Tuesday, December 31, 2019
so, what was it like to live in the year 1020?
in western europe, you had a dominant christian church that hoarded knowledge for itself and outlawed reading by the death penalty (unless you were in a few specific classes of people, like monks), which was opposed by periodic uprisings of indigenous pagan groups that saw christianity as a kind of absurd death cult. this history was largely suppressed, and hard to put together. most people lived in feudal relationships, and lived miserable lives. life wasn't too bad, or too backwards, for the rich, though - who had access to most of the same classical texts that existed in the greek world, and sometimes perhaps later than they did there, as they were destroyed there.
in eastern europe, you had byzantine hegemony, and the dying remnants of the last classical culture of european antiquity. they were so much more advanced than their neighbours on all sides, and than pretty much everybody except the chinese, that it's hard to contemplate. imagine the british building a city like canberra in australia; it was that disproportionate. so, they tried very hard to protect their scientific superiority by keeping it a secret. they would even encrypt their writings, that's how paranoid they were. the byzantines held on to something like a classical society, which is a primitive version of our own, but it was fraying and there was both slavery and feudalism. had the byzantines fallen sooner, it's an open question as to whether there would have been a renaissance at all.
and, in the former roman & persian regions of africa and asia you had this muslim empire that was hell bent on destroying any literature that contradicted their religion, while aggressively pushing their language as the status quo. they saw their religion and their culture as inherently superior, and thought they had manifest destiny to take over the world. in the end, we would all speak arabic, and all be muslims. while the society was in many ways still fundamentally classical, they also invented the african slave trade, and it was african slaves that performed that vast majority of the labour in the empire. this allowed for what we would today call a "middle class". we give them credit for saving certain texts, but don't understand the context, and so don't criticize them for all the books they destroyed.
which is better? i don't see a total ordering.
but, i'd rather live in 2020 than 1020.
in western europe, you had a dominant christian church that hoarded knowledge for itself and outlawed reading by the death penalty (unless you were in a few specific classes of people, like monks), which was opposed by periodic uprisings of indigenous pagan groups that saw christianity as a kind of absurd death cult. this history was largely suppressed, and hard to put together. most people lived in feudal relationships, and lived miserable lives. life wasn't too bad, or too backwards, for the rich, though - who had access to most of the same classical texts that existed in the greek world, and sometimes perhaps later than they did there, as they were destroyed there.
in eastern europe, you had byzantine hegemony, and the dying remnants of the last classical culture of european antiquity. they were so much more advanced than their neighbours on all sides, and than pretty much everybody except the chinese, that it's hard to contemplate. imagine the british building a city like canberra in australia; it was that disproportionate. so, they tried very hard to protect their scientific superiority by keeping it a secret. they would even encrypt their writings, that's how paranoid they were. the byzantines held on to something like a classical society, which is a primitive version of our own, but it was fraying and there was both slavery and feudalism. had the byzantines fallen sooner, it's an open question as to whether there would have been a renaissance at all.
and, in the former roman & persian regions of africa and asia you had this muslim empire that was hell bent on destroying any literature that contradicted their religion, while aggressively pushing their language as the status quo. they saw their religion and their culture as inherently superior, and thought they had manifest destiny to take over the world. in the end, we would all speak arabic, and all be muslims. while the society was in many ways still fundamentally classical, they also invented the african slave trade, and it was african slaves that performed that vast majority of the labour in the empire. this allowed for what we would today call a "middle class". we give them credit for saving certain texts, but don't understand the context, and so don't criticize them for all the books they destroyed.
which is better? i don't see a total ordering.
but, i'd rather live in 2020 than 1020.
no, listen.
i want you to understand the scope of what happened. this was a major project, and it took a long time.
the rulers of the islamic empire (they called themselves caliphs, but they were emperors, and truly quite roman) very quickly inherited a number of major literary centres: alexandria, jerusalem, ctesiphon. they didn't get all of the books, but they got a large proportion of them.
at the time, people mostly wrote things in greek. so, you had to learn greek to read them. the muslim emperors wanted to change that - they wanted people to read things in arabic.
so, they literally walked into these massive libraries and went through all of the books, one by one, and translated them into arabic. all of them. no exceptions. then, when they were done, they deleted the originals.
