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

I used to own the Cecil Taylor In Berlin box set and loves the music but never read the book that came with it. If anyone has a line on a pdf of it I’d be grateful.

I have it - write to burningambulance at gmail dot com and I'll send it to you.

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

― broken breakbeat (sleeve), Friday, May 26, 2023 12:22 PM (six hours ago)

i would classify that as improv because it's erstwhile and that's the lineage and the branding/culture. stuff like members of Sonic Youth doing an improv/experimental record with musicians that are on improv records and other things, I would categorize as "noise" ... like, noise, to me, (how heavy is this "to me" lifting, you tell me) is often coming from a "rock" background but minus a lot of the idioms associated with rock, in a somewhat similar way that improv did with jazz, and in some cases, classical music.

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

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, May 26, 2023 12:24 PM (six hours ago)

wease1 walter referred to this aesthetic as "ashtray rattling"

idk rattling an ashtray seems a little loud compared to what I prefer

a main reason for that tangent itt was xyz's contention that noise doesn't engage with silence, which compelled me to bring up some fave examples of what is now called "lower case music" i.e. very quiet noise

i get it, i just felt like contributing my opinion ... which is that the output is often similar enough that the categorization is less about what the music sounds like and mostly about who made it, what other music they made, what label it's on, and where they play gigs and who else is on the bill

idk rattling an ashtray seems a little loud compared to what I prefer

to be clear, the ashtray is not amplified, and the rattling is intermittent without an obvious rhythm

Take it to the cultural studies seminar folks

yes, the external signifiers and not the actual content'

lol xp sorry ian

obv I am fascinated with the (somewhat arbitrary imo) delineations between noise, improv, and free jazz

It’s a Venn diagram of sorts

also sarahell is otm regarding external signifiers like label etc, it comes down to association/chosen branding to a degree

thank you sleeve! I've seen the back and forth quite a bit over the years -- the code-switching, appropriation, wanting to be seen as serious and intellectual, wanting to be less stuffy, etc.

This discussion reminded me of Steve Lake's liner notes to Last Exit's Iron Path:

self-expressionists with no background honed in on the music. "Free" drummers adopted an ambiguous shifting sands approach on which nothing of substance could be built, and gestured more than they played, flicking cymbals with towels, rattling spare change on drum heads, shuffling around in heaps of metal junk. The sound of surprise at a barely diverting level, it lost its appeal over twenty years.

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.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, May 26, 2023 12:18 PM (six hours ago)

idk if i should feel good or bad about the fact i know at least 15% of them?

Good!

Good for you that you know people, Sarah. Bad for you it means you choose to do less listening.

You’re listening all the time, even in a coma iirc

Does anyone want to talk about how to organize my British folk records. I got done with the traditional global folk music section but others in that rock&pop section and since a number of artists worked in both milieus I am conflicted at times. Looking at u Shirl.

Feel like even the rockier end of British Folk Rock fits in the Folk section no problem.

Ok but my sticking point is that into, if you’re writing your own songs, it changes from folk music into something else. I realize this is a hardline position.

Sorry I’m typing on my phone but you get the drift I hope

Just have one very big folk section and one relatively small horse singing a song section

The animal sounds section is not the issue

Ok but my sticking point is that into, if you’re writing your own songs, it changes from folk music into something else. I realize this is a hardline position.

It rules out Pentangle, Fairport Convention and the Albion Band. Which leaves Steeleye Span I suppose.

I have one big ol country and folk vinyl section, maybe to overcompensate for my confusion on how to file several artists. There are a few of those artists where itisamystery as to where they'd be filed in any random record store.

“It rules out Pentangle, Fairport Convention and the Albion Band. Which leaves Steeleye Span I suppose.”

That’s what makes it all so hard, Tom. I don’t like that those more uhhh progressive.. groups are separated from their peers who chose a more traditional repertoire. It’s a conundrum I’ve made for myself, I suppose.

genre filing leads to madness. I tried it for awhile but gave up and went back to alphabetical

Also the physical limitations of my shelving come into play 💁💁

I only have a few genres of styles separated from the main pop-section; just that global traditional music is one of thrm.

I def have those separated, it's true, the Folkways/Nonesuch Explorer/Lyrichord stuff

but Shirley and Steeleye would def go in my main stacks

You got your pop section, your jazz section, your old-time, blues, world music, and academic composition section. And the animal sounds section.

So where would you file a folkways lol of Scottish ballads?

in the trad/ethnic section for sure, esp if there are different artists

Exactly. But what if it was a single artist? Would it bake a difference if it was vocal or instrumental? Does it not seem wrong to keep it away from the hipper more rock oriented stylists?

1. I would prob do that in the main stacks like with my County LPs that have single artists
2. no
3. yes

More trouble than it's worth. The only genre I have that's got its own section is reggae, everything else is mashed in together.

Oh yeah I have a reggae section too lol

I have a section incorporating rock, pop, and techno(?), a soul music section, "world music" for the Frenchies and reggae lps and African comps, country/folk, blues, jazz, and box sets. I'm probably going to reorganize it.

my records are organized by avg bpm

the dance ones anyway. the non dance ones are organized by vibe

organizing records by some arbitrary yardstick is not only fun and interesting, the more arbitrary it is the more incentive you have to keep reorganizing, so you get to extend the fun

i hope to die crushed under a shelf of records someday.

fail my dex roll.

lol

One of the local record stores in LA was tipped off to what looks to have been a record hoarder's Malibu beach house, the photos from inside are alarming, I feel like there must be an old man buried under there somewhere. Like maybe tens of thousands of records all boxed up and also tossed about.

Anyway, they clearly had poorly thought out categories and genres

i've definitely been in hoarder homes before -- it's a really grim scene. one guy had records in the bathrooms, under the sinks, everywhere.

I have anxiety about my current overflow, which is maybe twenty records. Having just spent a year cleaning out my wife's parents' hoarder nightmare home I've decided to cap it at a certain point. Records have to go out before records can come in.

yes I have successfully gotten rid of my ridiculous overflow and confined everything to three large shelves (plus six boxes of "for sale" records for shows that live in the basement)