I used to be a raver, you know (part 1)

Since I spend more time in an office with DJ Muppet (from The Cathouse's R.U.IN student rock night and Sure Shot) than is strictly healthy, I am very aware of the dangers of music. Disruptive, exciting, even sensual (like DJ Muppet himself), a playlist can make the difference between a day filled with productive work or one where I have to go out to the CCA balcony every twenty minutes.

Sometimes it feels as if the history of twentieth century music is a series of attempts to describe madness. As Ninian Perry from the Paragon Ensemble just explained to me, The Rite of Spring is a musical study of why someone would dance themselves to death. And Richard Strauss, when he heard his opera Electra, expressed surprise that he'd actually written it.

Strauss - not the waltz one - was a fan of funky philologist Nietzsche (he wrote the theme tune to Fred's best-seller). Nietzsche had a weird relationship to Wagner (kind of a daddy love/hate affair), but championed an almost irrational self-reliance, challenged God to a square-go before succumbing to madness. Like the enthusiastic crowd at Muppet's monthly Saturday night rock disco, all of these guys were up for some mayhem, making heavy metal the logical conclusion to Wagner's experiments with tonality.

I don't see noise music as part of this. Noise music is the domain of people who stand around and stroke their chins at the sound of hell let loose, and is a primarily cerebral, nay, Apollonian product.

Amplification may be a factor - free jazz is acoustic, though, and it shares this Dionysian ambition - but this history of twentieth century music accounts for the increasing wildness of popular music (Slipknot in the charts, Tyler the Creator allowed near a microphone) and the corresponding fears of cultural commentators. Music is becoming the place where the unthinkable, the unsayable, can be expressed.

Peeking at Post-Modernism: Nietzsche on Kode 9

'I am delighted that my first guest on Peeking at Post-Modernism is a highly influential hypochondriac, thinker and musician. I have been asked by his agent to note that Mr Nietzsche died in 1900 and his subsequent association with Nazism was a result of his sister's deliberate misreading of his ideas.'

'I have no time for the anti-semite - and serious Christians quite like me. Honest.'

'Thank you, Fred. If I may, I'd like to look at a little known aspect of your life: your interest in free jazz. Although it wasn't properly named until the 1960s, you did explore piano improvisation in your later years.'

'I was always a musician, Gareth. And when I went to the brothels, I played the old Johanna. The syphilis was congenital, not caught.'

'Quite. Now, we have a letter here that you sent to your family from university. In it, you tell them that you are composing 'with energetic fury... a song in highest style of the future, with a natural scream and suchlike ingredients of silent madness.'

'I think John Hamilton mentions that in Music, Madness, and the Unworking of Language (p202)'

'Indeed, and he also mentions how visitors would often find you at the keyboard, whacking out a wild tune that could be compared to some Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane. I wonder whether this interest in abusing the musical scales is reflected in your philosophy.'

'I was all about Dionysus, and music, being a big pain in the arse, is a great way of disrupting rational thought. In some ways, I hated this - take Wagner and his infernal racket, put at the service of Christianity and stopping people from thinking. But in my art, rather than my philosophy, I saw the purpose of the chaotic and challenging.'

'Didn't you say that there are no philosophies, only philosophers. Like St Paul, your writing references your physical state as a foundation for your mental processes?'

'It is odd that I would reject Wagner when his music does provide anti-melodic counterpoint to my writings, yes. But I did suffer from headaches... which might explain my love of Berlioz.'

'You describe Berlioz in terms of a flighty young woman, which might reveal some of your thoughts, and needs...'

'It was recognised in the nineteenth century that Wagner could turn a housewife into a slut.'

'In a novel - von Saar's Geschichte eines Weinerkinds.'

'You are quoting Hamilton again.'

'But let's get back to the topic I had hoped to discuss. Kode 9 is coming to the Art School. Apart from being the founder of Hyperdub records, he has written a book about weaponising sound.'

'Anyone who has been trying to read this while listening to the Soundcloud link will know how well Kode 9 uses the distractive qualities of sound.'

'The fascination with extremes of sound - especially the bass - and the chants and calls made his DJ sets

intense.'

'He does have a sense of humour, though. He name checks himself more than I do in How to Philosophise with a Hammer.'

'But do you think he represents a continuation of Wagner's tradition - in which the sound is overwhelming, immersing the audience?'

'He does seem to use music to shift moods - and there is a clear sense of journey in this particular set. I am not a big fan of dub reggae, though. You've pointed out that I probably invented free jazz, and there is a discipline in this music that scares me.'

'The cut and paste technique, which is the aesthetic of all DJs, really, is here used to marshall sound towards an end, rather than release it from context and juxtapose, creating its meaning anew.'

'Yes, but it is there for a purpose: to shake your booty. Those bass lines work in the bowels. And those bits where he chats are very Wagnerian.'

'In what sense?'

'Well, you wish he'd get on with it, and drop the beat.'

The Night Before I Depart (Giants in the Forest, chapter 1.1)

The night before I depart, I spend a few hours looking over maps and my schedule. The first week is going to be spent in a part of Scotland that is unfamiliar – the phrase I’ll hear, and begin to use, is ‘underrated.’ The Borders conjures up ideas of conflict – I am sure that 7.84 did a play about it in the 1990s at Tramway. Since my main guide to the Scottish landscape, a battered copy of Julian Cope’s Modern Antiquarian, seems not to have a section dedicated to Peebles and Galashiels, I am stepping into the unknown.

My intention for this week is to travel light. Unfortunately, I am breaking my travels at Falkland for a weekend of camping. My rucksack will contain my tent but, realising that I have plotted a couple of long walks (long by my lazy fitness levels), I dump the sleeping bag for a cotton slip. I take a single book – Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. I’ve been meaning to read it for years, it’s slim enough and doesn’t have all those distracting proclamations about God’s mortality that I don’t understand. In retrospect, a water bottle would have been a good idea.

The Giants in the Forest are an intriguing project: they have been placed around Scotland in collaboration with local groups, designed by Vision Mechanics – a company I know as one of the imaginative contemporary puppet masters that Scotland is breeding. I have an outline of their purpose – once in place, they become both a focus for local activity and a nice surprise for unsuspecting walkers. My own purpose, a blogger travelling between the sites, is less clear. I am part of the documentation, at least. I’m winding myself up to bring something more dramatic to my responses.

I’m more used to cities, and theatres, and art galleries.  I relate the locations to pop up versions of an art space – although most of the Giants were put in place last year and have already seen a summer and winter, I am focused on them as sculptures. Going out into the countryside, I am worrying about long walks and how well my choice of suit will hold up in what appears to be the height of summer. Having decided that I would risk hitching for certain sections of the journey, I’ve gone with a natty pin stripe. It does clash with the red rucksack.

I check the schedule. I am looking at the first three days out, ignoring later excursions – my brain gets confused at the complexity of different transports over the month. It’s Bowhill first, and a long journey. It starts on the train, then goes to a series of buses. Finally, I am going to walk from Selkirk to the Estate. I am hoping that the final stage, down to the Giants, isn’t going to be a problem for my smart shoes.

I have a look at the introduction of The Birth. This copy has some useless notes, and seems to clarify the entire idea in two pages. Its vision of nature – wild, untamed and probably hostile – doesn’t cheer me up.