so, now you had to learn arabic instead of greek, thereby cementing arabic as the central cultural force in the region. this was very successful - it's still there.
but, they didn't convert these books blindly. they had religious clerics overseeing this process, to ensure that only the books that upheld the koran were saved. so, it wasn't just a process of replacing the greek with the arabic, it was also a process of ensuring that all extant writing was consistent with islam.
they really, actually did this - they went through all of the libraries, one by one, and made a choice, book-by-book - translate or destroy.
the vast majority was destroyed, not translated.
again: be careful with what they tell you.
i want you to understand the scope of what happened. this was a major project, and it took a long time.
the rulers of the islamic empire (they called themselves caliphs, but they were emperors, and truly quite roman) very quickly inherited a number of major literary centres: alexandria, jerusalem, ctesiphon. they didn't get all of the books, but they got a large proportion of them.
at the time, people mostly wrote things in greek. so, you had to learn greek to read them. the muslim emperors wanted to change that - they wanted people to read things in arabic.
so, they literally walked into these massive libraries and went through all of the books, one by one, and translated them into arabic. all of them. no exceptions. then, when they were done, they deleted the originals.
so, now you had to learn arabic instead of greek, thereby cementing arabic as the central cultural force in the region. this was very successful - it's still there.
but, they didn't convert these books blindly. they had religious clerics overseeing this process, to ensure that only the books that upheld the koran were saved. so, it wasn't just a process of replacing the greek with the arabic, it was also a process of ensuring that all extant writing was consistent with islam.
they really, actually did this - they went through all of the libraries, one by one, and made a choice, book-by-book - translate or destroy.
the vast majority was destroyed, not translated.
again: be careful with what they tell you.
for example, one story you hear by the revisionists is the idea that medieval europe forgot how to read, and had to relearn everything from books in spain, which was under islamic rule.
it's a half-truth.
they forget to tell you about the byzantines, for example, which were both there the whole time and were by far the most advanced society on the planet. in the end, the byzantines were actually ultimately badly weakened by french crusaders, who were the ones that really destroyed them. they weren't able to recover from that, and in the end fell to the turks - after a very, very long siege.
the turks then benefited greatly from their usurpation of roman power by inheriting all of the advanced technology. they don't tell you that, either. they make it seem like it was invented by turkish scholars, which is actually somewhat of a contradiction in terms. the turks were not an advanced people, at the time.
and, they forget to tell you about the importance of byzantine back-migration into rome at the start of the renaissance.
nor do they talk about the reasons that western europe, particularly, was so stunted for what was a relatively short period of time, which had to do with the authoritarian powers pushed down by the church. it was illegal to read; they'd kill you for it. what kind of society would you expect to come out of a social, political, religious and legal system that literally bans reading?
so, of course they forgot how to read greek and latin. they were literally forbidden to do so, under penalty of death.
then, they tell you that the muslims saved all the books, which is worse than a half-truth - that's a lie. the muslims burned thousands of books! specifically, they burned the ones they didn't like. but, they also burned the ones they liked, after they translated them into arabic. the revisionists want you to think this was a curator process, that they saved the knowledge from certain destruction; you're only falling for that because you're so ignorant about the history. what the muslims did was launch a systemic analysis of all of the knowledge in alexandria (and elsewhere) and rigorously sort through all of it, find the parts that contradicted islam, destroy them, and save the parts they thought upheld or otherwise complemented the koran by converting them to arabic and destroying the greek. so, it's technically true that the reason we have some specific greek texts is because this process happened. but, the reason we only have these specific texts is also because this process happened! there's all kinds of things by classic authors that disappeared in this period because the muslims felt they were heretical.
