Not an album review, a review of the album and it's associates.
The avant-garde composer Schoenberg states "Radio is an enemy, a ruthless enemy marching irresistibly forward, and any resistance hopeless"; it "force-feeds us music. . . regardless of whether we want to hear it, or whether we can grasp it,".
In these metaphorical terms, FEC is the din. It encompasses those fears of these old memories. It matters not that one may listen to, or get this artist, those requirements are from a old paradigm. The fact that it exists is enough to turn metaphorical graves. To listen to FEC with headphones only loud enough to mask the background ambience which may or may not involve some low paid workers managerially accepted playlist or radio waves and/or motor vehicles enacting or rehearsing their performances of the tundra whilst anxiously listening out in case ones name is called for a multicultural or at least well travelled coffee, is what this music is about. Music about our lives as opposed to the images of life.
FEC's musical structural form is possibly not so different from Schoenberg's, it is the function that separates. The haphazard discordant piano trills found in FEC's Hbx are not an homage, choice or result of atonal rules but an inevitable occurrence as FEC states its music is the "opposite of music,. . . ripped up and randomly glued back together sheet music for animals". The fact one may stylistically relate the two composers is negligible, they operate in different spheres, not in accordance but opposition. The sampling nature of digital music may superficially transcribe any number of styles and/or timbres but they are not thought in this case, they do not hold within a relation to an inherent conciousness except for that of the infinite possibility of the din. The distinction of function is clarified with classical composers or listeners views of the digital realm today. A digitally composed symphony if structurally similar to the "authentic" is still the enemy. Equally if the egg connoisseur chooses the battery egg in a blindfolded contest, her appetite for organic would not waver.
A different Zeitgeist is upon us, the album highlighted here has no moments of respite, no pauses, no indication of a beginning or end. There is no abstract and no conclusion. The object of sound is merely a sign of itself, that of instantaneous din with no choice, a barrage of senses, a screaming self depicting monologue but one without breath as breathing is not a consideration for the times it reflects. This breath, respite, context to reconsider noise as music is the crux. John cage's (a student of Schoenberg) 4'33' is a wonderful example of the breath or context defining entirely what is presented. The silence/noise; it matters not which, is completely lost unless the radio DJ announces its occurrence, providing the context within it to be observed as music to be listened to and enjoyed. Cage dealt with this idea in an almost pining way, reluctant to march onward toward the increasing noise, a trumpet call parading a previous time, fearful and conservative, a king attempting to stop the tide. It suggests all that FEC is but cannot be a literal sonic metaphor of the post-modern.
Milan Kunderas' metaphor; "the future [is] a river, a flood of notes where composers' corpses [drift] among the fallen leaves and torn-away branches.", is well put, drowning in sound. The physical action of drowning is relentless, a whole body with its endless cells each playing its own song of suffocation. Respite or lack thereof is its definition. This sound may not reflect the sound of instantaneous media, globalization or dispensable individualism, however it seems to be the perfect metaphor for the phenomenon. The schizophrenic nature bypasses alternative sub-cultures, genres of classification, easily distinguishable traits. It cannot be a flag for an angry social movement in a society, it cannot unite peoples. It cannot host a projected message except that of itself. It defies the notion of the screen in the traditional sense of an object for a projection to be seen, this metaphor is inadequate, to project anything other that itself upon it would require a new projecting device. The rules or limitations of the projecting device would have to change rather than an alternate content. Political discourse, space and protest must take heed from this metaphor. The social as we think we know it is not what reality suggests. Peoples taking to the street, or more practically, applying to the powers that be for the permission to take to said streets, is more and more a fetish toward a world that we could understand. Incessantly using the trusty hammer, one that has worked in the past in the face of a whole new problem. Perhaps a screwdriver would be better suited to channel our enthusiasm.
This of course relates to the chaos of markets, not as a relation but as a metaphor. The sounds are generally stable in their anonymous habitat, unhindered to prey upon hapless listeners. This stability is what neo-liberal ideology purports as a result, however the reality is to the contrary. A depiction of chaos, a soundtrack for the consuming music listener. Fading in and out. Schoenberg's hatred of the din stems from the lack of choice for the perhaps now extinct "listener". Perhaps FEC is more a soundtrack to the consuming audio receptors, be them fleshy or mechanical, simple pick-ups of static bereft of signs indicating audience or participants. Kundera's metaphor is perhaps more a critique of immortality than of the changing face of music, to defy one's finite existence is to emcorpse failure. Music for animals indeed.
link - fec - hbx
The avant-garde composer Schoenberg states "Radio is an enemy, a ruthless enemy marching irresistibly forward, and any resistance hopeless"; it "force-feeds us music. . . regardless of whether we want to hear it, or whether we can grasp it,".
