"In other words, tonight I noticed that free improvisation is a wondrous thing because it potentially allows us to re-experience the most exciting thing possible: something experienced as unrepeatable."

Been thinking that thought of late, but I haven't been able to articulate yet. Thank you, Michael.

Every so often the synchronicities are too much to ignore.

While I often “read” Bagatellen, it is (as with any periodical) the pictures that inspire the most.

This is most certainly not intended as judgment or criticism (heaven forbid) of anyone, let alone those able to get their rocks off using “voice, dry ice, bowed metal, rubbed dowels, some other frictionally activated surfaces, and occasional struck small objects.” If we can believe anything we read, its more than apparent their's is the kingdom of heaven, now and forever.

The image of Catherine Pancake playing dry ice during the previous Trockeneis concert juxtaposed against the below passage from Robert Hughes’ The Shock of the New, (turned to randomly at the kitchen table as I pondered what “playing dry ice” meant both in and of its self and as an entry in the “cosmic blog” we call music) was a synchronicity too good not to share:

Among Americans, the conditions of art education had not favored serious figurative painting. Indeed, they were so set against it that they nearly severed its roots. Traditions are not self-sustaining; they can be wrecked in a generation of two if their essential skills are not taught, and late-modernist American art education did just that—naturally, in the name of “creativity.” It was a good deal easier to give a graduation passmark for photographing 650 garages in suburban San Diego, or spending a week shut in a gym-locker at UCLA with a urine-bottle and calling one’s ordeal “a duration-confinement body-piece,” than to insist on even moderately exacting and hence “elitist” tests of technical prowess….But the full effect of this educational liberalism was not felt until the eighties produced a depictive revival mostly carried out by the worst generation of draftsmen in American history. In part, the collapse of training was due to glut—the overpopulation of art schools, caused by the general delusion that art is therapeutic. Every year in the 1980’s, about 35,000 graduate painters, sculptors, potters, and other “art-related professionals” issued from the art school of America, each clutching a degree. This mean that every to years the American educational system produced as many aspirant creators as there had been people in Florence in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The result was a Fourierist bad dream. Secure in the belief that no one should be discouraged, the American art-training system had in effect created a proletariat of artists by the end of the seventies, a pool of unemployable talent from which trends could be siphoned (and, if need be, abandoned) more or less at will. But the woozy sense of aesthetic democracy it promoted also weakened the ideal of mastery just at the moment that it came under attack from every deconstructionist in academe. In this way, the dominance of mass-media imagery—of art which took the effects of mass media as its given field of enquiry—was reinforced, thus driving art down even further towards the status of a footnote.

Robert Hughes, Shock of the New (The Future That Was, pg. 422-425)

Very charming post! I don't really see the connection, but it was fun thinking about! Fun!

I half-agree with Hughes, especially since my social circles tend to be so heavily populated with art-school grads who seem to basically be aimless people from families who can afford the tuition... (the other half has something to do with being a rabid deconstructionist of the very sort he refers to!)

There's definitely a glut of music-school graduates too! Hordes of very competent musicians fellating dead white males! We definitely need more dry ice players than skillful performers on European equal-temperament instruments!

By the way, dry ice is played with other things besides cymbals, like pots, keys, and pretty much any metallic object that will make a sound because the contrast in temperatures. The sounds are something like the combined resources of a dozen virtuosos of extended techniques on saxophone, e.g. Michel Doneda. Overall, Trockeneis sounds like Mozart but with a more harsh quality.

The small lead photo is a close-up of dry ice and cymbal in contact.

"Hordes of very competent musicians fellating dead white males!"

Oh God, spare us. Can we get beyond this kind of inane thinking?

Looking for new frontiers is cool, but geez, this "white males" notion is such a load of crap, an easy way out for people who really haven't refined their thinking.

Now back to your long-winded rumination.

Bye-ya

"Hordes of very competent musicians fellating dead white males!"
Who are you talking about? Would you like to get specific for once?

