Thursday, February 24, 2011

Aided, Inspired, Multiplied x500

dead rose

"The two of us wrote Anti-Oedipus together. Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd. Here we have made use of everything that came within range, what was closest as well as farthest away. We have assigned clever pseudonyms to prevent recognition. Why have we kept our own names? Out of habit, purely out of habit. To make ourselves unrecognisable in turn. To render imperceptible, not ourselves, but what makes us act, feel, and think. Also because it's nice to talk like everybody else, to say the sun rises, when everybody knows it's only a manner of speaking. To reach, not the point where one no longer says I, but the point where it is no longer of any importance whether one says I. We are no longer ourselves. Each will know his own. We have been aided, inspired, multiplied."
-- G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus
Wednesday, February 23, 2011

(Certain) Music and (A Limited Approach To) Modernity

"Modernity in music is a multi-faceted and complex phenomenon. The much-used 'modernism' is also a catch-all definition which leaves questions still hanging in the air. It is, like socialism or spirituality, a word that can easily be hijacked by partisan voices that then claim ownership of it and thereafter imbue it with their own narrow, specific, pointed, sectarian and self-justifying aura."

There is little to disagree with in that opening paragraph from James Macmillan's article "Music and Modernity" (available at Standpoint Magazine). Modernism, especially as applied to music, has as many definitions as authors; in all cases the term needs to be further specified before use. What is surprising and deeply disappointing is that the author then proceeds to preach a prime example of exactly what he has criticised. His sermon is a vindictive rant based on personal slights, rampant nationalism and out-of-hand dismissal of any politics left of centre.
Saturday, February 19, 2011

Valentine's Gig Wrap

Robin Parmar live - from the crowd

So the performance last week went well enough. The space is very cool, even if it's not really optimised for music, being more or less a white box. With a nice open glass expanse it looks great but is very reflective. However the best thing is the open feeling among the people; their ability to accept different things. Here are some photos Susannah took of the proceedings. Unfortunately my levels were very low compared with the headline act, so my live-from-air recording did not work out. Like most of my performances, it was a one-off and will never be repeated in quite the same way. You either heard it on the night or it's gone forever!
Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Rare Live Performance This Sunday

No Input Software live!

I'll be performing live on my experimental No Input Software system this Sunday, 13 February at a special Valentine's Day gig. Headlining will be Campbell Kneale from New Zealand, best known for his work as Birchville Cat Motel, but now producing sounds as Our Love Will Destroy The World -- appropriate enough given the occasion!
Tuesday, February 08, 2011

"La Radia"

La Radia
Here's a good example of what happens when I get carried away... my typographic layout for the classic Futurist manifesto "La Radia". I've been gathering important historical texts for the unit on radiophonics I am teaching and this one captured my imagination. Here are two examples of the rhapsodic prose:

"La radia must not be cinema because cinema is dying (a) from rancid sentimentalism of subject matter (b) from realism that involves even certain simultaneous syntheses (c) from infinite technical complications (d) from fatal banalizing collaborationism (e) from reflected brilliance inferior to the self-emitted brilliance of radio-television"