(and, yes, the muslims were just doing the same thing the christians did. in fact, muslims and christians in that region would have looked roughly similar and spoke roughly the same language, too. quite a few contemporary historians labelled islam a christian heresy or a branch of judaism rather than a new religion. the lines were really kind of blurrily drawn, up until the crusades.)
so, they tell you about the good things the muslins did, but forget to tell you about the bad things. what does that remind you of?
then, they have the nerve to call this a "golden age" and assign it to islam. but, this "golden age" they speak of was a process of systematically destroying anything that contradicted islam, and then trying to make sense of the rest of it. worse, the actual thinkers involved were almost entirely persians and kurds. so, if this "golden age" is made up of iranians sorting through greek mathematical sources, what is islamic about it? if it's a golden age, what it is is a babylonian renaissance. again: if you actually read some good sources, you'll see how easy it is to debunk this revisionism. you just have to actually educate yourself about what actually happened...
and, don't get me started on slavery. y'all know muslims invented slavery, right?
i've been clear, repeatedly, that i don't think that islam is an eastern religion or an eastern culture. islam is basically the same thing as christianity - it's a synthesis of jewish religion and greek philosophy. and, the cultures actually developed with more similarities than differences. what that means is that islam is a western culture, and needs to be understood that way. i will reject orientalism on it's face; they're the same as us, so there's no basis in othering them.
but, what that means is that you should realize that islam is essentially going through the same period of backwardsness that christianity went through 1000 years ago. saying "but, we were kings", or "make arabia great again" and then gloating about the situation being reversed 1000 years ago (however half-true that actually is) isn't an intelligent approach to the situation. you should have the humility and smarts to see the parallels between saudi despotism and papal authoritarianism. and, that means you should be on the side of the enlightenment, and in favour of expanding it.
i know i'm arguing with an imaginary person, but i don't think this is a straw man, and i think that more specific discussions will double down on my positions rather than contradict them.
they key point is to do your own research, and be careful about believing things people tell you when you don't have the expertise or background to critically analyze it by yourself.
it's a half-truth.
they forget to tell you about the byzantines, for example, which were both there the whole time and were by far the most advanced society on the planet. in the end, the byzantines were actually ultimately badly weakened by french crusaders, who were the ones that really destroyed them. they weren't able to recover from that, and in the end fell to the turks - after a very, very long siege.
the turks then benefited greatly from their usurpation of roman power by inheriting all of the advanced technology. they don't tell you that, either. they make it seem like it was invented by turkish scholars, which is actually somewhat of a contradiction in terms. the turks were not an advanced people, at the time.
and, they forget to tell you about the importance of byzantine back-migration into rome at the start of the renaissance.
nor do they talk about the reasons that western europe, particularly, was so stunted for what was a relatively short period of time, which had to do with the authoritarian powers pushed down by the church. it was illegal to read; they'd kill you for it. what kind of society would you expect to come out of a social, political, religious and legal system that literally bans reading?
so, of course they forgot how to read greek and latin. they were literally forbidden to do so, under penalty of death.
then, they tell you that the muslims saved all the books, which is worse than a half-truth - that's a lie. the muslims burned thousands of books! specifically, they burned the ones they didn't like. but, they also burned the ones they liked, after they translated them into arabic. the revisionists want you to think this was a curator process, that they saved the knowledge from certain destruction; you're only falling for that because you're so ignorant about the history. what the muslims did was launch a systemic analysis of all of the knowledge in alexandria (and elsewhere) and rigorously sort through all of it, find the parts that contradicted islam, destroy them, and save the parts they thought upheld or otherwise complemented the koran by converting them to arabic and destroying the greek. so, it's technically true that the reason we have some specific greek texts is because this process happened. but, the reason we only have these specific texts is also because this process happened! there's all kinds of things by classic authors that disappeared in this period because the muslims felt they were heretical.
(and, yes, the muslims were just doing the same thing the christians did. in fact, muslims and christians in that region would have looked roughly similar and spoke roughly the same language, too. quite a few contemporary historians labelled islam a christian heresy or a branch of judaism rather than a new religion. the lines were really kind of blurrily drawn, up until the crusades.)
so, they tell you about the good things the muslins did, but forget to tell you about the bad things. what does that remind you of?
then, they have the nerve to call this a "golden age" and assign it to islam. but, this "golden age" they speak of was a process of systematically destroying anything that contradicted islam, and then trying to make sense of the rest of it. worse, the actual thinkers involved were almost entirely persians and kurds. so, if this "golden age" is made up of iranians sorting through greek mathematical sources, what is islamic about it? if it's a golden age, what it is is a babylonian renaissance. again: if you actually read some good sources, you'll see how easy it is to debunk this revisionism. you just have to actually educate yourself about what actually happened...
and, don't get me started on slavery. y'all know muslims invented slavery, right?
