[atsonicpark]

yeah...

i think it's hard to take noise artists who release 100 things a year seriously. it's one thing to do lots of splits or ep's, i'm talking about wolf eyes, who release so many full lengths a year. why not focus their energy on creating a few masterpieces instead of a million crappy albums? i guess so they can keep collect money from their limited-to-5-copies crap.

also, i like tons of noise artists, too many to name, but of the ones named, i really dig hair police. but i'm not too sure about prurient; history of aids is cool, but everything else i've heard is pretty meh.

[Everyneurotic]

adam tied to stone is pretty cool too.

[scott v]

i agree about wolf eyes, the live shows is where its at and way too many of those awful recordings they put are indeed "awful sounding" to me they unfortunately set some sort of precedent on the whole self releasing noise music in the late 90's early 00's... actually there are a number of acts that are definitly better live than that limited cassette recording they put out, prurient would seem like one though i never seen them live... as of the last few years there have only been a handful of noise recordings that really hit me as damn good, the vampire can't - key cutter, death unit, some yellow swans, robedoor, air conditioning - dead rails (esp. the last track) i'm missing a few but i notice though i love the asthetic of lo-fi recordings it just really doesn't always do this type of music justice because of how full the sound already is and a muddy recording on top of it can just kill it off.

and yeah i can' think of much that could top Merzbow's 86-95 period... though i'd include "batzatoui w/ memorial gadgets" with that time frame... was that 85?

[atsonicpark]

heh. load records!

[Dead-Air]

Originally Posted by afterthefact

Just please, if you insist on calling it music, than at least make it sound like music. Make noise. Make all of the noise you want. But then try something that is even harder. Make it fit into a song. I mean, anybody can make noises, but it's the great bands like SY that are able to create these noises, and then make them into, not only a listenable song, but a great song. That's what separates the true musicians from the 16 kid with 13 pedals and a microphone in his mouth.

Songs are not music. Songs are pop music, which is a type of music. Stravinsky didn't write songs, but I don't think you could argue that he didn't write music, dispite his propensity for "difficult listening". Sonic Youth do primarily mine the fields of pop music, but I don't think Lee was using any less skill when he created From Here to Eternity than when he wrote "New York City Ghosts and Flowers", and Flipped Out Bride stands up pefectly well against "Schizophrenia".

Noises can be crafted just as well as notes, and some choose to use either or both in songs. There are degrees of skill in such crafting and then there is just inspiration which can be worth considerably more. Yes, a dumb kid twiddling nobs without inspiration is just as painful as a dumb kid mastering his note for note Yngwie "chops", but what does either of those extremes have to do with listening to good music? Noise appears to be the new hardcore punk, and most hardcore actually sucked despite the fact that the best might have happened to rule. We come back to that inspiration factor. It gives the kids something to do, and some of them actually learn enough to eventually get good, while most get bored and play World of Warcraft instead.

I don't think Ashley was just fucking around. I think that "Rozart Mix" by Cage is a completely credible and listenable piece of "music". Crank Sturgeon is a genius though it has a lot more to do with performance than songwriting or even "music" in his case; still the inspiration makes it a quit pleasurable experience. Merzbow for me is not an everyday thing, but sometimes he hits the spot. But then so do the Carpenters.

As for the Wolf Eyes sub thread, the one time I saw them live, opening for Sonic Youth, they were pretty dull and uninspired really. Meanwhile Human Animal which came out later is a brilliant album. I don't doubt they also have records I wouldn't feel that way about, and that I could have seen a better show, but I'm just pointing out the "They're a live band, not a record band" argument is not exactly to be taken as gospel.

[atsonicpark]

one man's feedback fart loop is another man's scraping metal shard drone trash.

A lot of it is the same thing, it sounds the same and it's a waste of time and money. Get over it. If you are being so defensive it is because you either are a noise musician with no talent or because you want to come across as cool and controversial.

[alyasa]

Elements of noise will be interesting interspesed with rock or any kind music, it would be interesting to hear Pelican, for example, flirt with noise, but as a genre unto itself, noise is a very exclusive one.

[atari 2600]

Thurston (and Lee) treat these experiments the right way. They are no strangers to improvising, no spring chickens.

And Thurston is especially known for being incredibly gracious to young noise-makers and for seeming genuinely interested in trying to mine some sort of perceived untapped potential.
It's as if it's an attempt to encourage them in the vainglorious hope that someone will come along with the next Confusion is Sex for the 21st century.
To haha TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL ALL CRYPTO-STYLEY-like...

It's not going to happen.
It's a lost cause.
These people are daft.
Their shit is atrocious.