"his contribution was impeccable, yet fairly inconsequential"
Hilarious. Do you read through your things before you post them Mike?

"Hordes of very competent musicians fellating dead white males!"

oh, the humanity! the synchronicity!

Diversity of culture (and opinion) is frequently on my mind.. therefore I will throw this into the pot:

This NEW MUSIC (which, truth be told, I enjoy greatly) .... is it really so diverse? What's so wrong with occasionally using a tyrannical beat and making some people smile and be happy?

(continues listening to Whitehouse)

"Hordes of very competent musicians fellating dead white males!"

oh, the humanity! the synchronicity!

Diversity of culture (and opinion) is frequently on my mind.. therefore I will throw this into the pot:

This NEW MUSIC (which, truth be told, I enjoy greatly) .... is it really so diverse? What's so wrong with occasionally using a tyrannical beat and making some people smile and be happy?

(continues listening to Whitehouse)

""Hordes of very competent musicians fellating dead white males!"

Oh God, spare us. Can we get beyond this kind of inane thinking?

Looking for new frontiers is cool, but geez, this "white males" notion is such a load of crap, an easy way out for people who really haven't refined their thinking.

Now back to your long-winded rumination. "

A well-reasoned rebuttal, if ever I've seen one. This is the sort of incisive thinking we need more of around here.

MAP, I hope you're taking notes from the masters!

Well, I can understand 'impeccable' and 'inconsequential' clashing, but I don't really see 'Whitehouse' and 'smile and be happy' as a working combination for the majority of the population...

Anyway, I was actually thinking about this subject over the weekend, and thought I'd add that improvisation helped me like football (a.k.a soccer). Every game is a different set of permutations, you gotta be patient, seemingly unimportant moves can have a major effect later on, and the degree of success varies. And likewise, you generally know a match between two particular teams is gonna be great. I like to think if you could just have clear winners at the end of an improv set, it would be more popular :) I used to like awarding MVPs to people after workshop sessions!

On the other hand, when I'm sat in a room watching some people on stage making typical scraping whining hissing fragments, in between pauses to look either serious or bored, for waaay too long than anyone in the audience would care to listen, I think to myself: IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!!!

Dry ice is very cold. I remember using it for making a cloud chamber (is that what they're called?), back in high school. Who knew it was also the coolest?

Anyhow, my only 2006 prediction is that (as the world is now obviously coming to an end and people will be needing to dance), the talented and forward-looking head of Erstwhile Records will chuck "taomud" for Houston-style hip-hop, thus substituting the dangers of codeine for those of accidently touching dry ice and ripping the skin of your fingers right off! The liability insurance costs will likely be more manageable that way.

Plus, searing drones and crashes are losing their appeal and their ability to startle. A lot of stuff is actually starting to sound like (gasp!) Merzbow--and what could be more yesterday than that? And when you consider Akita's made over 4,500 recordings, it dawns on you that all the territory may already be covered and nobody'd know.

So, let's dance instead--and I'm for getting the world's best engineers and producers to bring us the goods in the highest-fi imaginable! Who's with me?

C'mon, Jon, go for it! Time for a change? ;>}

my first post - enjoying reading this - I think that Uncle Walter might be on to something

Walt, I have the perfect record for you:

'the best mashups in the world ever are from San Francisco'

ridiculous fun--clever and substantial--will get your booty shaking, your head turning, while infringing on copyrights--what could be better?

I predict mashups are our future!

well, I have been trying to think of ways to somehow cross-fertilize the two areas, but haven't come up with much yet (actually, that's not true, I had one idea that I thought was genius, but was rejected by the musicians I proposed it to. it was such a good idea that I'm going to keep it to myself for now in hopes I can find a fit for it elsewhere).