i've been clear, repeatedly, that i don't think that islam is an eastern religion or an eastern culture. islam is basically the same thing as christianity - it's a synthesis of jewish religion and greek philosophy. and, the cultures actually developed with more similarities than differences. what that means is that islam is a western culture, and needs to be understood that way. i will reject orientalism on it's face; they're the same as us, so there's no basis in othering them.
but, what that means is that you should realize that islam is essentially going through the same period of backwardsness that christianity went through 1000 years ago. saying "but, we were kings", or "make arabia great again" and then gloating about the situation being reversed 1000 years ago (however half-true that actually is) isn't an intelligent approach to the situation. you should have the humility and smarts to see the parallels between saudi despotism and papal authoritarianism. and, that means you should be on the side of the enlightenment, and in favour of expanding it.
i know i'm arguing with an imaginary person, but i don't think this is a straw man, and i think that more specific discussions will double down on my positions rather than contradict them.
they key point is to do your own research, and be careful about believing things people tell you when you don't have the expertise or background to critically analyze it by yourself.
actually, i'm going to take a nap.
but, first...
there is some historical revisionism making the rounds right now that is broadly written around a series of half-truths and omissions. historical revisionists, including marxists (who have a theory of history called historical materialism), tend to operate from ideologically warped places, and are broadly not afraid to present dishonest arguments, because their real purpose is not historical but political.
it's usually less that they're bluntly wrong about what they do say and more that they didn't point out some other things that are needed to put the situation into context. and, like i say, it's not accidental.
if you know the facts, it's often easy to work through this kind of thing. if you don't, they can often trick you. this is the importance of independent verification and critical thinking; it's why it's so important that you don't believe everything you hear or read, and don't rely on fact check sites or other dubious internet sources to verify your biases. it's why it's so important to actually read books.
but, all of that aside, i gotta say it: 1000 years was a long time ago, and if your cultural identity is rooted in a perception that you were great 1000 years ago, you're basically making the same arguments that donald trump is. it's kind of pathetic, really.
history is important; unfortunately, the history you're consuming is deeply flawed. i'm being vague on purpose. but, if we're going to have stupid cultural pissing matches, can we be contemporary, please? thanks.
i mean, frankly, i'm not sure i'd even consider capetian france and post-napoleonic france to be the same culture. they barely even speak the same language....
but, first...
there is some historical revisionism making the rounds right now that is broadly written around a series of half-truths and omissions. historical revisionists, including marxists (who have a theory of history called historical materialism), tend to operate from ideologically warped places, and are broadly not afraid to present dishonest arguments, because their real purpose is not historical but political.
it's usually less that they're bluntly wrong about what they do say and more that they didn't point out some other things that are needed to put the situation into context. and, like i say, it's not accidental.
if you know the facts, it's often easy to work through this kind of thing. if you don't, they can often trick you. this is the importance of independent verification and critical thinking; it's why it's so important that you don't believe everything you hear or read, and don't rely on fact check sites or other dubious internet sources to verify your biases. it's why it's so important to actually read books.
but, all of that aside, i gotta say it: 1000 years was a long time ago, and if your cultural identity is rooted in a perception that you were great 1000 years ago, you're basically making the same arguments that donald trump is. it's kind of pathetic, really.
history is important; unfortunately, the history you're consuming is deeply flawed. i'm being vague on purpose. but, if we're going to have stupid cultural pissing matches, can we be contemporary, please? thanks.
i mean, frankly, i'm not sure i'd even consider capetian france and post-napoleonic france to be the same culture. they barely even speak the same language....
so, i'm out of the shower and ready to go.
the dry air in here is really absolutely vicious on my hair. i can't let it get as bad as last year, though. i have to ensure i'm staying hydrated, in all of the senses of the term - drinking water, showering regularly (i can admittedly get a little rutty), etc otherwise, it's going to knot itself up and fall out.
and, i don't actually know what i'd do after that. i certainly would not detransition just because my hair fell out - that would be a strange idea of womanhood. it's certainly a very challenging prospect to imagine existing as a bald woman of any type, and it's just that much harder to imagine existing as a bald transwoman. but, like, the world would have to get used to it. because, that's not an argument for accepting testosterone all of a sudden. it just isn't. sorry.
