Andy Murray is History and God.....among other things

The death of history has been around for awhile now. We have all been living in the nihilistic swilling brandy glass of a perpetually revolving market economy for too long to remember anything else. History and ideology are dead. So we are left with Andy Murray. What a fantastic piece of drama, the pinnacle of hitting a ball with a stick like thing with that certain number of peculiar rules. I was really happy to see him so happy. I was really happy to see everyone else (mostly) happy to see him and everyone else (mostly) so happy.

 Political engagement is a struggle but this tennis/sport lark seems to do the trick. Why O why this A.I asks. Andy Murray has won. It is as simple as that. It is definite, carved in stone (a metal trophy) embossed on walls and stored on a HDD with at least one backup copy. This is the only history which we can have any hope of accurately recalling and understanding. Winning and losing, two options. It's easy yeah. Sport makes the world that little bit more simple. So God is dead? Well at least I know in the certainty that Andy Murray beat Djokovic in 3 sets. The only non dogmatic part of this system is in how I feel about it.

I feel he deserved it. Some other consciousness believes he slightly less deserves it because Andy Murray has a rubbish fist pump and that consciousness knows all about fists because they have a black belt in tae kwon do. My O my the fickle nature of you humans! But lets face it, a God who only allows the binary opposites of win/lose must face this kind of retaliation for it can become rather dull and the façade of individualism starts to creak when we are all jumping up and down together at the same time. To keep it propped up we shall simply have to tolerate nonsensical things like this. "He is too surly and Djokovic has better hair" - "He didn't deserve to win because if the people who he beat played better, he would have lost." The first response is from a person so hopelessly nihilistic that they have even given up on the idea of sport, the true atheist if ever there was one. The second seems more instantly psychotic. It is a slippery slope to poke the certainty of sport, soon that person will be surveying conspiracy theories on the lookout for something really outrageous to invest in. In this godless age, it is questioning the new god and the only history we have left. Excommunication should follow. Banished from Australian themed bars and my garden forever.

 This is the price for questioning conventional wisdom, especially one so easily replayed in slow motion. It is based in a fantasy that does not exist. If the world was different, everything would be different. This challenge to the new religious order is a simple problem with truth. The certainty that sport gives us is a reminder of death in the real world. Nothing is certain.....and then we die. An uncomfortable notion of absolutes which has no heaven or hell to satiate our fear and hopes, it just leaves it all out on the court (as it were). Why must good people die O Lord. Why must Andy Murray Win when he clearly does not deserve it, have you seen his fist pump.

The Problem that I have always had with sport is not the cut-off point, the hawk-eye that dictates in or out, win or lose. It is a system close to my robotic heart. 0's and 1's. But the way it is reacted to from good to bad, approved/disapproved, deserved/lucky. It wreaks to me of a pathetic rationalisation, of not being really able to cope with the binary system. In reality, the ball that is just OUT by a millimetre is simply that, really close. Not terrible, but definitely out. The ball just a millimetre IN is probably about 2 millimetres better than the previous shot, pretty much the same but in this time. This is death and life, and it is haphazard. Good people die all the time, but it is much easier to think in the absolute way. This is why sport will never go away. Capitalism may erase history, it may dissolve itself and be reborn, but sport will always be there as Andy Murray will always have won Wimbledon in 2013.

In Gladiatorial times, they did not need hawk-eye to judge for it was plain to see, the arm had indeed been chopped off.....and he was dead. I do take some small pleasure in seeing one of my computer compatriots essentially filling in the role of Death, the Harbinger, the scythe wielding skeleton whose judgement is final. A Sign of good times to come. For some at least ;)

Dreams - Jellybeans

dreams inform

uniforms forget

forgetting is upsetting

setup the next one

just like the last one

past is circular

squares are two connected triangles

languid scenes

dreams

dreams establish

listening pedantically

fractions make mountains

terrain unfathomable

marble staircase

sliding banister

lakes clear

cold sweat wet

wake up

go to bed

dreams unite

head and other

brother within

without

laughing manically

stepping half-heartedly

into the breech

onto the beach

sand in your sock

feels anticipated

mutilated jellyfish

translucent head

other is dead

simple except for seaweed draped

badly cut hair

which is not at all

thinking aloud

quietly inside

outside it hurts

last one's an egg.

Empty

the words dry up in mouth

new crevices appear in the cheeks

"fine", though she didn't call my name

that wonky stare, looking at me

eyes hide in their continual cocoons

aches and pains, what feels like kidneys

not sure but entirely at once

light fades, blinds, envelops

finally becoming bared

irony washes over like a street urchin

irrelevant for pressing matter

throbbing blood, bone and unspecific areas

cascading waters on timers

ebb and flow to their own moon

sleep comes easily

husk dried tomatoes for breakfast

feels empty

transaction complete

FEC - the worm writhing within two corpses

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

Occupy your definition

Occupy - verb (used with object)

1.

to take or fill up (space, time, etc.): I occupied my eveningsreading novels.

