Carnality in improvisation

[visa tapani]

David Keenan made a couple of interesting points in his rather harsh review of the new batch of Another Timbres in the new Wire.

Any thoughts?

[jon abbey]

thanks for posting that, my magazine still hasn't arrived.

I have a ton of thoughts upon first reading that, not all anti-Keenan. but he is clearly stuck in an old world concept of artist and audience, in which music is presented by the artist and the audience receives it passively, whereas the best current improv often leaves more room for the listener and is more of a two-way street. along the lines of my sig file, he's looking for sermons where there often aren't any.

personally, I'd rather chew my own arms off than listen to much more jandek in my life, but I'm not planning on pitching the Wire with a 'review' of the latest slew of jandek records in order to try to convince others of that perspective.

[jcg]

OK I’m neither familiar with The Wire nor with David Keenan’s writings so I might be wrong in calling this piece a pile of crap.

There’s no review at all in the first place! Which is odd for a full-page feature that I thought would be dedicated to that...

I haven’t heard any of the discussed discs but given the lack of report, objectivity and focus of Keenan’s masturbation (to keep on the sexual metaphors), it’s quite impossible to have a sense of what’s to be heard. No really that’s a terrible piece, full of Freudian clichés, self-indulgent provocative stances and, more than anything, an embarrassing “you’re either with us or you’re against us” kind of subtext that’s hard to swallow. Also I had no idea Lydia Lunch was a “far-reaching modern guitar innovator”…

v t: what was this couple of interesting points you were talking about?

[ReverendLove]

From his single point of view he is possibly right.

But for me the weakness of his critic is in the mixing of music and carnality and using cliches as templates for his arguments.

As it is absolutely not necessary for music to be political it is even not necessary to be carnal or as he said 'phallic'. If I judge music by these attributes mainly I miss a lot of other criteria. Does every song has to smell like a hairy heavy metal singer arm pit?
I enjoy a lot of garage rock, old soul, punk rock and other very 'primitive' music. But I am not in this mood for my whole life not even an afternoon.

He wrote:

"Improvised music's historical moment has com and gone. And though the necessity for constant progression, for innovation for innovation's sake is obviously bogus, when an artform pins its colours to the present as improvised music does, then echoes of the past will inevitably as corpses, ghosts. ..."

Sorry but this is too simple. If you change "Improvised music" with "Rock", "Alternative", "Contemporary Classical Music", "Contemporary prose", "Economics" or "Capitalism" you see, that he uses a bloated empty cliche as template for "Improvised music".

Wire is a good magazine and two pages of nonsense is nothing to worry about.

Cheers

[howsthatsound]

what a complete load of crap.

i don't have the time to dissect exactly how fucked that article is on about 9000 levels, and frankly it's not even worth the attention.

edit: premature. i need to think about this more.

oh, and in before someones says that because this is striking a chord it must contain some truth!

[Dan Warburton]

There's nothing remotely "EAI" about the Altenburger / Russell album. And, yes, the truth does matter.

[howsthatsound]

ok, so i assumed a bit about the records in question having not heard them all (i think i made a qualification in my statement, but i'm sure that doesn't matter). however, you could extend the argument to records which don't fit into the criteria of this vague "wire-approved" improv and i think it holds up. either which way, the point is that keenan is clearly reviewing music he doesn't understand, and that's a big problem.

and dan, if the truth mattered, there'd be no point in arguing.

edit: lost my train of thought there. fixed now.

[Dan Warburton]

"wire-approved" improv

Examples being..?

keenan is clearly reviewing music he doesn't understand

I would say he's reviewing music he doesn't like, rather than doesn't understand. I think he understands quite a bit about improv, both as someone who's listened to a lot of it and who's played a lot of it. Anyway, what do you mean by understand? Do you understand The Room? I don't.

that's a big problem.

What, that he doesn't like / understand it, or that he's reviewing it at all?

[jon abbey]

I would say he's reviewing music he doesn't like, rather than doesn't understand. I think he understands quite a bit about improv, both as someone who's listened to a lot of it and who's played a lot of it.

well, see, this is one of the problems with lumping all improv together (not that you do that generally). Peter Brotzmann knows as much about fiery free improv as anyone, but that doesn't mean he should be reviewing Radu Malfatti or Taku Unami records, and I don't think it's simply a question of not liking it.

there are some good issues to be discussed here, but I kind of doubt we'll get to them. let's see.