and, i'd like to imagine that i wouldn't be so shallow as to kill myself, but it would certainly be overwhelmingly depressing, and it may force me into a clinical state, for really the first time. i'd like to hope i could get over it. it would be really, really, really hard.
would i wear wigs? well, i guess i'd probably have little other option.
i'd probably choose to stay in than go out in a wig, though.
if you think i'm a hermit now, take away my hair and see what happens. i'd probably order my food on amazon. i'd go agoraphobic.
i don't think i'm having actual difficulty with actual hair loss; it's not falling out, so much as it's getting damaged by environmental factors. i'm pretty convinced that the answer is undoing the effects of the chronic dry air (and pollution) via hydration...
but, it's probably, ultimately, another argument to get out of this city.
but, for now, i'm back to work for the night, and probably the week. i don't expect to go anywhere until around the 10th or so, when i'll need to go out and pick up some more estrogen.
the dry air in here is really absolutely vicious on my hair. i can't let it get as bad as last year, though. i have to ensure i'm staying hydrated, in all of the senses of the term - drinking water, showering regularly (i can admittedly get a little rutty), etc otherwise, it's going to knot itself up and fall out.
and, i don't actually know what i'd do after that. i certainly would not detransition just because my hair fell out - that would be a strange idea of womanhood. it's certainly a very challenging prospect to imagine existing as a bald woman of any type, and it's just that much harder to imagine existing as a bald transwoman. but, like, the world would have to get used to it. because, that's not an argument for accepting testosterone all of a sudden. it just isn't. sorry.
and, i'd like to imagine that i wouldn't be so shallow as to kill myself, but it would certainly be overwhelmingly depressing, and it may force me into a clinical state, for really the first time. i'd like to hope i could get over it. it would be really, really, really hard.
would i wear wigs? well, i guess i'd probably have little other option.
i'd probably choose to stay in than go out in a wig, though.
if you think i'm a hermit now, take away my hair and see what happens. i'd probably order my food on amazon. i'd go agoraphobic.
i don't think i'm having actual difficulty with actual hair loss; it's not falling out, so much as it's getting damaged by environmental factors. i'm pretty convinced that the answer is undoing the effects of the chronic dry air (and pollution) via hydration...
but, it's probably, ultimately, another argument to get out of this city.
but, for now, i'm back to work for the night, and probably the week. i don't expect to go anywhere until around the 10th or so, when i'll need to go out and pick up some more estrogen.
Monday, December 30, 2019
again, this is not a debunked theory, but an active research topic.
i've posted several studies at peer-reviewed journals. these are far more convincing than some idiot's opinion on tv, some moron's rant on youtube or some nonsense at somebody's blog.
i would invite you to do the research yourself, rather than rely on the authority of people that deserve absolutely no deference on this topic at all. this is potentially an important lesson in critical thinking, if you look into this properly.
the reality is that the government is actually spending a lot of money right now in funding research to try to understand this better. that is the state of the current science: we don't understand this well and we're trying to figure it out.
but, there is enough evidence to suggest that there is something to this idea, and that, the more we study it, as we are doing currently, the more we'll understand it.
stated tersely: it is viciously rational to think this is the case. the history of this topic goes through some of the greatest minds in the history of science, most of whom intuited the obvious truth of the matter. if you reject this offhand, you're not thinking clearly.
obviously, you need to quantify the situation properly. there has to actually be enough mass involved to create an actual force. so, no - a butterfly flapping it's wings on pluto doesn't create a lot of energy. but, the sun is the cause of virtually everything around us, enough that it almost makes sense to worship it (almost), and it is certainly capable of creating enough gravitational force to rip us apart.
in fact, that will happen. literally. eventually.
the math is complicated. these are n-body problems. but, i'm in very good company when i suggest that it is in the realm of future science for us to better understand the role that planetary bodies play in earthquakes and volcanoes, enough that there could be predictive science underlying it.
but, we'll have to wait for all those tax dollars to do their work, first.
