'Deconstructionist' Music

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

one might argue that's because he's making a consistent and well-supported point

but an expression always functions like a machine (deleuze and guattari again), even taken apart or broken down ones, but broken-down machines can easily be machines of rigidity imo. again i'm thinking of dj spooky style intellectualizing which ends up being an art world calcifying machine. vs. a band like swell maps who seem to have a lot more life in their music. this is a little bit received ideas about both, though i do really like swell maps. dj spooky i'm not all that familiar with beyond some 'writings' lol.

xp to frederik b. - thanks for that, i'm unclear on the rhizome and haven't read a thousand plateaus but that sounds otm to me.

The disappearance of the individual subject, along with its formal consequence, the increasing unavailability of the personal style, engender the well-night universal practice today of what may be called pastiche. This concept, which we owe to Thomas Mann (in Doktor Faustus), who owed it in turn to Adorno's great work on the two paths of advanced musical experimentation (Schoenberg's innovative planification and Stravinsky's irrational eclecticism), is to be sharply distinguished from the more readily received idea of parody.

dj spooky is not good imo

dj spooky is contenderizer in musical form

pussy galore's playing shitty reads as antirock only to those who have never heard a royal trux record

at one time, this described quite a few people

taking apart an object only to reconfigure it as something new is collage

http://www.exoticwireart.com/Images/composite.jpg

that's not the best example, but i'm sure everyone has see the booth at a local community art fair where the objects are made of household objects.

i think dog latin is saying that us maple is more complex than the naive art of the local art fair

i am contesting that

mordy how much for the set i love those guys

also which one is supposed to be fela?

but an expression always functions like a machine

no way man

that's the machine of hate, the pretty hate machine

the point is not what the mummies wanted to do - though mind you, these guys were friends and neighbors with negativland and the residents at a time when humorless diy hardcore had swamped the scene, even in SF - but that they accomplish everything on the "list of things deconstructivist bands do"

― the late great, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 1:16 PM (9 minutes ago)

the "deconstrucive" bands i'm thinking of are characterized by music that is recognizably of a specific genre or tradition, but that is in some sense alienated from that tradition, and that deliberately creates a sense of sense of alienation or frustration in its audience. US maple produce something that sounds like "rock music", but doesn't provide musical closures and satisfactions typical of the genre.

the mummies' "budget rock" aesthetic is certainly hostile towards traditional notions of musical virtue, and the sound they produce is deliberately broken, but i think of them as happy formal traditionalists, reaching back to the basically mythological "wildness" of 60s frat rock. they break rock music, but seem to do this in pursuit of a purer and more primitive essence-of-rock.

xp poorly formed joek

taking apart an object only to reconfigure it as something new is collage

yes and no. collage implies referentiality, that the pieces retain some of their original identity. sound-collage music exists, but is somewhat different from the sort of "deconstruction" we're talking about here, where the disassembled thing isn't a particular piece or set of pieces, but rather a governing set of expectations or rules.

xxp so you need to read that sinker article, particularly the part that says "war with yr neighbors, chillin' with yr friends ... or war w/ yr friends, chillin with yr neighbors?!?"

us maple sounds pretty much like rock music to me tbh

dj spooky is contenderizer in musical form

― Einstürzende Joebarton (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Tuesday, September 4, 2012 1:25 PM (21 minutes ago)

ty

US maple produce something that sounds like "rock music", but doesn't provide musical closures and satisfactions typical of the genre.

us maple provides the closure and satisfactions typical of us maple, the # of us maple listeners who actually feel that sense of dislocation you guys are fetishizing rather than the comfy "ah just chillin' listenin to some derek bailey" comfy on the couch w/ cup of tea feeling is i wager a small percentage, they get the closure and satisfaction they expect of US maple and they expect of that corner of rock

btw 60s frat rockers don't actually wear mummy outfits

I thought this thread would be about 2000s music such as

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guZueuki4-Q

this is the great paradox of noise music - it is very very easy to quickly become inured to that sense of dislocation and to hear any sort of noise / chaotic / deconstructed / rule-breaking music as just more music w/ its own set of rules

anyway all music in the age of reproduction spirals inward toward its core meaning without ever reaching the ideal and along the way laying bare the "punctum" of affect (thx oxtober magazine) so i dunno what you are all on about

these guys just do it in a semi-boring and quite obvious "oh yes our album cover it's a raw SCRIBBLE do u see?" kind of way