[P. Wretch]

By denouncing this music for its lack of 'sexiness' or 'phallic' presence, Keenan simply seems to be reproducing the rhetoric of generations of swaggering male rock critics towards all genres - especially those without backbeats or electric amplification - whose subtlety they had lost the ability or will to appreciate. Zappa fanboy Ben Watson used to write in similar terms when he was still a Wire contributor.

[ReverendLove]

I am shure he does not like it. I remember that his demand on music (in general) was (or is) that it has to be ecstatic, shamanic and even carnal. Seems to me like saying: Only Free Jazz that uses powerplay is real Free Jazz. So I am not surprised that he mentioned Peter Brötzmann as good example. But if someone is really stuck (from my POV), it is Brötzmann.

I really do not understand expecting this view as the only true church. I wonder if someone with this view can enjoy music whose paradigms are structural, mathematic and logical or research of the interaction between artist, listener and environment. There is such a lot of approaches to and intentions of making music. He will leave something out.

Not my problem.

OTOH I ask myself if contemporary music became stuck. Is it a vanity zoo for spaced out freaks? Is it deadlocked in elitist rituals? Is there a real evolution? I am very worried about some retrogression in modern music and modern art too. That means in consequence: Has contemporary music (and art) an impact on society? I hope I will not stop to ask me this again and again.

[nhennies]

OTOH I ask myself if contemporary music became stuck. Is it a vanity zoo for spaced out freaks? Is it deadlocked in elitist rituals? Is there a real evolution? I am very worried about some retrogression in modern music and modern art too. That means in consequence: Has contemporary music (and art) an impact on society? I hope I will not stop to ask me this again and again.

You could answer "yes" to all those questions, depending on what contemporary music you're talking about. That is, "contemporary music" is not an "it". In 15+ years of listening to and playing experimental music I have yet to ever feel like there was a shortage of people doing innovative, interesting, vital things. Much like David Keenan calling improv "dead", maybe people just aren't paying enough attention (or only hear what they want to hear to suit their agenda).

Re: the article... has it been a year since "hypnagogic pop" already? It must be in D. Keenan's contract that he has to write something "controversial" (sic) once a year to keep the internet buzzing and buying copies of the magazine. snore.

That said - and I say this as a fan of Jandek - I would love to know the criteria for calling Jandek a "guitar innovator".

[ReverendLove]

You could answer "yes" to all those questions, depending on what contemporary music you're talking about it. That is, "contemporary music" is not an "it". In 15+ years of listening to and playing experimental music I have yet to ever feel like there was a shortage of people doing innovative, interesting, vital things. Much like David Keenan calling improv "dead", maybe people just aren't paying enough attention (or only hear what they want to hear to suit their agenda).

You are absolutely right. Asking myself the the mentioned questions and still vital curiosity are my biggest incitements.

[bryan]

On one hand not feminine..

the feminizing effect of the saturation use of FX is frowned upon by most improvising musicians

but please respect the phallic character..

far-reaching modern guitar innovators - Keiji Haino, Jandek, Lydia Lunch, Bill Orcutt, Christina Carter, Rudolph Grey - have never had to deny the instrument's bawdy aspect, it's phallic character.

whose phallic character?...

..the language of the instrument is not something that exists inside the instrument itself

..so we assigned it then...

...but it's being castrated...

(Keith Rowe's) all-electronic performances resemble nothing so much as post-mortems, the internal organs of the instrument lying exposed on the table in an unconscious echo of Rembrandt's painting of the autopsy of the criminal Aris Kindt, an academic ritual of emasculation.

I think contemporary improv can and does deal with the body, but not necessarily in a simplified rocknroll version of body=sex. Also, I hope it's not trying to get me into bed. The physicality of sound seems to be a central concern in Toshimaru Nakamura's work, for example.

[horaflora]

something that kinds struck me as a a weird was:
"the feminising effect of the saturation use of FX is frowned upon by most improvising musicians"

... which I agree with in as that few use FX per se (depending on your definition anyways), but the feminising part is what struck me, as I had never thought of FX as feminine, or masculine, for that matter... I kept reading without giving it much thought, as the whole conceit of his piece seemed weird and pulled from thin air.

