Hip Genres & Musical Styles: Which Is The Worst??

Improv does not have to have jazz instruments. Those records with voice crack are improv. There are noises but noise music is something else.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, May 26, 2023 1:43 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

and what, do you think it is? I mean, when you get to stuff like the Borbeto/VC collab and the those Sonic Youth experimental records (and many more), the "improv vs noise" distinctions are totally arbitrary in terms of what "genre" they sound most like as well as cultural associations

I think you just don't want to admit that noise can be as varied as improv

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Friday, May 26, 2023 6:25 AM (two hours ago)

sleeve otm

blows my mind that P*tchfork ever had a regular black metal column

Hipsters can jump straight to the "fascism" part without making a stopover in black metal fandom.

wow a reductive black metal take, now I've seen it all

take that stuff here:

No thread for hipster fascism, surely some mistake!

yall think black metal has more nazis than industrial and noise music? I'd be curious.

we definitely need a poll for genres with the most nazis

fascism more like trash-ism amirite ppl

you mean landfill fascism?

ok lol

the industrial/noise fascists of old always seemed like they started out doing an offensive bit, became actually fascist, and then completely forgot what they were doing and are now an unintentional bit themselves

mh - loltm

if every interview or live music appearance turns into "let me tell you why I'm not racist and this is a provocateur thing" then you're just tiresome and need a new shtick. especially when every show's been this way for decades!!

losing the plot and thinking "provocateur" means "irritating to everyone"

speaking of an unintentional bit, i remember the first time i heard abt death in june and how scary and edgy they were. then i saw a video and it was dudes dressed for paintball (ghillie suit, maybe?) doing "white dude in the old man hat" comedy folk

so true

neo folk more like clown folk amirite

death in june is literally the worst music I've ever heard I cannot fathom why hipsters ever went for it except for whatever frisson they got from the crypto fascist associations

and what, do you think it is? I mean, when you get to stuff like the Borbeto/VC collab and the those Sonic Youth experimental records (and many more), the "improv vs noise" distinctions are totally arbitrary in terms of what "genre" they sound most like as well as cultural associations

I think you just don't want to admit that noise can be as varied as improv

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Friday, May 26, 2023 6:25 AM (two hours ago)

sleeve otm

― sarahell, Friday, 26 May 2023 bookmarkflaglink

It's pretty distinctive because improvising doesn't always lead to the results you think you do. Noise leads to a pretty specific set of sonics a lot of the time. That's why those born collabs with voice crack sound different to the rest of Borbeto's work, or Sauter sounds different at times when playing with Rudolph Grey and Beaver Harris than he would with Borbetomagus.

Improvisation isn't even a genre. It's the other side of playing something composed on page or improvising on a theme. If you want to think it's all arbitrary then that's you thinking Girl from Ipanema is Tropicalia ;-)

Noise leads to a pretty specific set of sonics a lot of the time.

and a saxophone doesn't? do please go on parading your staggering ignorance of an entire genre itt, I'm enjoying it

I forgot that you are ILM's self-appointed improv gatekeeper, so your willfully obtuse nonsense makes more sense now

I would rather step on a 20 sided die than listen to death in june

the four sider is the one u gotta watch out for

and a saxophone doesn't? do please go on parading your staggering ignorance of an entire genre itt, I'm enjoying it

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Friday, 26 May 2023 bookmarkflaglink

There are very different styles, players, tones, histories you are erasing here.

I'm just thinking you all want to say some of these records we talked about are noise records but to me they are working within an improv context. It's not a big deal. If you want to tell me SY are improvising on some odd record that's good for you.

"to me" is doing a lot of work there but I hear ya. to me, you sound like a rockist, privileging "real" instruments over electronics in a way that can't actually be articulated

"no big deal" otm, I am enjoying this thread and our disagreements even tho I cannot for the life of me figure out where you are coming from with some of this

This recent discussion reminded me of goole's "if you sing about forests, you are a Nazi!!" post which always cracks me up

one of the local improv/noise acts I've seen includes a saxophonist

something for everyone

lol ums

to get back to the poll, framing this another way, if I had to listen to something in these genres that even aficionados agreed was third-tier or less, my preference would be:

1. noise
2. private press SSW (my vote)
3. free jazz

I didn't vote for free jazz b/c on the whole I enjoy more of it than the SSW stuff, especially if we add in the "improv" scene i.e. AMM who I prefer to, say, Coltrane's "Ascension"

gah that i.e. should be an e.g., sorry

ascension actually sounds like it was made by people which is a plus in my book

"to me" is doing a lot of work there but I hear ya. to me, you sound like a rockist, privileging "real" instruments over electronics in a way that can't actually be articulated

