Acousmatics

Schaffer's idea of obscured sound sources reminded me of my first brush with modern Progressive Rock music in high school. De-loused in the Comatorium by The Mars Volta was a huge moment for me musically, when I began to move away from the over-composed hyper-precise world of 70's British Prog which had dominated most of my listening since I fell out with The Grateful Dead. One track in particular "Cicatriz ESP" completely changed the way I viewed the possible spectrum of "rock" tonality, specifically thanks to an extended break in the middle of the track built from delayed guitar noises and other sound manipulations. While I was somewhat familiar with the idea of a spacey, noisy, break from some of The Grateful Dead's improvisations, the Dead's dissonance was still familiar, identifiable sources: feedback, stoned noodling, etc. This track is radically different, more like the pulsating wubs of electronic music than tones created from a guitar and largely analog manipulation from guitar pedals. I didn't know how the guitarist, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, was able to create sounds like that at the time, but the mystery behind their source drove me into a deep study of his career, techniques, and approach to art and music. The result was a change in my musical tastes from one of strict structure and an interest in form (though it still exists today) to a taste for the sonic possibility and extremes of the guitar as an instrument. Rodriguez-Lopez in his early career was often quoted as saying he "hated" the guitar as an instrument, and just sought to bury it in obscuring effects and tones. While I can't ascribe to the same distaste, I have certainly found that extreme sounds have entered my repertoire with a vengeance, largely because of the possibilities shown in "Cicatriz ESP" and much of the Omar Rodriguez-Lopez catalog.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5BM0Tln7cM

I suppose this would also qualify as my "deep listening" moment, though in looking at the Deep Listening website linked on the blog, my moment of holistic rejuvenation and healing would definitely be A-ha's "Take On Me" from Dance Marathon my freshman year, at the end of the 6th three hour block, comprised mostly of garbage pop music, and the last of my Tylenol-3 that was saving me from the pain of torn ligaments in my shoulder. I probably would have died without that song. It was like a breath of fresh air.

Bataille

Thus at the present stage of development the automatic rectitude of a soldier in uniform, maneuvering according to orders, emerges from the immense confusion of the animal world and proposes itself to the universe of astronomy as its' highest achievement. If, on the other hand, this mathematical military truth is contrasted with the excremental orifice of the ape, which seems to be its inevitable compensation, the universe that seemed menaced by human splendor in a pitifully imperative form receives no other response than the unintelligible discharge of a burst of laughter...

This passage was a great example of why I have a hard time with Bataille, and really most "scholarly" "philosophical" essays. It's both my example of something I agree with and something outrageous, so I'll start with why I agree.

It seems to me that Bataille's point is largely that the origin stories or mythos that humans create for themselves is mostly self-flattering bunk meant to either enslave the proletariat to a higher power, or give us a false sense of superiority over the rest of life on Earth. And here he finally gets to the crux of it. Bataille prefaces this point with the little girl who has a bit of a crisis over a monkey taking a crap in front of her and has some kind of awakening of her own because of it. The anecdote gives us a demonstration of the superior "man" being disrupted, and strangely enlightened by the base vulgarity of an inferior life form. By comparing the conquering of our animal instincts on the battlefield to the shit-epiphany of this little girl I think he makes a strange, if compelling argument to the futility of our superiority complex. The soldier in battle is a whole section of our collective myth, made an emblem of bravery, control, and strength. Bataille argues that this myth is nothing but a varnish over a much more powerful force that ties us to the other life on Earth we so seek to distance ourselves from.

While I see what he's saying and think the argument he's making is a valid one, the way he goes about arguing it is infuriating. My problem is not the vulgar, visceral, orgasmic language, but the meandering pointlessness of that language. Bataille makes the mistake it seems so many cultural writers make of writing from within the fury of their own imagination. We are left on the outside as Bataille digresses into orgy and sacrifice, leaving threads flapping in his wake. The anal digression that prefaces this quote has some bearing on the point he finally makes, but he still manages to bungle his translation of thought to words. "...contrasted with the excremental orifice of the ape, which seems to be its inevitable compensation..." What is inevitable about that contrast? It may be self evident to Bataille, but by no means has he delivered me to the same conclusion. And yet he merely casts it offhand, assured of his own correctness by the echo-chamber of his brain. Bataille's ideas are compelling, and his language evocative, but his vacuous pontificating is frustrating at best.

Feldman and Kath

"Noise is something else. It does not travel on these distant seas of experience. It bores like granite into granite. It is physical, very exciting, and when organized can have the impact and grandeur of Beethoven." - Feldman

The physicality that Feldman describes reminds me of Terry Kath's wrestling match with a Fender Stratocaster on the debut Chicago Transit Authority album. The track, "Free Form Guitar," is wildly out of place on the album; almost seven minutes of feedback and divebombs and screeching, dissonant, noodling with one brief breath in the middle, and maybe two distinguishable chords, seated between "Poem 58" and "Southern California Purples," a Kath solo vehicle, and a standard blues song respectively. But the power that it carries in its "otherness" is astounding. Regardless of your opinion of the track, it's not easily forgotten by the listener, and makes a grand and impactful statement.

I think what drew me to the track so much is what Feldman touches on, physicality. It really sounds as though Kath is battling with the sound, fighting with it for control and supremacy. What's most exciting about the track is that it seems like the noise can win half the time, with the second of silence in the middle almost acting as a surrender by Kath - needing to take a breath before resuming the fight.

While one could argue there's not much "organized" about "Free Form Guitar" (setting aside our expansive definition of 'form' from class the other day - i.e. there's a beginning and end) I would say that the mere intention of it is enough to give it order. Looking at the track not as a track, but as a segment of a continuous album, the noise gains order, having been placed specifically, deliberately, and for a set duration. The content of the noise is less important than its existence, though in this case, both the existence and the content are greatly compelling.

Noise from the Slums

"R. Murray Schafer writes that the perception, which heightens in the nineteenth century, is that' the street had now become the home of non-music, where it mixed with other kinds of sound-swill and sewage.'"

The class elements of noise that Hegarty brings up are interesting on their own, but I was mostly drawn to this passage from a personal experience I had being categorized as "noise." My buddy and I were (and still are) in a progressive rock band together back in high school (as prog-rock as you can be in high school) and practiced in his garage in the suburbs. One day in early spring was particularly nice, so we decided to play with the garage door open. While we were playing (some inoffensive, classic-rock-esque noodling at a restrained volume) a middle aged woman we did not know approached the door with an incredulous look on her face, regarding the inside of our humble abode as though she were coming to grips with The Twilight Zone. We stopped and asked if we could help her with something, at which point she started a tirade against us for playing with the door open, which began with the horrified query: "Are you from the SLUMS?"

"Is this what you people do there? This is a neighborhood," she continued. Caught off guard by her reaction (we typically either received a curt but polite "please stop," or just a visit from the police who would give the same) we allowed her to finish, apologized, and shut the door behind her.

I find it interesting that this woman's reaction hinged so heavily on the ideas of class and "other." The way she said the word "slums" with horror and disgust, or the dichotomy she raised between where people "do this," and here, where "we don't do this," are so loaded in their condescension that they can't help but call upon the political divides between her middle-class suburban lifestyle and the "other" she perceived us as. It was interesting to see how this horror she felt (it may read hyperbolic to say horror, but she seemed to be legitimately shaken to her core) was a well established cultural reading of "noise" as a political idea, that it could work its way into the mind of a woman who (I can only assume) had no formal education in culture of this nature. While not the most interesting evaluation of "noise" Hegarty gets into, the visceral quality that I've seen his thoughts on "noise" and class presented with is evidence enough to show their merit.