[bandname] is not your regular [genre] band. though they do take influences from [genre] and [other genre], they also frustrate expectations by utilizing [technique] and [lyrical style adjective]. [nameofalbum] is a [improperly used academic term] of [genre] ideas that transcends similar artists. would you like me to set up an interview with [leadsinger] for a profile or send u a dropbox link so that you can review the new album?

seeing US Maple live is a big part of the whole thing IMO.

yeah it's like if don caballero actually got to falling-down-drunk stage instead of just teetering at the alcohol-fueled beat-up-the-drumkit-and-wrestle-the-furniture violent drunk stage

us maple deconstructed rock by changing what it meant to rock and to be a rock band

The Monks is probably the best example of this. Their producers took apart their songs and reduced them. Instead of singing a verse, they would just narrow everything down to 5 words, or 4 words. The less the better.

Yeah it can't be "Oh we are punk and we are playing shitty" even though the songs are all 4/4 beat and 1/4/5 chords.

xp i like us maple btw i just don't think its special esp in a clever "deconstructive" sense, they're basically just doing sparse "free rock" because they followed up on some byron coley albert ayler recommendations or something

us maple sounds pretty much like rock music to me tbh

― max, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 1:48 PM (53 seconds ago)

it does, i agree! that's sort of the point. it sounds like rock music, but like rock music that's been undone at a basic level. it resembles, but does not function as. if you approach it with the idea that it's going to scratch the zz top itch, you'll likely be frustrated. alienation from apparent genre identity seem like a big part of the point. sure, it scratches the US maple itch for fans, and the dislocation itch for those interested in such things, but that doesn't reduce the extent to which they seem to be frustrating rock's basic impulses. same thing, really.

and i'm not really taking shots at the sinker piece. just horsing around.

it's fascinating but extremely dense, and it's taking me a while to process it.

it's taking me 10+ years

i have talker and acre thrills on CD

much like aesthetics of rock

btw 60s frat rockers don't actually wear mummy outfits

no, they just wore revolutionary war outfits. or dressed all in black with one black glove. or shaved their heads and dressed like monks, etc.

The Monks, guys, the correct answer is the Monks.

yes but a MUMMY has a particular meaning in context of reviving the past DO YOU SEE, just like does a MONK or a REVOLUTIONARY

not sure w/ black w/ glove is all about

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_6poag7ZQ4Zc/St2Fzbci3II/AAAAAAAAAh4/3hEcZbGk0FU/s400/back-from-the-grave-1.jpg

i believe that's from the same time as the mummies?

well before. back from the grave comps started showing up in the early 80s. around the same time garage punk's "RAW! WILD! PRIMITIVE! TRASH!" aesthetic started to coalesce into a formal genre. all indebted to the cramps? mummies were a decade deep continuation/refinement.

guess i'd say that billy childish was at least as important as the cramps in building defining this sensibility, though a good deal less well-heard in the states

yeah it's like if don caballero actually got to falling-down-drunk stage instead of just teetering at the alcohol-fueled beat-up-the-drumkit-and-wrestle-the-furniture violent drunk stage

― the late great, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 3:54 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

BULLSHIT! they did everything exactly like the record! al wasn't drunk onstage he was acting. they deconstructed u bro

the closest billy childish got to deconstruction was schtupping trace emin

never been sure, tbh. they sure sound drunk.

xp i like us maple btw i just don't think its special esp in a clever "deconstructive" sense, they're basically just doing sparse "free rock" because they followed up on some byron coley albert ayler recommendations or something

― the late great, Tuesday, September 4, 2012 3:56 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

see that's the crux, is it sounds like "free rock" but it was played just like the records

did you guys ever see them live?

they did not deconstruct me but they awed me. also he was drunk man, i could smell him (close enough that his sweat was drenching me and it felt like the kick pedal was hitting my chest)

only show i think actually deconstructed me was a ruins show

xp to contendo - the mummies are part of a process of ongoing engagement w/ 'deconstructionist' music which is not codifying punk tradition any more than indie rock dudes imitating wire music is breaking down any codes

see that's the crux, is it sounds like "free rock" but it was played just like the records

crux of what though, i don't get what that signifies to you

the crux that you are talking out of your ass