What separates "Noise" from "Power Electronics"

power electronics - despite what william bennett might say - is directly descended from old school industrial. "persuasion," "slugbait," "hamburger lady" by throbbing gristle are all clear precursors to the style. modern power electronics is just whitehouse worship 95% of the time.

examples: whitehouse, con-dom, intrinsic action, maurizio bianchi, rosemary malign, etc. wolf eyes and aaron dilloway's recent solo stuff could probably be said to be power electronics-influenced.

Bennett always claimed he felt no affinity to the industrial scene and therefore didn't want to be put in same pigeonhole. The music press and 'industrial' music fans called Whitehouse industrial anyway so it made no difference.

Persuasion sounds nothing like Power Electronics, though IBM from the DOA album "Slugbait" and "Hamburger Lady" are clear reference points, as could "Medicine" from Journey Through A Body.

I think the 'noise' tag just came about because Power Electronics is really a silly and pretentious name, and noise just about sums most of this stuff up!

snipped from another land:

> yeah, their politics always worried me a little. but i also think
> every needs a little whitehouse in their life. david tibbet said in
> an interview in the wire (invisible jukebox, i forget which issue)
> that he knew those guys well and that the whole nazi shtick was some
> kind of aritistic statement and that they were all really nice guys
> and didn't mean any of it. i still question the validity of it.

m.

i know someone who did live sound for whitehouse and they are apparently a lot less serious than you're led to believe.

i'm wondering where folks position things like merzbow or peta and the mego guys along side some of these folks.

(and forcefield as well...)

at what point does what become what? is it equipment that separates some of these folks?

m.

I am grateful to Marco Deplano for alerting me to this evening of
darkwave
ambience (or what I prefer to call 'black noise' on account of the
element
of order that underlies the chthonic nature of the sound).

I arrived just in time for The Grey Wolves set, an impressive sequence
of power electronics that began with the libertine ultimatum: 'you will
deny nothing: coitus, anal coitus, masturbation and fellatio', a
daemonic
motif complimented by an exquisite selection of aesthetic-erotic images
through which the Wolves'controlled tempest of rage fulminated like an
iron

storm of ethereal energy.

Con-dom were next, a solo performance delivered by a lithe, bare-chested
figure growling from a maelstrom of sinister violence in which the
unpleasantly intoxicating themes of rape, drug addiction and social
degradation filled the room like a voracious miasma. The set reached a
pinnacle of un-adulterated force as the dark icon of an urban terrorist
emerged defiantly from the flames of a burning sub-human edifice. But
Con-dom could not be done without provoking at least some members of the
audience into revolt. Proclaiming over and over again that 'Women need
rape', a few hecklers began a chorus of their own that mirrored the
impunity with which the masked misogynist asserted himself.I am
convinced
that there would have been a more positive response from the crowd had
this

sequence been omitted but the menacing style of Con-dom seemed to be
driving inexorably towards this brutal culmination.

Finally, Germany's Inade appeared beneath a veil of Tibetan ceremony, an
enimatic pulse of ritual mystery that transformed the atmoshere of
disturbance left over from the previous performance. The plaintive
tones of traditional pipes (played live) imbued the air with the pure
Ohm
of cosmic emptiness as the duo brought the first sequence to its
haunting
close.

There followed a muted hiatus of near-silence as the screen dissolved
into
the broken semblance of a stone fountain through which the brown
sepia image of the Fuhrer cast a grim white shadow over one of Arno
Brecker's heroic sculptures, a ghost of victory that floated across the
scene like the fractured vestige of a persistent memory. I began
to contemplate the connection between the first Buddhist phase and the
Occidental vision of Aryan dissolution when Inade themselves returned to
the barren heights of the Vulture's Peak, the Tibetan pipes rising with
the oceanic rythymn of an invisible, numinous presence. Like clockwork,
Inade's set ended at exactly midnight but the pulse of eternity they had
released continued to beat into the heart of the witching hour. A
splendid
close to a memorable and well-attended evening.

Richard Leviathan"

What is this point of which you speak? I've been semi-obsessed with Whitehouse for years and I'm still not sure.

the noise has to be loud. LOUD. (actually louder than that)
after a while it actually becomes quite soothing.

I always associate the phrase 'power electronics' w/ ppl like Noise Crack and Gunter Muller, a lot of their recs are pretty noisy/painful (NC have worked w/ Merzbow) but they also have things in common w/ the Mego crowd - and Mego have now released Merzbow and Kevin Drumm recs, and some of Pita's stuff is pretty noizy sometimes, so...

i couldn't say what the exact point is but it's not just "noise" or shocking lyrics. i would lump Whitehouse in with Suicide before i'd lump them in with Merzbow.

"wriggle like a fucking eel" is HILARIOUS

Though it doesn't have "You Don't Have To Say Please" which is one of the funniest things I've ever heard in my entire life.

Oh so you think the quote is bullshit? I can you give the guy's phone number who told me the quote from the horse's mouth - I could probably get you William Bennett's phone number too, if you wanted it, tho I'm sure he has no interest whatsover in the inadequate nerds who buy his albums. You think Bennett would make more money if "he did something else"? What like make his music more accessible or drop the violent misogyny and neo-fascism? Those are the only reasons anyone buys Whitehouse albums.

There's been a lot of talk recently on ILM about "hipsters" and the music they pretend to like but, to me, Whitehouse are the ne plus ultra of "hipster music". Watch out for a five-page spread on them in Wire by David Keenan, if that doesn't happen within the next year I'm a Dutchman (which I'm not, in case you're wondering).

you sure?

not too late to change your mind.

oh, and stirmonster has met mr bennett on a couple of occasions, but i'll let him speak for himself.

have you done the research on this dada.

but so what if bennett had contempt for the fans. he wouldn't be the first to have that.

so are you saying it's impossible to like whitehouse? or that you're either pretending to like whitehouse or being suckered in by william bennett's ultra-clever ruse to make a living off of the sweaty, acne-scarred backs of his slope-browed, misogynist fans?

i don't doubt the guy has contempt for his 'fans' - the majority of them are idiots, i'm sure.

anyways this discussion has reached the level of "my friend told me so! i have the guy's phone number, i'll totally fuckin' call it, just watch me!" so: quack. quack quack quack. quack quack.

as has been noted, whitehouse are ALL about the humour. i like them because they make me laugh. lots.

you won't like it, sugar.

so are you saying it's impossible to like whitehouse? or that you're either pretending to like whitehouse or being suckered in by william bennett's ultra-clever ruse to make a living off of the sweaty, acne-scarred backs of his slope-browed, misogynist fans?

Obviously it's possible to like Whitehouse just as it's possible to like Des O'Connor or even Sting. The "hipsters'" interest in Whitehouse is that they are supposed to this shocking "transgressive" horrible noise that non-hipsters will gag at - and, of course, they all that violent misogyny is a joke anyway so that makes it alright. The inadequate nerds meanwhile take it all desperately seriously and consider Bennett to be some sort Sadean genius. Somewhere between the two probably lie the few Whitehouse with any brain cells.

Agreed, this is totally lame

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