ANTI-SELF: EXPERIENCE-LESS NOISE

[undo]

wombatz, i appreciate your devotion to the principle of charity.

however, the problem here isn't that mattin and his dreary hangers-on have written something that is off our radar. this is right in the middle of what i do and what i care about. and he sucks at it. mattin is not reza, or nick land, or sadie plant, or any of those. i've done 'cyclonopedia' (a few times!), i've done O[Rphan] D[Rift>], i've done burroughs. the production of that kind of sense-effect doesn't occur by slapdash skim-and-quote. it's actually very difficult to make that stuff achieve a consistency where it can produce the sense you've described. part of the way it does this is by avoiding obvious fuck-ups, which re-ground the words in the mire of the world-as-it-is like a ton of lead bricks. CCRU and their ilk could pull it off because they were brilliant readers and sensitive writers. they had an incredible (life-changing, for me!) mixture of sobriety and daring. mattin and the mattinettes can't tell the difference between an example and a counterexample. they couldn't cut-up their way out of a paper bag -- if i even thought that's what they were going for.

making stupid mistakes is not détournement. the appeal to situationism is sad, because many of the situationists were razor-sharp people with genuine wit and clarity. they had a chance.

this doesn't have a chance.


my problem isn't that i want to end an experimental, philosophy-/theory-based approach to writing about experimental music. i don't. i want it to flourish. i don't want the people that make something that actually works to be dragged down by this dead weight.

[undo]

he seems to need negative feedback energy to load up his powers.

a few people have suggested this to me, in an effort to deter me from pointing out how stupid this stuff is.

i think it's a misunderstanding. it may even be a misunderstanding within 'mattin' himself. mattin doesn't need negative feedback. he needs a mixture of negative feedback and a shred of mystique, which he's been able to achieve via theory for too long. he's banking on no one pointing to his writing (because he gave up making records that could do anything) as worse than nonsense. his writing is merely boring. deprived of mystique, it would be just one more hacked-up undergrad paper for some professor to groan her way through grading.

'this man may look like an idiot and he may talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you -- he really is an idiot.'

[Dan Warburton]

Ah, at last a quote from my favourite Marx

[anonymous999]

Why have we kept our own names? Out of habit, purely out of habit.

Precisely is habit what should be avoided
Otherwise things continue the way they are

[undo]

Precisely is habit what should be avoided
Otherwise things continue the way they are

it's like you're begging me for enough rope to hang yourself.

[schiksalgemeinschaft]

Why have we kept our own names? Out of habit, purely out of habit.

(1) Precisely is habit what should be avoided
(2) Otherwise things continue the way they are

on (1): why?
on (2): you think (1) is going to make real changes?

[jkudler]

Ok, Mattin’s own theory doesn’t really have that post-Burroughs vibe, even if there’s a lot of fiction, both in the vibes in the ocean and in the casting of his own character (as an other). He (deliberately) works in a language he can’t handle, and he seems to need negative feedback energy to load up his powers. An underlying thought that anonymity would lead to greater objectivity is a kind of metaphorical stance which ties in with recent trends (see all the Anonymous masks sourced from a shitty movie going back again to a comic), but also allows you to short-circuit life and theory (why the separation between the two could be seen as too great, even if that probably isn’t theoretically relevant, see above). Why doesn’t he own up and discuss things? What would a discussion of the separate points possibly lead to? Greater truth? (I do not share the obsession with facts that many people on the internet seem to have, it’s probably because one moves in an environment where quick, trustworthy filtering is most necessary for survival and everything’s potentially made-up anyway.) Nah, the discussion would just dilute the greater truth that lies behind the veil of thinly connected words. (Add smiley which only pretends to carry a tongue in their cheek.) A thought which can be agreed upon holds no potential. So even if I have no insights from what Mattin actually writes, he’s a valuable character in the story I’m part of, and his theory is valuable (only) for the sound of it (which is the only way it will reach me as a philosophy agnostic/illiterate). But then, see above, I’ve grown up witnessing how proper philosophy will lead to awful real-life results, so I prefer the sound of failing thought.

thanks - that's the most useful "defensplanation" (you like that??) of this i've seen.

that said, i think this conversation is lacking a huge element, which is discussion of social and cultural capital. the above would pertain if this was just some wacky IHM post, but it's going to be in a continuum book, it's part of the overall mattin "mythos" and persona (multiple big articles in the wire, high-profile performances, talks/lectures/symposia around the world), so it does actually carry real-life, capital weight. and that's without even addressing undo's issue about who gets to set the agenda for the public discussion of the music we all value.

i realize that to some extent mattin is deliberately creating a persona and a kind of meta-performance that includes texts and so forth (he writes more about his performances than almost any other musician in our world), but that is of course a strategy. i think a conversation that narrowly focuses only on the text ignores that strategy and ignores the larger issue of the use value of such text.

yes, the specific thing on here is credited to a collective, but that seems only a minor inconvenience to the above.