"no big deal" otm, I am enjoying this thread and our disagreements even tho I cannot for the life of me figure out where you are coming from with some of this

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Friday, 26 May 2023 bookmarkflaglink

I like a lot of electroacoustic/laptop improv. I think that's the thing you are calling noise. Ultimately it could be a small confusion between five people on a thing that about five thousand people in the world think about so no sweat. If it's a big confusion the numbers thinking about it are still small.

noise is when someone pulls out a weird device with wires coming out that just says PAIN BOX on the side and immediately blows out the ear drums of anyone not wearing class 3 ear protection

well, one type is

xp yeah I was wondering if you thought stuff like the Erstwhile/Sachiko M/nu-Keith Rowe stuff fit in here, and yes I would generally classify that as noise and not improv to the five people who care lol

xp isn't that power electronics?

AMM who I prefer to, say, Coltrane's "Ascension"

Me at an AMM show: "Stop dusting the instruments and fucking play them!"

ascension actually sounds like it was made by people which is a plus in my book

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Friday, 26 May 2023 bookmarkflaglink

No rockism on the thread

xxp well it's not an unplugged session for sure

AMM at their most delicate > RLW's "When Freezing Air Stings Like Ice" >>>>> any free jazz blowout ever

:D

Rather listen to AMM "dusting" their improvements than Ascension (I love Coltrane's later groups btw)

the four sider is the one u gotta watch out for

the four sider is the one u gotta watch out for

Ascension is both a) not the brick wall of screaming people claim it is and b) not all that great, actually. Meditations is much better late Coltrane, and for the truly hardcore face-melting experience you gotta go with the 4CD Live in Japan set.

Yeah Live in Japan is incredible. It's an amazing group and must've been incredible for those lucky enough to witness it.

I do dig Meditations

ascension actually sounds like it was made by people which is a plus in my book

So does AMM.

... they did actually have a sax player at various points!

Meditations is indeed great — one of my favorite records ever — and Ascension has great moments, but doesn’t quite cohere. It’s something of a missed opportunity, as Rashied Ali was asked to join Elvin for the date, but Ali turned down the offer. And as Bill Dixon said, “Freddie Hubbard had no business being on Ascension!”

As large-scale works in this music go, Alan Silva’s gargantuan Seasons (3LP BYG/Actuel dealie, 1970), and Cecil Taylor’s Alms/Tiergarten (Spree) (FMP, 1988) are much fuller realizations than Asdension, showing what can be accomplished in that kind of format. And the recently-issued Göttingen (1990) by the Cecil Taylor Ensemble — with nary a “name” musician in the lineup — is near the equal of the 1988 set, one of my favorite albums of his, or anyone’s.

Yeah, my go-tos for big blaring Sixties blowouts are, in order:

The Jazz Composers Orchestra, s/t (the one from 1968 with Pharoah Sanders, Larry Coryell, and Cecil Taylor)
Don Cherry, Eternal Rhythm
Alan Silva and the Celestrial Communications Orchestra, Seasons
The Baden-Baden Free Jazz Orchestra, Gittin' To Know Y'all (conducted by Lester Bowie)

I liked the AMM album with the guitarist who sounded like a guitarist. I guess I'm glad they existed

I really love that don cherry album though

and meditations is definitely better than ascension (free jazz is also one of my least favourite ornette albums) and frankly so is om

"I liked the AMM album with the guitarist who sounded like a guitarist. I guess I'm glad they existed"

Was not expecting Keith Rowe's guitar playing to get a conservative mindset out of you lol.

I feel like Free Jazz is as much of a missed opportunity as Ascension in terms of the potential of that grouping of musicians. But both feel like necessary missed opportunities, if that makes any sense. They were in relatively uncharted waters.

The Bill Dixon Orchestra’s Intents and Purposes is not often talked about with those other records, but it should be because of how much more fully realized it is as a large-ensemble work, and how strikingly it avoids the typical theme-plus-solos format. And there are tapes of Bill’s 30-piece ensembles from the mid-‘70s (students, but they don’t sound like students) that are far beyond what we would normally associate with this music, with guests like Jimmy Lyons playing against purposely-distorted recorded telephone conversations and a rhythm section with four Fender bassists and three drummers. If those recordings had been released at the time, the overall curve of the music may well have changed direction.