'Deconstructionist' Music

i'm taking this thread to concern "deconstruction" of a rather mechanical sort that's only tangentially related to derrida and the subtleties of his theories. like deconstructed clothing or w/e.

deconstruction here = the willful disassembly and reorganization of familiar object-types, so that the results superficially resemble what they're "supposed to be" while at the same time denying some of the expectations that are typically brought to things of that sort. this sort of deconstruction might be said to resemble a tzara/burroughs/gysin-style cut-up, in that it explores the territory generated by reconfiguring the component parts of existing texts, though it depends less on chance for authorship. if the word deconstruction does not seem appropriate to this use, any acceptable other might be substituted.

the italian band starfuckers and its offshot sinistri

starfuckers were the first rock band i thought of in response to this thread, along with US maple and black dice. that's probably because i was introduced to them by a review which described their music as a "deconstruction of rock", but they definitely seem to approach the genre as a box of puzzle pieces without a single correct solution. infrantumi sounds like an album assembled out of pieces left over from other songs, stray beats and whispers jigsawed together by chance as much as intention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3DUpQVBcNg

didn't they have something to do with this lot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7v2vFvJWX8

obligatory "deconstruction is a way of reading, not of writing" post, if the point hasn't been made already

I wonder if car dudes get mad about "turbo-charged"

I've always considered Here Comes the Indian by Animal Collective as a deconstruction of the album format. It's sequenced just like a normal rock-album, with the hits a the start (here the drums and harmonies of Native Belle and Hey Light), then a less catchy 'filler' mid section (the abstract drones and soundscapes of Infant Dressing Table, Panic and Two Sails On a Sound), one last hit towards the end (the 6/8 punk of Slippi, as soon as it has fulfilled it's role as a shot in the arm it devolves into a caribean drum-along) and then a moody slow-burner to finish off (yet another weird soundscape, Too Soon). The dynamics of it seems to be completely normal, while the sounds and compositions are quite out there.

I always thought the White Stripes did this sort of thing. They took elements of a style (blues, country, folk metal, punk, garage...) and then presented them in bold minimal strokes.

As Chris Handyside says of the first album; "Minimal to the point of sounding monumental, this Detroit guitar-drums-voice duo makes the most of its aesthetic choices and the spaces between riffage and the big beat."

They took elements of a style (blues, country, folk metal, punk, garage...) and then presented them in bold minimal strokes

Yes but as has been mentioned upthread that has nothing to do with deconstruction.

Pussy Galore felt more "Deconstructionist" to me than White Stripes, blues-wise

As for the term--I feel like there isn't really any Deconstructionist art, but rather art whose creators have read Derrida and do stuff to try to make you aware of that.

It's an easy mistake to make – to literally interpret the word 'deconstruction' and applying it to various forms of music. But I think if you stick to the Derridean meaning, you'll find that music has been deconstructive for quite some time. I think the interpreting sheet music is inherently deconstructive. Various forms of avant-garde composition, jazz and free improv were toying with Derrida's concept of deconstruction before he developed the idea.

Sorry about all the typos.

assume those posts abt anco and the white stripes are jokes? cuz the anco album is just sensibly and traditionally sequenced, and the white stripes were just a two-piece blues rock revival outfit.

Contenderizer always manages to save my sorry arse by understanding and reiterating what I meant to say in a way that actually makes a whole lot more sense, and for that I salute you mister.

Let this thread not get bogged down in theoretical semantics, (although I'm sure many here are very keen for that to happen). Let's also not take 'deconstruct' to mean simply 'experiment'. I'm talking about a very specific method of experimentation here rather than a stringent adherence to Derrida and his theories. Again I think Contenderizer summarises that approach best in his post upthread.

tbf and i don't mean to sound hardman here but you used the term incorrectly in a way that a lot of ppl use it incorrectly. it's understandable, but it's not theoretical semantics to point that out.

Something like Emptyset might apply to this area - sculpting a sort of untechno out of blocks of solid noise rather than filling silence with beats.

Pussy Galore felt more "Deconstructionist" to me than White Stripes, blues-wise

this is OTM, in that pussy galore seemed to present their music as a sort of comment or attack on rock music & culture. same is true of the butthole surfers and sonic youth. in retrospect such stances seem more indicative of american punk's attempt to come to terms with its affection for classic rock than anything truly subversive, but at the time a lot of fans and critics seemed willing to accept distressed rock music as a "deconstructive" antirock gesture.

isn't the idea of stripping down music to specific bare elements more like minimalism?

Fair dos Mordy. Like contenderizer, i'd also seen the term applied (in reviews and articles) to the bands I mentioned in the OP, and felt a thread running through them that I liked and wanted to know more about. Sorry for being confusing.

isn't the idea of stripping down music to specific bare elements more like minimalism?

sure, but reconfigured and repurposing the stripped carcass is something else. the white stripes were blues rock minimalists (of a sort). starfuckers and black dice weren't just stripping down, they were breaking and remaking; calling attention to the wounds, joints and cavities; making the familiar sound strange.