I've got some projects I'm very excited about coming up this year, a Rowe/Nakamura double CD that's not like any other music I've ever heard, a Dieb13/ErikM turntable duo using quite a few concrete snippets (maybe you kids can dance to that?), and a Toshi/Billy Roisz DVD, which is so intense at points I considered putting some kind of warning sticker on there.

after that, we'll see, I'll probably be out of money then anyway. I did get some funding support from a private source this weekend for the next ErstQuake, which is going to be pretty incredible if we get everyone currently on our list.

mashups are pretty old news at this point, and almost no one is very good at them. sorry, Adam.

Good luck with all of that, Jon. Sounds like a very ambitious year ahead.

thanks, Derek.

for anyone genuinely interested in mashups, I'd recommend DJ Rupture-Gold Teeth Thief and Hollertronix-Never Scared (impossible to find an actual copy of the latter anymore, but available through file-sharing).

"mashups are pretty old news at this point, and almost no one is very good at them. sorry, Adam."

have you heard the one I mentioned? it's a comp of many different kinds.

and yes, i don't think they're 'new' which is not
much of a criteria for me anyway, but when done well they're fun. There's kid at my college radio station who does his own on air every week--fucking brilliant and hilarious, he was mashingup Black Sabbath and Steve Reich and Ornette Coleman last week and I loved it. Music can be just, well, frivilous fun too, let's not forget that!

Yikes, watch those spelling bees in yr bonnet, Adam - Captain Hate is on the prowl :))

frivolous!

and criterion (singular) rather than criteria (plural).

what else? let me have it.

You want it? OK, here it comes - Happy New Year!

There's a lot of love in this room....

Same to you, Dan.

"Anyhow, my only 2006 prediction is that (as the world is now obviously coming to an end and people will be needing to dance), the talented and forward-looking head of Erstwhile Records will chuck "taomud" for Houston-style hip-hop, thus substituting the dangers of codeine for those of accidently touching dry ice and ripping the skin of your fingers right off!"

well, I have been trying to think of ways to somehow cross-fertilize the two areas, but haven't come up with much yet (actually, that's not true, I had one idea that I thought was genius, but was rejected by the musicians I proposed it to. it was such a good idea that I'm going to keep it to myself for now in hopes I can find a fit for it elsewhere).

Man, can I make predictions or what? I gotta start playing the ponies!

Anyhow, I don't know about anybody else--but I'm certainly looking forward to the hybrid you're mixing up in your NJ laboratory!

[Mike] his contribution was impeccable, yet fairly inconsequential

[Dan] Hilarious. Do you read through your things before you post them Mike?

[Mike] For a rather bright guy, you sure have the "playing dumb" routine down pat, Dan! (Another example above.) There's nothing hilarious about it; it was a concise way of saying I really liked the guy and he did tasteful, interesting stuff that didn't detract from the music one bit, but the music wouldn't've changed much if he wasn't there. It was lovely garnish.

My witty retort to you could be "Do you think about things you read before you ask about them?"!
:-)

----------------------

Jon, sounds like you might be in a similar dilemma as I was the other year begging BSC members to do a project of Melt-Banana covers... hahaha... I was and am 100% serious about that idea, and I don't see why it's not instantly appealing to everyone else!

Dan, the New Year is not exactly a new release anymore, don't know why you're writing about it now...
:-)

"Man, can I make predictions or what? I gotta start playing the ponies!"

I've stated more than a few times in different places (including here) that I'm fairly obsessed with Houston hiphop, and even written on JC that I was trying to get musicians to do screwed/chopped stuff, so I'm not sure your prediction is anything more than a recapitulation of what I've already said.

plus I'm not turning my back on anything, except maybe your silly Merzbow comment... : [)

The idea to do a chopped & screwed version of Wolf Eyes "Burned Mind" had crossed my mind recently so this is particularly funny.

But seriously, I love the idea of applying pop music type production techniques to the avant garde. Not to end up with something goofy, but genuinely interesting and humorous.

This makes me think of John McEntire of Tortoise in an interview pointedly saying that writers had made a big deal of Radiohead's "OK Computer" because of that album's use of editing and the recording studio when R & B and hip-hop productions are filled with studio-as-instrument techniques.

