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imomus
Earlier this week I told you, sadly, that both democracy and popular music were dead. I haven't changed my mind, but today I'd like to give you a chance to prove me wrong by voting in the Qwartz Discovery electronic music awards. Now, normally I hate awards ceremonies (though I certainly don't think they're over -- like conferences, sports events and art biennials, they flourish like the green bay tree), but last year my friends Hypo and Emmanuelle de Héricourt won this one with their brilliant Correct Use of Pets album (see video below). And this year there's a very interesting shortlist of six finalists, including the Morr-minimalism of Ms John Soda, the extraordinary elephantine brass bleatings of Babils, and O.Lamm's massive Monolith album (on which, of course, I perform a glitch-Cockney rap cameo).
Since Qwartz are very generous with their clips (whether you register to vote or not), you can hear all these interesting albums (including my cameo on "Syllabus of Errors") in their entirety on their site. But do vote too, and prove to me that democracy and music still work! Here, to tempt you, are two videos; "Naughty Place" from last year's Qwartz winners, Hypo and EDH, followed by my favourite track from o.lamm's Monolith, "Silviphobia" (feauring Midori Hirano).
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"Getting over"
Date: 2007-11-10 09:42 am (UTC)(I shall be sampling some of the above when I'm a bit more awake. I also make 'klangen', and love electronic music. There's a link in my LJ.)
Re: "Getting over"
Date: 2007-11-10 10:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 10:10 am (UTC)Re: "Getting over"
Date: 2007-11-10 11:08 am (UTC)Thank heaven for SoundForge et al.
(Back in the summer of 2001, as Israel was kicking the s**t out of the palestinian in Jennin, a colleague and I did this :
http://www.esnips.com/doc/83410508-78c6-4e73-893e-57d988a5c0e1/Crossfire
sensing that wider trouble was brewing in the Middle East in general. How right we were. 2 months later The WTC came down, and the rest - sickeningly - is 'history' as they say.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 11:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 11:50 am (UTC)Music is over. Democracy is over. Shamelessness is over. Vote canvassing is over. Irony is over.
Date: 2007-11-10 01:44 pm (UTC)Re: Music is over. Democracy is over. Shamelessness is over. Vote canvassing is over. Irony is over.
Date: 2007-11-10 03:21 pm (UTC)Re: Music is over. Democracy is over. Shamelessness is over. Vote canvassing is over. Irony is over.
Date: 2007-11-10 03:32 pm (UTC)Re: Music is over. Democracy is over. Shamelessness is over. Vote canvassing is over. Irony is over.
Date: 2007-11-10 03:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 04:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 04:08 pm (UTC)your whole "this is dead" mentality tends to assume that inanimate objects and concepts can live and die in the first place.
Explain further, plz.
Re: Music is over. Democracy is over. Shamelessness is over. Vote canvassing is over. Irony is over.
Date: 2007-11-10 04:29 pm (UTC)A friend of mine created an animation a few years ago. He sent me a DVD of it and asked me to appraise it. It was an excellent piece of work, the methods were very impressive but I was very critical of aspects of the narrative. I was frank with him about my criticisms, and it upset him quite a bit.
A few years later his animation won the BAFTA for a short animation. Obviously, winning something that prestigious will open a lot of doors for you, but I can say with some certainty that he didn't care as much about the award as he dd about the opinions of peers he respected.
I dont know how you can canvass for votes for this album when you've so openly expressed that you've fallen out of love with music. Whats your motive? If you genuinely believe this album deserves praise because it moves you, that's fine, but you can't then say something as sweeping as "music is dead".