BUT! 2 pages later, I came across another review of his (oOoOO) that refers to the same feminizing effects of FX! I'm not gonna quote it here, as it's part of a long run on sentence that seems disconnected from the rest of the review... I'm just weird'd out by the sentiment of effects being feminine and his double insistence in this issue that they are!

if I want sexy, I turn on luomo, not the stooges, btw.

[Jesse]

Wow. I guess a few of you know Keenan's deal better than I, so I'll trust this is not parody.

He blew it in the first para for me, characterizing improvisation as "subverting the individual", a lazy and dualistic way to regard the nature of collaborative improv.

It's a little creepy, mapping his sexual agenda onto creative music this way.

Cue that guy Warburton published in PT a few years back, who raised howls assailing Gustaffson et al for their testosterone-poisoned free-jazz cock rock tendencies.

The one valid point Keenan makes, obvious as it is, is citing Bailey's grip on many players' approach to the git.

[negative potential]

Only in the world of improvisation is John Russell deemed more gone than Link Wray.

Awesome.

[jkudler]

not sure i have time to read this just now, but thanks a lot for uploading the original, visa t (i also hadn't seen this month's issue yet).

as nick and a few others indicated, it's important to issue a little context about keenan, namely that he's kind of a hack whose reach continually exceeds his grasp, and who loves both 'controversy' and highly dubious genres (yeah, 'hypnagogic pop,' plus the weird 'new weird america' cover story a while back - he also runs volcanic tongue). it's not a rare occurrence that i am reading some particularly dumb - or, more often, strung-together verbiage and claptrap that fails to cohere into any actual *meaning* - review in the wire and check to see the byline and it's "keenan!!".

-jesse

[jon abbey]

OK, not trying to piss anyone off, but I do think there are things to be discussed here, although it's hard for me to do it without sounding insulting. so, apologies in advance, I'm just trying to open a dialogue and give my perspective.

Simon R would be the first to tell you (I think) that he's not trying to make major definitive statements that represent the current world of improv. his interest is more in making small, enjoyable records which mix approaches from EFI and EAI and modern classical, somewhat in the lineage of Emanem. so projecting opinions based on these four records to the world of improvisation as a whole is ludicrous. as PW says above, Keenan makes the classic Ben Watson mistake of having something of a valid point, but then insisting on taking it one or two steps farther ('I don't like this record, thus the whole genre is dead').

AT does not represent the current state of improvised music in the world, AT represents AT. "the world of improvisation" does not think that "John Russell is more gone than Link Wray", a good bit of "the world of improvisation" does not pay much, if any, attention to John Russell's work (sorry if you see this, John), whereas I'm sure that Tetuzi Akiyama and Taku Unami (to name two) swear by Link Wray. this is all tied into the Wire's parochial perspective on current improvised music, which has been wildly tilted towards the UK scene for years now as we seem to discuss every year when their year-end list comes out. they do have writers like Nick Cain and Brian Marley and Dan W and maybe some others that know better, but overall, it always seems to end up in the same place. very disappointing to me, as a extremely longtime Wire reader and occasional contributor.

[nnudl]

I thought one of the reasons Rowe decided to lay the guitar flat (see here: http://vimeo.com/3799720) was apparently to get away from the individualistic expression of the abdominally oriented guitar. Presumably, Rowe's lack of 'phallic charge' or whatever, is, seen from his perspective, a virtue.

But anyway, the article is rather horrible, empty rhetoric. Interesting really, since many Wire reviews tend to border on 'information about/description of a release'. I've grown used to reading the reviews section and coming away none the wiser about which albums to purchase. This seems to be the diametrically opposed position, which is unusual, and irritating also.

I guess this 'gendering' of improvised music perhaps raises more general questions - at Freedom of the City, the audience was predominantly male, with a smattering of females (often performers). As far as I could tell, almost all of the punters that came on their own (like me) were male. But I think this only correlates with larger tendencies visible in the Jazz community (which seemed very male-oriented from my low-level perspective). I think free improvisation perhaps offers a more egalitarian outlook than jazz/rock does, at least for performers (how many mixed rock groups are there?), but nevertheless this could be improved.

Besides, I rather like the aloofness and reserve associated with this music (which can be seen as aversion to carnality/sexuality). I don't think this music isn't sensual - at least not to me it isn't - but I don't think it imposes the same, somewhat tired sexual impulses that the Rolling Stones (or, for that matter, Stockhausen) do.