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-position-moon-or-planets-affect-seismicity-are-there-more-earthquakes-morningin-eveningat-a?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products
i've posted several studies at peer-reviewed journals. these are far more convincing than some idiot's opinion on tv, some moron's rant on youtube or some nonsense at somebody's blog.
i would invite you to do the research yourself, rather than rely on the authority of people that deserve absolutely no deference on this topic at all. this is potentially an important lesson in critical thinking, if you look into this properly.
the reality is that the government is actually spending a lot of money right now in funding research to try to understand this better. that is the state of the current science: we don't understand this well and we're trying to figure it out.
but, there is enough evidence to suggest that there is something to this idea, and that, the more we study it, as we are doing currently, the more we'll understand it.
stated tersely: it is viciously rational to think this is the case. the history of this topic goes through some of the greatest minds in the history of science, most of whom intuited the obvious truth of the matter. if you reject this offhand, you're not thinking clearly.
obviously, you need to quantify the situation properly. there has to actually be enough mass involved to create an actual force. so, no - a butterfly flapping it's wings on pluto doesn't create a lot of energy. but, the sun is the cause of virtually everything around us, enough that it almost makes sense to worship it (almost), and it is certainly capable of creating enough gravitational force to rip us apart.
in fact, that will happen. literally. eventually.
the math is complicated. these are n-body problems. but, i'm in very good company when i suggest that it is in the realm of future science for us to better understand the role that planetary bodies play in earthquakes and volcanoes, enough that there could be predictive science underlying it.
but, we'll have to wait for all those tax dollars to do their work, first.
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/can-position-moon-or-planets-affect-seismicity-are-there-more-earthquakes-morningin-eveningat-a?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products
alright, so the master document is built. at a mere 172 pages, before formatting, it is a much smaller document, and there is still some chance that it could get finished before the end of the year. we'll see.
no scripts & only 6 html files....
i'm going to stop for some more fruit and get to putting together the documents for the morning. i'm going to need to find somewhere to print them, which may be a bit of a concern. worst case, i'll need to wait. we'll see, soon enough.
no scripts & only 6 html files....
i'm going to stop for some more fruit and get to putting together the documents for the morning. i'm going to need to find somewhere to print them, which may be a bit of a concern. worst case, i'll need to wait. we'll see, soon enough.
and, listen.
beyonce sucks.
she always sucked.
and she never had any business in any best-of list.
and you know what?
kanye west sucks, too.
and, he always sucked.
and he never had any business in a best-of list, either.
do you know why they made those lists? do you know why those magazines put their names down? take a guess.
beyonce sucks.
she always sucked.
and she never had any business in any best-of list.
and you know what?
kanye west sucks, too.
and, he always sucked.
and he never had any business in a best-of list, either.
do you know why they made those lists? do you know why those magazines put their names down? take a guess.
what is the reality right now?
there's eight records in my list.
1) floating points - white european male of unknown sexuality (and i don't actually care).
2) blanck mass - ""
3) control top - white woman, white male, white transfemale. american.
4) 1000 gecs - white male, white female. american. presumably fucking each other at least at some point.
5) fka twigs - presumably straight black british female.
6) holly herndon - white american woman of unknown sexuality that appears to be working in europe.
7) kelsey lu - presumably straight black american female.
8) vanishing twin - multicultural, multigendered group of european, american and japanese background, and with unclear sexuality.
so, like...i'm not interested in identity politics. and it's not an affirmative action program. and, these things have no influence on me at all.
but, what that means is that the list should be roughly proportional to the actual population in the end, if it's not constructed with any particular filter in mind. and, i don't think it's currently that off.
given that the sample size is small, some distortion would not be unexpected, but there isn't much at this point. if it stays roughly like this, it should actually be fairly representative of almost everybody.
almost.
i know the groups i won't be likely to connect much with, and there are reasons for it, and i'm not going to apologize for it.
there's eight records in my list.
1) floating points - white european male of unknown sexuality (and i don't actually care).
2) blanck mass - ""
3) control top - white woman, white male, white transfemale. american.
4) 1000 gecs - white male, white female. american. presumably fucking each other at least at some point.
5) fka twigs - presumably straight black british female.
6) holly herndon - white american woman of unknown sexuality that appears to be working in europe.
7) kelsey lu - presumably straight black american female.