"reconfiguring"

black dice were a noise band, contenderizer

yeah, i no. they started out as something much closer to a hardcore band, though. watching them disengage from that genre was like watching someone take a car apart while driving it down the road. that they then took the buzzing, clicking, klonking pieces of their used-to-be-a-hardcore-band junkyard and used it to construct something like "dance music" makes their career arc seem deconstructive in the sense i'm discussing.

"discontinuist"

they were a miniaturist hardcore band, who bought some synthesizers and started making 10 minute tracks with ululating baby sounds and samples of ocean waves

yeah, that's another way to put it. language is fun.

it is suggested that our conflicting accounts of the early history of black dice are ultimately irreconcilable

<Insert Girl Talk jokes here>

1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVzVqqzkL_o

2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct21e3sqEog

3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubHkJlKg0ts

they sound pretty good if you play all three at once

no they don't

lol

Yes but as has been mentioned upthread that has nothing to do with deconstruction.

god, I hope there's not going to 100 of these, if the thread gets that long. dog latin explained how he was using the word in the first post.

I say we try get ride of the word "indie" when trying to describe music.

assume those posts abt anco and the white stripes are jokes? cuz the anco album is just sensibly and traditionally sequenced, and the white stripes were just a two-piece blues rock revival outfit.

Well, you could say that about HCtI, but it still functions as a deconstruction of the rock-album in my view. You might call it 'traditional', but I haven't heard any other noise-album (and AnCo was heavily indebted to noise-music at this point, and Black Dice in particular) work this way. Most of the time, noise-albums makes me feel like symphonic paintings (Beaches & Canyons really sounds like three paintings of beaches, and two of canyons) or travels (stuff like Vision Creation Newsun).

But it's of course true what they say up-thread about deconstructivist art/interpetration

reconstructionist music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBlKMK_AbBI

http://web.pitas.com/tashpile/noise1.html

^^ required reading

from wiki:

The White Stripes have cited the minimalist and deconstructionist aspects of De Stijl design as a source of inspiration for their own musical image and presentation

I'm not that serious about it. I should just stick to polls.

I take this to mean (more or less) breaking things down to their most basic components and then building them back up in a way that differs from the norm. Maybe someone can fill me in on a better definition of what deconstructionism is about - particularly when it comes to music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpPaeBloCXY

A related line of enquiry here would be the notion of the rhizome as outlined by Deleuze and Guattari, who were not pure deconstructionists but whose thought shares some common ground with that of Derrida. A lot of '90s electronica (Oval, Mouse on Mars, maybe even Autechre) might be seen as rhizomatic in the way it refuses linear and binary hierarchies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUN3RNM6iiQ

^^ at 00:40 he deconstructs an already deconstructed song

US Maple feels like the right answer but also i don't really know wtf deconstructionism even is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXLqMB6vBic

I'm kind of thinking about bands like US Maple the trashmen who formed with the intent of stripping rock down to its barest components. The result is a stilted Beefheartian sound that is still recognisably rock music (guitar/bass/drums/vox, pentatonic scales etc) but structurally fragmented - unorthodox time signatures and meters vocals based on "tones" rather than lyrics.

http://f.cl.ly/items/3t0f0z2l0m3Y041T2h1P/Screen%20Shot%202012-09-04%20at%2010.07.40%20AM.png

http://www.rejectedunknown.com/art/books/RichardMeltzerTheAestheticsOfRockBook.jpg

This may be a boring response but I always thought Spoon had done this really well with "Kill The Moonlight" on a less extreme level than may be what is being sought out here.

mark sinker piece works about as well if you read every third word/paragraph/volume

I'm kind of thinking about bands like US Maple the trashmen who formed with the intent of stripping rock down to its barest components. The result is a stilted Beefheartian sound that is still recognisably rock music (guitar/bass/drums/vox, pentatonic scales etc) but structurally fragmented - unorthodox time signatures and meters vocals based on "tones" rather than lyrics.

― the late great, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:35 PM (5 minutes ago)

don't think playing real shitty and wrapping yourself in toilet paper = what dog latin was getting at

LOL at contendo taking on sinker

you must be this tall to ride this ride, mister

anyway enjoy your list of arrhythmic bands, i will go be pedantic somewhere else

A related line of enquiry here would be the notion of the rhizome as outlined by Deleuze and Guattari, who were not pure deconstructionists but whose thought shares some common ground with that of Derrida. A lot of '90s electronica (Oval, Mouse on Mars, maybe even Autechre) might be seen as rhizomatic in the way it refuses linear and binary hierarchies

― my father will guide me up the stairs to bed (anagram), Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:30 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol. if you want to think about schizophrenic development or whatever baroque classical is gonna be an easier place to see the sights. but asking about "deconstructionist" music doesn't make a whole lot of sense because critical/conceptual models like this are meant to be applied, not recited in musical/genre form or whatever. this is why examples of the concept in the arts (that are cross-genre or "non-linear" or dj spooky) are always kind of bad or boring imo.. the art isn't meant to be a slave to the concept, the concept is supposed to liberate the art or the production of the art or w/e.