A friend rooting for my Album because they genuinely love it is love of the music. A friend who's rooting for my album to win some award when they've so flagrantly fallen out of love with music isnt love; it's an empty sentiment. My work has failed to touch them. Love is over.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 04:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 04:46 pm (UTC)Or go stand in line with a bunch of Tokio Hotel fans and SCREAM SCREAM SCREAM with all their names written on your face in eyepencil.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 04:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 04:54 pm (UTC)Asking me if I think CD-ROMs are alive or dead is kind of pointless, because even if they become completely obsolete or are on their way to complete obsolescence (which I would take as your definition of something being "over" or "dead"), the object lives on in various future objects, just like the vinyl record lives on in the design of laser discs, CD-ROMs, DVD-ROMs, and more importantly, computer hard drives, which store the mp3 files that appear to be succeeding the old technology that is supposedly "over" or "dead." An mp3 is a format, though, just like CDA (CD Audio) was on compact discs. But the mp3 file itself does not = a compact disc, or a vinyl record, or a cassette tape. It's not a 1:1 replacement. Your new distribution format requires a hard disk on which to store the data. And the design of that hard disk is based on familiar analog storage hardware from the days of yore. These objects never "die" or "end." They are simply incorporated into the newer technology.
Re: Music is over. Democracy is over. Shamelessness is over. Vote canvassing is over. Irony is over.
Date: 2007-11-10 04:55 pm (UTC)I will say that, personally, I'm enjoying silence (and the sounds of the environment) more than I did before. But I'd rather say that this absence of music makes the presence of music that really stimulates me -- like "Silviphobia" by o.lamm, one of my favourite tracks of the past year, and do please vote for his album if you agree! -- all the more wonderful.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 04:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:00 pm (UTC)I think that this stance of yours is just really obnoxious. It's speculative Wall Street avant-gardism. You throw out a bunch of controversial assertions as bait and see what, if anything, gets caught in the fishing net. I'm not saying that I disagree with you on every count, in terms of what is/isn't influential or culturally significant anymore, but rather that the absolutism of your declarations is fraught with all sorts of philosophical baggage (can things even have discrete "beginnings" and "endings"?) that you never even seem to address.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:04 pm (UTC)"No way!" said the second girl in a tone which suggested the very notion was absurd and insulting.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:10 pm (UTC)Arf arf! Do you think I should put a twenty-minute delay on these "results" and charge a premium rate for people who really want to make a killing on the news that cars, for instance, are history? Good idea!
I will say, though, that you mix metaphors clumsily when you describe what a speculator does as "absolutism".
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:22 pm (UTC)Which is why I become so disappointed when you pull the tired move of saying that something is "dead" or "over." It is, as I said, a sort of Wall Street avant-gardism. Or if that description isn't working for you, imagine yourself as Joan Rivers out on the red carpet judging Hollywood fashion for the E! Network. In either case, you're throwing ideas out there, hoping that they'll become buoyant just by the absolute nature of the declarations themselves. I mean, if it's supposed to be a funny gimmick, please do explain the humor. Because that's the only way I can even attempt to rationalize your comments without wanting to tear them apart.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:25 pm (UTC)And this is entirely in line with what I wrote on Tuesday.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:27 pm (UTC)Real innovation comes from people who recognize these influences and ask themselves "why the fuck are we retaining it? this isn't an elegant way to design the product? fuck this! i'm doing something else! bring in the test monkeys, i want to see how the test monkeys might inspire a new transportation vehicle!"
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:28 pm (UTC)How are you feeling about Norman Mailer's passing, by the way, talking of obnoxious-but-rarely-dull cultural figures?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:34 pm (UTC)Oh, I'm not sad. I think he lived a full life. I like his writing, but I like (what evidence remains of) his curmudgeonly attitude even better. He had moxy, that one.
If Vladimir Nabokov hadn't existed, Mailer might well have been the best fiction author of the 20th century.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 05:37 pm (UTC)sorry, honey
Date: 2007-11-10 06:03 pm (UTC)I do kinda like that glitchstep rap though.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 07:26 pm (UTC)drive me, baby, I give fanservice
Date: 2007-11-10 07:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 08:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-10 08:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-11 12:52 am (UTC)love,
John Flesh
www.fashionflesh.com
ps- for those that don't know who Fashion Flesh is: he is the one that made the last three Momus releases a lot more...interesting.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-11 05:43 pm (UTC)(Goes to listen.)
Sounding pretty interesting, texturally. I can hear some of that Add N to X glam stomp in some of the tracks.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-11-11 08:16 pm (UTC)love,
John / F.F.
www.fashionflesh.com
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