject, (best so far, imo) and kpunk's reply.
Although I don't know how much it really holds up now though, or if any genre after 2step comfortably fits into it.
Anyways, here's a great gek piece on the subject, (best so far, imo) and kpunk's reply.
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padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
yes this it exactly on both counts. I thought Mos Dan's strongest point was how much technology has altered most of the elements that SR used to define the nuum.
after 2step I think of it as kids who grew up listening jungle so that pieces of rave & jungle have embedded themselves in the DNA of their musics but there's no direct line like ardkore-jungle-garage. more like nuum musics once or twice removed. Burial's the obvious example but plenty of other things that aren't nearly as overt & self-conscious about it.
I also agree with mms that that the idea that producers now don't know or care about the history that preceeded them is a ludicrous one. maybe not to a degree of nerdy obsession, but still, especially the ones who are also DJs.
most of the producers or mcees or djs or whatever i've met are well aware, they live it, they've got older brothers or friends, or whatever who lived it too.
It's also the idea if they don't then that matters for trying to create a theory around music, even thought there are constant examples of how for most people on whatever scenes, splintering off somewhere they have tracable evidence of dna going back to different parts of the continnum. Some are actually part of it as a reaction to things like elder siblings liking gooey garage etc, like ikonika liking hardcore rock cos she hated garage or whatever and then returning to dubstep when it made more sense., but it's still part of it, for some people liking some parts of it and not others is how they use it or experience it. Reckon that it will take another 3 years for the hcc to stop making sense completley, and for there to be a generation that grew up on the net.
Its unthinkable that its somehow unwelcome to theorise and speculate or abstract about music cos it's somehow not 'real' enough which is what this statement from alex sushon suggests. Infact why doesn't he interview the people he talks about here about their histories rather than suggesting that he speaks for them, or is embarrased to talk to them about it, part of me wonders if this isn't generation resentment and the hcc continuum just is too old, no disrespect like.?
The main problem i can see with hhc is now that the nodes have changed, the continnum isn't one specific 'local' but lots of different almost artificial locals, the hubs of creation and consumption, the way people make and interpret, and let their music get heard have changed. what used to be the black atlantic is now more like a seamonster with writhing fibre optic tentacles flashing information from locale to locale(ha ha) Interpreted in a massive clash of language, music, clothes, interpretations and misinterpretations, mixtapes and refixes across the internet.
Maybe one of the problems i have with the hcc is it's too real, too ideologically based, it lacks the theoretical and critical language that seems necessary right now, infact right now with the'The urgent, rapidly-unfolding tasks of the revolution are happening now' as dan calls it, which i do think is actually happening, someone more weightless, some of the sonic fiction of mr eshun etc seems more appropriate.
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With regards to Alex Sushon's comments, I think people are reading a bit too much in to it. He was saying that a lot of producers wouldn't particularly care about the HCC not that they wouldn't be influenced in some way by jungle et al. I don't see how it should be controversial to suggest that a fair few younger producers (and, by extension, a good proportion of ravers) wouldn't care much for the HCC as a theory. As an example (and its not necessarily the best example but the one that immediately springs to my mind and I'm well aware that he's not a 'young' producer), I'm reminded of that Joe Muggs interview in The Wire a couple of months back with Noodles of Groove Chronicles. Basically, he kind of laughed at all these questions with regards to his tunes in relation to the HCC and just kind of said he just made music and didn't think about it theoretically in that way. On the whole, I think people are overreacting a bit to what Alex said.
A couple of other brief points.
I've got to agree with Mos Dan about the impact of technology on the HCC infrastructure. While I think it can be incredibly lazy to take the token view that technological globalisation has radically altered pretty much anything you can care to think of, it does seem undeniable that the traditional pirate radio/dubplates/indy record shops economic infrastructure has been increasingly dismantled over the past decade or so. When a good proportion of pirate radio stations (or at least the most organised ones) are broadcasting online, hardly anyone seems to be cutting dubplates (except it seems for a hardcore few in the dubstep scene) and, as has been mentioned, so many independent record shops seem to be closing down, you know the goalposts have moved. Even where these things are still functioning (or enduring as SR puts it), they're surely no longer as critical to these music scenes as they used to be. How can pirates be as integral as they used to be given the huge proliferation of podcasts and other free mixes online? Why bother with cutting dubs when its so much cheaper (in the long run) to buy Serato or CD-Js (especially if you're attempting to straddle a wide bpm gap e.g. sets which move between funky, garage, dubstep and garage)? And record shops, to my mind, just don't seem to operate as hubs in the way that they once did.
Also, my memory's a bit hazy as to where I read this (probably on his blog at some point years ago) but I seem to remember SR once proclaiming grime to be the culmination and effective endpoint of the HCC for a number of reasons which I can't really recall now. If you accept this view (and it seems to carry a certain logic) then surely there's only two ways to interpret everything that has arisen post-grime: either, all these new genres are merely retreads of everything that went on, predominantly, in the 90s (as it seems SR amongst others have argued at various times e.g. SR on dubstep) or (more plausibly in my eyes) the HCC can't adequately explain this 'post-grime' period.
A couple of other brief points.
I've got to agree with Mos Dan about the impact of technology on the HCC infrastructure. While I think it can be incredibly lazy to take the token view that technological globalisation has radically altered pretty much anything you can care to think of, it does seem undeniable that the traditional pirate radio/dubplates/indy record shops economic infrastructure has been increasingly dismantled over the past decade or so. When a good proportion of pirate radio stations (or at least the most organised ones) are broadcasting online, hardly anyone seems to be cutting dubplates (except it seems for a hardcore few in the dubstep scene) and, as has been mentioned, so many independent record shops seem to be closing down, you know the goalposts have moved. Even where these things are still functioning (or enduring as SR puts it), they're surely no longer as critical to these music scenes as they used to be. How can pirates be as integral as they used to be given the huge proliferation of podcasts and other free mixes online? Why bother with cutting dubs when its so much cheaper (in the long run) to buy Serato or CD-Js (especially if you're attempting to straddle a wide bpm gap e.g. sets which move between funky, garage, dubstep and garage)? And record shops, to my mind, just don't seem to operate as hubs in the way that they once did.
Also, my memory's a bit hazy as to where I read this (probably on his blog at some point years ago) but I seem to remember SR once proclaiming grime to be the culmination and effective endpoint of the HCC for a number of reasons which I can't really recall now. If you accept this view (and it seems to carry a certain logic) then surely there's only two ways to interpret everything that has arisen post-grime: either, all these new genres are merely retreads of everything that went on, predominantly, in the 90s (as it seems SR amongst others have argued at various times e.g. SR on dubstep) or (more plausibly in my eyes) the HCC can't adequately explain this 'post-grime' period.
nomos
Administrator
mms - well put.
Gilroy/Eshun's Black Atlantic dis/continuum (i.e. sea monster discontinuum) seems a better overview concept to me, with hyperdub (or similar ideas from Erik Davis or Kevin Martin) being one mode of that, and the hhc as one route/root through it, but tangeld with others which, more and more, take precedence. the ideas are mutually compatible - they just identify different things. partly deleuzian yes, but definitely not anti-theory.
Gilroy/Eshun's Black Atlantic dis/continuum (i.e. sea monster discontinuum) seems a better overview concept to me, with hyperdub (or similar ideas from Erik Davis or Kevin Martin) being one mode of that, and the hhc as one route/root through it, but tangeld with others which, more and more, take precedence. the ideas are mutually compatible - they just identify different things. partly deleuzian yes, but definitely not anti-theory.
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sure he doesn't have to think about it though as his history shows that he's moved with it.