I can't stand when ideas are cribbed from pop culture by the underground or avant and used as kitsch. Done in the right way, a chopped & screwed version of say, "Rabbit Run", could be great!!

..check slsk soon.. hahahaha ;)

Rabbit Run already is chopped & screwed...

I cannot imagine why you want non-goofy, but then "humorous"?! "Interesting" is plenty enough for me... I'll take the new musical possibilities, but pass on the humor...

As far as applying pop music techniques to "the avant-garde", pop music has already had its own avant-garde for 40 years! It's been happening continuously for decades!

Surely you're already well aware of the huge field of experimental electronic music in which production techniques are vastly more sophisticated than any pop music, and of technology-intensive avant-pop like Art Bears, Portishead, After Dinner, etc... etc... etc...

!!!

The sum of $4.00 (USD) to the first author of a chopped Parker Bagatellen piece.

criteria:

the MAP original must be >2000 words
the screwed edit must be >3500 words
Chopped MAP must still sound like MAP
Chopped MAP piece must have >10 detectable traces of the editor's voice

get humpin!

"For a rather bright guy, you sure have the "playing dumb" routine down pat, Dan!"
That's what Joe told me in a personal email.. but not in those words..
"My witty retort to you could be "Do you think about things you read before you ask about them?"!"
Sure, if there's something to think about :-)
"the New Year is not exactly a new release anymore, don't know why you're writing about it now..."
Here in la belle France it's perfectly kosher to wish someone Happy New Year at least until the middle of January - but I look forward to more Jack Wright reviews from you soon, even if you're starting with Clang and working in reverse chronological order, haha! While we're at it, are you going to tell us more about the forthcoming sequel to from:between or is it TOP SECRET?

"Rabbit Run already is chopped & screwed..."

It might be chopped, but not screwed..

ANywho, M.A.P., my point was that I think that the NEW MUSIC needs to have more of a sense of play to it, with yes, humor. Too much seriousness about dry ice and no-input things - see there, I'm having a sense of humor about stuff I actually do like. Lessee, where did I leave that thing.. ah yes... ;)

Trust me, if I didn't attempt to follow the breadcrumb trails of musicmaking I wouldn't be here.

A guy I met recently was talking about Austin, TX and some trombone player there that attracted alot of "middle-class yuppie types" (his words). The trombonist would play a note here and there with large swaths of silence (a Malfatti acolyte ???). This guy I was talking to thought it was bullshit and engaged the trombone player in a discussion where the musician claimed that "minimal improv is the only real music".

Let's not kid ourselves, this stuff appears like the "emperors new clothes" - a sense of humor and humility is a good thing to have.

*spidey sense tingles in proximity to cultural superiority*

If you don't think it's a good thing for the NEW to engage with *pop* ideas then I dunno.. I travel in different circles I guess.

Now - off to bed and some "emperors new clothes" listening.....

respectfully submitted, 7thharm

"Plus, searing drones and crashes are losing their appeal and their ability to startle." walto

I’ve got pretty bored with the recent surfeit of drone-based or rigorously slow-moving improv and electronic composition. By contrast, the best, and most startling, electronic music I’ve heard recently (relying more on collage techniques, juxtaposition, and calculatedly irritating noises; in many ways applying a lot of the chopped ‘n’ screwed techniques discussed here) was by THF Drenching on his albums Fight Bus 4 Life and Tape Team J19.

I've heard a lot of good things about those discs including of course Ben Watson's rave, but they're rather hard to get hold of round these parts. Any website address I could order them from Matt?

http://www.fenlandhibrow.co.uk/

A lot of brief MP3 snippets up there too.

Wow, didn't release they'd done so much: cool link Matt thanks a ton

anyone that has ever been slightly open to experimentation in a radio station has made a mashup.

ll cool j: "i chopped you and chewed you, baked you and screwed you"

did someone say they like humor, or did they mean it?

Those THF Drenching sound clips are thoroughly nuts.

You should also check out his poetry under his (real name) Stuart Calton. It's available through the Barque Press website.