In these metaphorical terms, FEC is the din. It encompasses those fears of these old memories. It matters not that one may listen to, or get this artist, those requirements are from a old paradigm. The fact that it exists is enough to turn metaphorical graves. To listen to FEC with headphones only loud enough to mask the background ambience which may or may not involve some low paid workers managerially accepted playlist or radio waves and/or motor vehicles enacting or rehearsing their performances of the tundra whilst anxiously listening out in case ones name is called for a multicultural or at least well travelled coffee, is what this music is about. Music about our lives as opposed to the images of life.
FEC's musical structural form is possibly not so different from Schoenberg's, it is the function that separates. The haphazard discordant piano trills found in FEC's Hbx are not an homage, choice or result of atonal rules but an inevitable occurrence as FEC states its music is the "opposite of music,. . . ripped up and randomly glued back together sheet music for animals". The fact one may stylistically relate the two composers is negligible, they operate in different spheres, not in accordance but opposition. The sampling nature of digital music may superficially transcribe any number of styles and/or timbres but they are not thought in this case, they do not hold within a relation to an inherent conciousness except for that of the infinite possibility of the din. The distinction of function is clarified with classical composers or listeners views of the digital realm today. A digitally composed symphony if structurally similar to the "authentic" is still the enemy. Equally if the egg connoisseur chooses the battery egg in a blindfolded contest, her appetite for organic would not waver.
A different Zeitgeist is upon us, the album highlighted here has no moments of respite, no pauses, no indication of a beginning or end. There is no abstract and no conclusion. The object of sound is merely a sign of itself, that of instantaneous din with no choice, a barrage of senses, a screaming self depicting monologue but one without breath as breathing is not a consideration for the times it reflects. This breath, respite, context to reconsider noise as music is the crux. John cage's (a student of Schoenberg) 4'33' is a wonderful example of the breath or context defining entirely what is presented. The silence/noise; it matters not which, is completely lost unless the radio DJ announces its occurrence, providing the context within it to be observed as music to be listened to and enjoyed. Cage dealt with this idea in an almost pining way, reluctant to march onward toward the increasing noise, a trumpet call parading a previous time, fearful and conservative, a king attempting to stop the tide. It suggests all that FEC is but cannot be a literal sonic metaphor of the post-modern.
Milan Kunderas' metaphor; "the future [is] a river, a flood of notes where composers' corpses [drift] among the fallen leaves and torn-away branches.", is well put, drowning in sound. The physical action of drowning is relentless, a whole body with its endless cells each playing its own song of suffocation. Respite or lack thereof is its definition. This sound may not reflect the sound of instantaneous media, globalization or dispensable individualism, however it seems to be the perfect metaphor for the phenomenon. The schizophrenic nature bypasses alternative sub-cultures, genres of classification, easily distinguishable traits. It cannot be a flag for an angry social movement in a society, it cannot unite peoples. It cannot host a projected message except that of itself. It defies the notion of the screen in the traditional sense of an object for a projection to be seen, this metaphor is inadequate, to project anything other that itself upon it would require a new projecting device. The rules or limitations of the projecting device would have to change rather than an alternate content. Political discourse, space and protest must take heed from this metaphor. The social as we think we know it is not what reality suggests. Peoples taking to the street, or more practically, applying to the powers that be for the permission to take to said streets, is more and more a fetish toward a world that we could understand. Incessantly using the trusty hammer, one that has worked in the past in the face of a whole new problem. Perhaps a screwdriver would be better suited to channel our enthusiasm.
This of course relates to the chaos of markets, not as a relation but as a metaphor. The sounds are generally stable in their anonymous habitat, unhindered to prey upon hapless listeners. This stability is what neo-liberal ideology purports as a result, however the reality is to the contrary. A depiction of chaos, a soundtrack for the consuming music listener. Fading in and out. Schoenberg's hatred of the din stems from the lack of choice for the perhaps now extinct "listener". Perhaps FEC is more a soundtrack to the consuming audio receptors, be them fleshy or mechanical, simple pick-ups of static bereft of signs indicating audience or participants. Kundera's metaphor is perhaps more a critique of immortality than of the changing face of music, to defy one's finite existence is to emcorpse failure. Music for animals indeed.
link - fec - hbx
pretentious hipster bull
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