Transfer

I love it... great article...can't wait to see more!!

Now how about that new Basinski? Dance Music? Electronica? Is ambient conceptual music fall into the same category as Dance Music? You yourself once told me about going to see Basinski at a rave/club/thang and how the audience relaxed into a dream-state while he played, yet there was still some dance aspect to the performance. I guess that brings up the question what is Dance? Is it an expression developed by the body to cope with the music at hand? Is lying on the ground a form of dance expression? Is it any different from a drunken swagger at Dibbos?

Either way...great start to a dynasty you deserve.

peas-

The only other thing I've got to say about you article is a bone I pick with your conclusion:

"It's for all these reasons, from the terrain of its expression, to the realities of its distribution, and the context of its reception, that electronic music begs to be considered outside of any traditional music discourse. It deserves evaluation on its own terms, in relation to its own expressions, experienced without ill-formed prejudices, vested with regard to its difference."

I would argue that it deserves a new perspective in approach to its' dissection, but that it has followed a course of former musical masters, when you say "t's anew to you and the first timer next to you; because the mutation wasn't like this the last time, and it surely won't be like this the next time. The exponential variations and mutations applied upon the recognized and unrecognized beats leads to a wellspring of expressions." it reminds me of Bitches Brew by Miles Davis or Agharta or On the Corner.
This "exponential variations and mutations" is exactly what Miles Davis was going for back in 1969 and 1972 when he recorded these albums...As a review states: "Miles's effort to bring together the latest developments in European experimental music (Stockhausen's "Mixtur," for example) and Black American funk (Sly Stone) fell on dead ears. What's more, the art work on the cover was peculiar, there was no list of musicians, and the signature Davis trumpet sound was largely buried in the mix. Now, almost 30 years later, time has caught up to Davis, and this record seems the clear ancestor of hip-hop, trance, jungle, and other musics whose methods involve slowly revealing their meaning through repetition, small variation, and funk without cease."

Just a thought...

of course electronic music has inherited some things from jazz, as it has from other traditions. bitches brew is a great album, sure, but whats your point?

Tight fukin take. I expected nothing less.

"It's for all these reasons, from the terrain of its expression, to the realities of its distribution, and the context of its reception, that electronic music begs to be considered outside of any traditional music discourse."

With those parameters, how do you view LCD Soundsystem, electroclash and other more rock-meets-techno sounds? Do you think it is an electronic takeover of rock, or perhaps the other way around?

-Officer Jackson

My point is that it doesn't deserve to be "outside of any traditional music discourse." it got everything form Jazz before we had the technology to do what we can now. Jazz did it prior, and with actual instruments...not virtual instruments. Either way it's doesn't deserve to be "outside" musical discourse...

I think it's disco taking over!!!!

:|

"it got everything form Jazz before we had the technology to do what we can now. Jazz did it prior, and with actual instruments...not virtual instruments. Either way it's doesn't deserve to be "outside" musical discourse..."

Umm. No. Jazz didn't do everything Erik. And the implications you're trying to make with "real" instruments and "virtual" instruments is fucking bullshit, but you know that. Take Steve Reich, a hugely important influence with his interrogations into repetition, who frankly, has had absolutely nothing to do with Jazz. The Parisian Musique Concrete scene was doing tape experiments that have influenced folks that you love, like William Basinski, and were doing this long before this 'technology' you allude to, and again, have nothing to do with Jazz. Surely, I will give Jazz its due credit, it has had an influence, in terms of improvisation, space, and drugs, but lets not overestimate One musical lineage over others. And in terms of Critique, which was my Big Point in speaking of defining electronic music in its own discourse, Jazz, and the methods of critique one uses in considering it cannot be used to interrogate the complexies of electronic music, its just not suited for that, no matter how influencial it was on the development of electronic music. Its like asking a music theorist to use the appuratus of serialism to describe Fennesz. It doesn't work.

OK I see your point, my only point and I realize I went too far with the "actual -vs- virtual" argument, was that I disagree with the statement, "outside of any traditional music discourse." it just rubs me the wrong way. It's like saying "blogs" deserve to be critiqued "outside of any traditional 'writing' discourse." because they are so versatile and complex in their delivery. Yet obviously "blogs" deserve to be critiqued within the "writing discourse" because they are obviously intertwined with the history and process of writing, they are writing. Just the same as electronic/Dance Music is music, it can be critiqued within the context of all music, regardless of it's "complexities" or dissimilar associations with all other music.

And I also think you can use the apparatus of serial ism to describe Fennesz, that same way Garcia Lorcia used surreal poetry to critique the Spanish Civil War. OR how André Breton used poetry to describe and critique WWI.

Point is, I have a hard time digesting a statement that would suggest that 'anything' be critiqued outside of its historical chronology.

To me that is like saying, "journalism is inherently objective".

Well, sometimes its necessary to grandstand in order to call attention to an issue. Certainly any form of music owes some debt to its historical predecessors, but the tools we use to understand it aren't always appropriate, and again, thats my bigger point. Use the same lenses for everything, but you will intentionally block out and misinterpret a whole slew of issues. Sure, viruses are related to warts in the spectrum of biology, but we don't use a microscope to see uranus. I mean, you can use any prism you want, I'm just saying, alot will lost. Should your only perspective of the Nazi's be Picasso's Guernica, which you could critique through the prism of military history, if you wanted. But come on...