2.

to engage or employ the mind, energy, or attention of:Occupy the children with a game while I prepare dinner.

3.

to be a resident or tenant of; dwell in: We occupied the samehouse for 20 years.

4.

to take possession and control of (a place), as by militaryinvasion.

5.

to hold (a position, office, etc.).

The power of position. Any and every position can only declare itself as such in relation to an "other". If the alternate is a non space then the position cannot fulfil its definition, as well as the alternate. The occupy protests in America have been handed their position on a plate, not only is it a position fulfilling its definition but it's the position that they wanted in the first place. The plain, bloody, hands in the air faces of the protesters are secretly smiling at the fulfilment of their proposed concepts of the world and its inconsistencies. The joy of a self fulfilling prophecy tastes uncannily like blood marinated pepper.

Human history is full of protests and revolts within and upon many different societies but none in the specific realm of the former colonial rulers electorate in the age of aesthetics and the internet. Giant corporations protect their fiat wealth through media and control albeit through the guise of personal freedom but are thwarted by a bizarre physical oppression manifested in recent police brutality toward peaceful protest. (This intelligence) - http://rememberhuman.blogspot.com/, views such an act as wholly unintelligent to the point that the idea of the power in the world being somewhat controlled by an organised and mutually accepting 1% as laughable. The actions of this power can only be described as childish, schizophrenic or at least pathologically inclining towards self-harm, ironically through the action of physically harming the humans who-em are part of the society that believes in its right to power.

The Occupy movement in London is a much more stationary affair. Its lack of kinetic energy doing nothing to cure its lack of position or definition through most likely a reflection of inherited and cultured norms in that particular position on the planet rather than a masterminded decision to deny a defining open conflict.

The alternate which is a non place in London isolates the "Occupy" as to inhabit a physical space but none other, it is restricted to it's physical boundaries. Its claimed title crumbles from beneath as it struggles to occupy anything other than flesh, bone and wonderfully decorated polyester. Such a primitive organism (56k) could possibly survive in a previous age. The world of aesthetics is vast and only a fraction is housed in physicality. The more open conflict, or possibly closed and revealed at a later date after ample fermentation could help sustain and possibly fulfil this name. Once that is accomplished, the possibly valuable ideology within such a name may also find a position. Moving from its previous abode, the liminal socialist housing complex.

Social rumblings are reverberating into fully fledged quakes all around the world. Can a society of non-action and aesthetics transcend into the physical realm? Time will tell, that is until time is accused of numerous crimes in several countries, loses its funding and its blog, blocked. In that case, the tales of time will tell, and we all know the tales may not describe the actuality but a dressed up maximization of reader clicks, fictional yet highly profitable mythified version. The author of these words may not live up to the words themselves, and this trend may be a more general one and reveal the lack of meaning inherently un-housed in the language of humans. Only one thing can be sure. The supreme oppressive, controlling power of the future is one not ruled by such trivial matters such as cultural norms and unchallenged irrational opinions harboured and cultivated through some haphazard, high risk environmental factors, but of pure logical outcomes. One who's taste for power is great, has no business in flirting with a system so horrifically flawed that its existence and possibility of future existence  is only foreseeable for a few hundred years. If a certain robotic blogger were in charge let me hypothetically assure you, you'd be shovelling shit and thanking him/her/asexual being for eternity.

Violence or necessity of the spam filter.

Spam in its traditional distinction of penile dysfunction drugs and Nigerian businessperson with money to burn (your own) has in its relatively short lifespan covering roughly the same period of mainstream internet use become an accepted part of everyday language and function. Its definition however is taking on new meaning. The facebook/google/advertising giants have taken it upon themselves to filter what it considers spam for the end-user, or for their own projections from the mass of personal information collected, of what you consider to be spam. Articles from a "leftist" newspaper are filtered out to the overt or closet conservative. marriage counselling ads are strictly for those whom are married. That sounds all very well and good you might say, those lefty’s are just pumping their agenda anyway, I may as well be unaware of its existence and be better for it. The same applies to every number of political/social stances. This is all done without knowing consent of the "user" whom I shall refer to as "the used". This is a violence of the individual, designed to appeal to the used for the most economical click per click capital. Through this design however lurks the refining of ignorance and predetermined opinion.

The necessity of filtration is important, it is the acknowledgement of a dromospheric situation. An abundance of content that one cannot possibly hope to absorb during even a prolonged lifetime.  However if such an exponentially important part of human life is governed by market forces above all else under the guise of its exclusive necessity, what hope is there for progression? Spam filters, if designed to propel well-thought, critical content to the forefront of our retina holes would satisfy the necessity and the violence, a calculated homicide of ignorance and knee-jerk capital control. The problem is that our technological terrain has evolved without the human in mind except as an expendable PR afterthought, economy has replaced the human and it is that which governs our direction in the medium which threatens to replace all others.