-jesse

[mudd]

i have cleaned out this thread and named the other posts something dumb in the DLO. there remains stuff i'd like to not see any more of, but i don't want to start breaking up posts or editing. let's try to be civil in our frustration.

m

[Dan Warburton]

the above would pertain if this was just some wacky IHM post, but it's going to be in a continuum book, it's part of the overall mattin "mythos" and persona (multiple big articles in the wire, high-profile performances, talks/lectures/symposia around the world)

"Multiple big articles in The Wire?" There was one, wasn't there? And a "Bite" several years ago. (And how many people read The Wire, worldwide, eh?) "High-profile performances?" What, a hundred punters in Glasgow, or somewhere? (Last Mattin gig I went to there were barely a dozen people there - probably because it was in some godforsaken suburban cultural centre miles outside town.) "Tallks, symposia around the world.." that last Youtube vid from Chicago showed about five people in someone's front room. C'mon Jesse, as Monte Cazazza would say, he's "very widely unknown" in the big scheme of things. Typical IHM mentality, this, thinking that our piddling little discussions here are in some way changing Civilization As We Know It. But I'm sure Mattin, like Mr Chamy, agrees with Oscar's old line: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

[Matt Wuethrich]

I know the idea's been floated before, but I think this thread just reconfirms the need for a label like Erstwhile to publish a collection of essays by practitioners of 'this music', something in the style of Zorn's Arcana series. I also know there's ErstWords already and the Compost & Height's Wolf Notes (and I realize that book publishing is about as lucrative as releasing records these days), but there's just something about a nice, weighty tome that's irresistible.

I always found the variety of opinions and approaches in those Zorn books to be really engaging and often enlightening.

[rainey]

Books?

http://www.wolke-verlag.de/component/co ... e/193.html

http://bhobrainey.wordpress.com/2011/10 ... es-deluxe/

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/7795/

All out this year.

Also, there's an essay on the BSC in this book, which obviously deals with topics tangential to the inner core of topics at IHM:
http://www.amazon.com/Analytical-Cross- ... 510&sr=1-1

[jkudler]

the above would pertain if this was just some wacky IHM post, but it's going to be in a continuum book, it's part of the overall mattin "mythos" and persona (multiple big articles in the wire, high-profile performances, talks/lectures/symposia around the world)

"Multiple big articles in The Wire?" There was one, wasn't there? And a "Bite" several years ago. (And how many people read The Wire, worldwide, eh?) "High-profile performances?" What, a hundred punters in Glasgow, or somewhere? (Last Mattin gig I went to there were barely a dozen people there - probably because it was in some godforsaken suburban cultural centre miles outside town.) "Tallks, symposia around the world.." that last Youtube vid from Chicago showed about five people in someone's front room. C'mon Jesse, as Monte Cazazza would say, he's "very widely unknown" in the big scheme of things. Typical IHM mentality, this, thinking that our piddling little discussions here are in some way changing Civilization As We Know It. But I'm sure Mattin, like Mr Chamy, agrees with Oscar's old line: "The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."

come on dan, seriously? the thing about "changing civilization" is a strawman and you know it. obviously i am talking about the standards of this world. ok, one big article in the wire. the wire is the most-widely read journal of experimental/unpopular music, regardless of its readership in absolute terms. i mean, are you really disputing that he gets flown all around the world?

-jesse

[Snow Dog]

Books?

Two quite different books, or shall I say opposable, but they might fit in the said debate:

http://marhaugforlag.no/suddeninfant2.html

http://www.unkant.com/p/publications.html#adorno

[presquepartout]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIYz8tfGjY&t=2m0s
rs

LOL.

literally, LOL

[diggedy d]

O/T, but has anyone read the Prevost book yet? Does it exist? Would be interested to read it.

[jon abbey]

it definitely exists, I have one. I have not read it, I find his prose pretty much impenetrable and rarely worth the effort. I just skimmed it to make sure he wasn't making up shit that affected me like in his previous book, I'm still pissed about that insanely stupid Hands of Caravaggio chapter.

[diggedy d]

I haven't read that chapter, but someone once mentioned it to me now I remember it. Thanks.

[negative potential]

O/T, but has anyone read the Prevost book yet? Does it exist? Would be interested to read it.

I picked one up at the Just Not Cricket festival in Berlin recently, but have only just delved into it a little bit. I'm intrigued by Prevost's interest in both Marxism and Evolutionary Psychology though, since it sort of reflects my own interests and I've never really understood the hostility between the two camps. I like the idea of paying attention to shifting perceptions conditioned by social and historical factors while still being tuned into more timeless, biologically rooted aspects of culture. I plan to make more time for it once I get some other stuff out of the way.

The Echtzeitmusik book is much more appropriate for casual browsing.

[used]

I think that an artist who was able to make a good living from Noise -- who was able and willing to devote the same time and dedication to it that Ray Charles was to his piano, for instance -- might produce a work so powerful and compelling that it would stand a chance of being truly revolutionary, in that it would change the way non-eggheads approach the idea of music (and experience, and consumption, and so on).

What is your opinion on the endless stream of "homage"? From 20th C classical through to the massive "Tribute(s) to The New Blockaders". I feel these represent attempts to draw attention to the various revolutions that have not been televised.

[max]

This thread was great fun to read. After reading Undo's posts I felt very unconfident in my reading/thinking abilities. Because the reactions in this thread to the "theory" writing of the first post, would not have been my reactions. I would have read it and sort of just nodded along, thinking I was gaining something from it but perhaps not. Sometimes it works that way. Still, reading Undo's posts as well as others helped me a lot as a sort of guidance in the right direction. We'll see.