Is The Female Band? It’s another laptop performance. I bet I look like
part of the show again… and it stopped
just as I arrived. I can’t say much, although it had a really good sample of a
voice speaking.
I am going to kill the
promoters for this. I am totally out of synch. The day is based, according to
Fielding Hope, on the idea that moving between two venues means the audience
won’t get bored. I am not bored, but I am confused about where I am. The Female
Band were in Nice’n’Sleazy and I am back in The Art School for another laptop
show. It’s all dark ambient and a man in a spot, rotating his head. I thought
that this was the Mathletics Team, who sing about geek culture. I am pretty sure it isn’t.
While we were running
between buildings, Eric explained the difference between analogue and digital
sound. Stroking my face, he said that analogue is a wave, a continuous flow.
Digital, he continued, is a series of points. He poked me in the eye
repeatedly.
It’s in the mapping.
The analogue recording copies the whole wave of a sound, while the digital
captures moments. I need to do a drawing to be clear, but it comes down to
whether the sound is on or off. Like that version of I am in a room.. I heard recorded onto a computer, the digital
process is precise while the analogue is more… representative.
I think Eric was
trying to explain why I was finding the laptop music harsh and the guitar
caressing.
Whoever this is, it's back to the alien landscapes of curious geometries, that seems to be my stock response to electronic music that relies on layers of sound. There is always a howling wind, slow builds, a crescendo, an increase in intensity and a bass that rumbles in my stomach.
I have a very hard time with electronic music like this: rather like contemporary classical musical (including minimalism), too much of it sounds the same. Why this guy isn't part of Pulse's programme at the City Halls is not clear - what makes this music "successful"? It does appear that laptop ambient music, made by more sardonic and knowing artists, follows a certain template. The hostile universe, the ebb and flow of sound: is it simply the path of least resistance.
A snap like a whip against stone beats out a steady measure. There is a sandstorm around us. Oh, I am so menaced. It's dark in here, I am hungry. And although this is well structured, in much the same way as a symphony, the mood is static and cold.
Once upon a time, Morrissey got called miserable. Yet by singing, he lent his music more passion than the average depression. With the advent of laptop music, real misery can be given a score.
During the Sonica Festival, I chatted to a few artists who were emphatic that the laptop, by opening up a universe of sound, was destructive to creativity. It's limitations, they urged me, that really encourage originality.
Hang on, a beat has arrived. It sounds kitsch against the immense tunnel that the distorted main noise is spiraling through. I think back to Princess NRG. That was dance music. This is head-nodding music. And it is masculine. I don't know what masculinity is - I am reluctant to accept it is fighting and drinking, or mere physical prowess like too many choreographers seem to think. But I know this music is masculine.
My earlier comment to Eric: the meaning of the music is what I feel. I am feeling hatred. Hatred of the privilege afforded to the artist to sit there and make this noise. I wanted songs about geeks.
But seriously, what does this artist really have? I am hating on his privilege, which consists of being allowed to play his tunes for twenty minutes. And as that beat keeps going - it is at slow walking speed - I am actually starting to enjoy it. Sure, there's a black hole devouring all existence next to it, but by putting a steady rhythm there, he has lent the whole a shape. It's not quite as bad as I expected.
There's still too much misery.
It just stopped. And the novel was unfinished. It might have been genius...
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