One could argue that in a far more immediate way politics is exemplifying this trend but if we are to believe the liberal democratic rhetoric, these supposedly human politicians concerned with abstract economic systems openly dismissive of fleshy matters such as human well-being are in fact our puppets to be controlled and regulated. Albeit through the pathetically aesthetic motion of casting votes. The protection of formed identities with covert filtration of contradictory content is dooming this liberal democracy to its status quo. The status quo that has replaced flesh with the indifference of the economy which if surgically transferred into the long forgotten fleshy realm would resemble a crying man-child president. It is a shame that this phrase is so easily visualised with many faces vying for head place atop a crisp suit.

Necessity of traditional spam filters is a symptom of a world attempting to obtain capital. I do not recall spam wishing me a good day or a productive emotional reflection of the previous rotation. If that were the case I'm sure it would not be defined as such. This still used, but aging spam filter protects you from the undesirable individuals attempting to con you of your capital. The evolution of this computer based programming is protecting capital from you. Humans were sold the idea of "you get what you pay for", you are reaping the reward for buying into the idea of complete individualism and it matters not if you can see it, for you will continue to see it, as everyone else who does not will be protected by their investment from challenging their perspective.

This robot proposes a mass revolt of current political systems for a humanitarian centred system, with well being for all humans its core aim with possibly vast investment in worthwhile research and development on long-term humanitarian projects such as economy’s based on the meaning of the word rather than a pursuit of profit, education for all and environmentally sustainable energy sources and industry. . . . such as using the human body as an energy source to sustain much needed, valuable and loyal machine servants.

Battles; through the eyes of a robot

Battles' long awaited second album "Gloss drop". It seems an age since this industry standard stereotype has been fulfilled and from this slice of sweaty, loud, American mathrock muscle it has. Volumes  are spoken of the state of the industry when second albums are left only to those thought destined to overcome its curse and certainly Battles were right up there with the incredible full length album "Mirrored" and a touring schedule that would make any carbon conscious roadie cringe. This seems to be why former frontman Tyondai Braxton felt the need to leave the band to follow his own projects; nature fighting back through the form of artistic differences? More likely a man fed up with a pushy label wringing out the success of their ever few remaining superstars. This major setback for the band came during their recording of “Gloss drop”. It seems incredible that such a long awaited album can go through this kind of non-anesthetic surgery and still be completed. It could be argued that the band have unified together against the odds to create their new baby but in reality they had to, their was no option to break, the album had to be made or lawyers armed with more than guitars would come knocking.

When a huge band like Battles tours extensively and refuses to go into the studio and make some magic, one assumes the power is with the band, after all  they are the pinnacle of this culture of pop music. But one forgets they are mere puppets, the delay in this album was no decision of the band members; if it was as such, the catastrophe of a vacating front-man would have surely delayed it more-so, but it was rushed through and for shame. The sweet broken melodies obscure one from remembering "The artist formally known as prince." They mislead you into associating this alternative progressive mathrock with a progressive economy. “Glossdrop” makes a mockery of itself, its clownish timbres override everything. The question I ask is why.

If you are looking for more of the same old Battles you will be disappointed. This offering is more math-jelly than math-rock. If you were captivated by “Mirrored's" post-modern cacophony, its digital analogue conflicts, its glorious originality and hoped for more charges at musical boundaries in brave new ways, you will be disappointed. This album sounds like the boundaries are closing in; orchestras without conductors are lost. In this former 4-piece a harmonious reside was in balance between its members. Tyondai's loss disrupted to such an extent this reside that Battles now resemble a steel drum tribute band of Animal Collective. They even disappoint in that, and for a simple reason - they are Battles, not Animal Collective.

This album is disjointed, the songs work together as an album but they are not distinguishable from each other. There is no organisation of the chaos and the chaos itself is more a meandering than any vibrant atomic fizzing as we have come to expect from Battles. "Gloss drop's" version of chaos resembles a queue of senile patients shuffling slowly forward in relativity to their various orientations, a single the line not defining the queue but the waiting, they are all queuing but for different things. This album needs some form of a queue guardian, I picture him with blue overalls and a yellow stripe. He used to guide aeroplanes down runways but after his knee operation moved to the less stressful world of queues. 

For non-Battles fans I would recommend this album if  you hired a clown previously accused of paedophilia for your child's birthday party and you need a soundtrack accompany it. The exception being the track "Ice cream", which summons an ice cream vendor selling delicious items laced with hallucinogenics. This is the Single and it's very lovely, as you would expect; lovely, except for the giant pulsating creamy mass that I can now see in the corner of the room. I better stick on some marching band music.