The best "noisy" stuff out there is made by the avant-garde free jazz groups like Zu, The Original Silence, Ground Zero & Otomo Yoshihide, Paal-Nilssen Love & Town House Orchestra, Art Ensemble of Chicago, and so on, who are masters at what they do. There's lots more to mention, of course. Musicians like Han Bennink, Marc Ribot, and Nels Cline are usually involved with something interesting. Truthfully, I've never been all that wild about The Ex or Haino.

Animal Collective is taking noise rock to new places musically. I suppose The Liars are as well to a much lesser extent.

The premier proper "noise band" powerhouses are still Wolf Eyes and Black Dice from all of what I've heard, which, in all honesty, isn't a whole hell of a lot.

I've tried listening to laptop-driven Prurient, Fennesz, and Merzbow, etc., and found it to be insufferable junk.

[atsonicpark]

Actually, Fennesz is AWESOME, I've never really heard his shit lumped in with "noise", it's ambient glitch stuff.

But yeah... I think we've all come to the conclusion that lots of noise sucks, I definitely listen to noise less than any other genre.

[Toilet & Bowels]

well that list i wrote wasn't the be all and end all of my noise tastes, but it covers about 80% of it, anyway, i've heard a lot of fantastic stuff by menche and his new CD with kevin drumm is awesome. i forgot to mention dylan nyoukis too.

what i was refering to with shit being passed off as gold is that like other people were saying, you just get some idiot with 50 pedals and casio keyboard and if they make enough effort to network suddenly everybody loves them, e.g. birds of delay, a terrible, terrible, lazy and unimaginative group.

[atsonicpark]

Noise more than any other genre seems to be more about who you know and how cool your setup looks. The most forward-thinking and inventive noise bands are always the ones that get overlooked, while people keep buying the same drone bullshit. The good thing about the noise scene, though, is that people seem to be a BIT more open minded than most listeners -- indeed, my music doesn't really fit the mold of noise, but it's pretty much the only broad genre I can almost fit into. I just love sound in general, whether it's noise or John Cage "classically" beating on a prepared piano or whatever. But I'm sure as hell not going to waste my money on, yes, the guy with a Casio keyboard and 50 FX pedals. And that seems to be the shit people buy the most... yep.

[sonicl]

I've very little interest in noise at all, but I sometimes find the artists who make it very interesting. I read a very good interview with Dominick Fernow once where the interviewer basically asked him "why?", and he gave a fantastically eloquent answer that made the whole noise genre make perfect sense to me. It didn't make me want to listen to any Prurient, but it did at least give it some context.

Noise musicians tend to be way too overproductive because noise is the easiest thing to make. Of course there are the exceptions, but it's still an easy route for making music on the whole.

[sonicl]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

noise is like dada, it is such an extreme outer edge thing to begin with that unless some sort of structure is utilized it truly is just sounds and not "music". music is not and has never been just sounds. It is also rhythm, point and counterpoint, etc. Too many "noise" artists or bands are strutureless, maybe because all they really are is dudes making odd noises, not dudes using odd noises to make music.

Thank you, Rob, for posting this, as it articulates something that I've been trying for the last ten minutes to work out how to say.

My only addition is to say that in order to make any sense, noise needs some kind of a context. Otherwise, to me anyway, it just comes across as deliberate irritant.

[atsonicpark]

Exactly, noise is fucking interesting as hell to read about, but rarely is it easy to listen to.

And what Saaram said is true: It is way too easy to make, in about 5 minutes you can record some feedback, go into a computer program, pitch it and slow it down, and sell it as your latest drone masterpiece. Instant album that will probably sell. You look at almost all the noise that has gotten popular, and you will see that it's mainly artists who release shit-tons of shit on many different labels. That's the secret to playing the noise game. And it's fucking lame. Honestly, if I see a band has a million releases and have only been around for a year, it'll be a long time before I check them out. A band like Mammal or the Goslings, though, who has been at it for years and only has a few full lengths under the belt, totally gets my support.

[pbradley]

I have little to no interest in pure noise. Noise as an instrument in rock or other forms of song writing (Dälek, for example) is wonderful. That's why I like musicians that dabble in noise as a free form sandbox to pull creative ideas out from. I'm aware that there are noteworthy noise musicians that are able to do interesting and compelling things but usually this is too abstract for my attention span. And those are my thoughts on that.

[Tokolosh]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

It is way too easy to make, in about 5 minutes you can record some feedback, go into a computer program, pitch it and slow it down, and sell it as your latest drone masterpiece.

Not quite. As far as I know, only certain strings are considered drone strings, and not all instruments have them.

Drone and noise are not the same thing. Don't get me started.

[Tokolosh]

Yes. Don't get him started or this thread will turn into Sarra the musical.