8) vanishing twin - multicultural, multigendered group of european, american and japanese background, and with unclear sexuality.
so, like...i'm not interested in identity politics. and it's not an affirmative action program. and, these things have no influence on me at all.
but, what that means is that the list should be roughly proportional to the actual population in the end, if it's not constructed with any particular filter in mind. and, i don't think it's currently that off.
given that the sample size is small, some distortion would not be unexpected, but there isn't much at this point. if it stays roughly like this, it should actually be fairly representative of almost everybody.
almost.
i know the groups i won't be likely to connect much with, and there are reasons for it, and i'm not going to apologize for it.
if, at the end of this process, you look at the list and find a demographic that you think is unjustly unrepresented, i'd invite you to send me records by members of that demographic that you think were overlooked. i'll certainly entertain the request, even if i don't agree with the substance underlying your suggestions.
but, that's not going to work out in every case.
and, what i'd say to some of these unrepresented groups is that if they want to be in my list then they should write music that i like better. sorry.
but, that's not going to work out in every case.
and, what i'd say to some of these unrepresented groups is that if they want to be in my list then they should write music that i like better. sorry.
Sunday, December 29, 2019
no, listen.
i don't care where you're from. i don't care what you look like. and, i don't care what gender you are. i'm going to judge you by the same standards.
that means i'm going to expect the same thing from a black british woman that i would from a white american girl. i'm not going to give you different criteria. i'm not going to judge you differently.
quite specifically, to suggest that certain regressive cultural characteristics should be overlooked as "cultural differences" is, to me, actually what would be racist, as it would imply normalizing a concept of racial inferiority. i'm not going to walk down this path of mental gymnastics, where patriarchy is normalized in the black community. to me, that's just an argument for the racial and sexual inferiority of black women, and i think that's complete and utter bollocks.
i'd invite you to examine your own racial preconceptions, because i think you're the one with some issues here, not me.
if i find a record by a black woman to be unfeminist and backwards, i'm going to call it out. if i hear some transphobic language by a black woman, i'm going to criticize it for what it is. and, i will reject arguments about "cultural differences" on their face as racist.
at the end of the day, i'm not interested in identity politics. there's no affirmative action here. i care about the music. that's it. as my list expands, it will probably diversify in certain ways, while rejecting certain types of other things. there will be demographics that will be completely ignored by happenstance, and i don't care. i care about the music...
i don't care where you're from. i don't care what you look like. and, i don't care what gender you are. i'm going to judge you by the same standards.
that means i'm going to expect the same thing from a black british woman that i would from a white american girl. i'm not going to give you different criteria. i'm not going to judge you differently.
quite specifically, to suggest that certain regressive cultural characteristics should be overlooked as "cultural differences" is, to me, actually what would be racist, as it would imply normalizing a concept of racial inferiority. i'm not going to walk down this path of mental gymnastics, where patriarchy is normalized in the black community. to me, that's just an argument for the racial and sexual inferiority of black women, and i think that's complete and utter bollocks.
i'd invite you to examine your own racial preconceptions, because i think you're the one with some issues here, not me.
if i find a record by a black woman to be unfeminist and backwards, i'm going to call it out. if i hear some transphobic language by a black woman, i'm going to criticize it for what it is. and, i will reject arguments about "cultural differences" on their face as racist.
at the end of the day, i'm not interested in identity politics. there's no affirmative action here. i care about the music. that's it. as my list expands, it will probably diversify in certain ways, while rejecting certain types of other things. there will be demographics that will be completely ignored by happenstance, and i don't care. i care about the music...
but, then, if we can genetically engineer the unicorn, can we genetically engineer a god, too?
might we reverse and correct hume's fallacy, and derive is from ought?
or, are we just demonstrating the hard truth that so many of us don't want to come to terms with - that the concept of god is just a reflection of our innate desires and fears.
i've mused about this before, actually. why can't we create a bureaucracy that plays god and answers prayers? it would be dystopic in a sense, for sure. but, if i could write a letter to the ministry of wishful thinking and get a unicorn in return, i'd do it in a second.
might we reverse and correct hume's fallacy, and derive is from ought?
or, are we just demonstrating the hard truth that so many of us don't want to come to terms with - that the concept of god is just a reflection of our innate desires and fears.
i've mused about this before, actually. why can't we create a bureaucracy that plays god and answers prayers? it would be dystopic in a sense, for sure. but, if i could write a letter to the ministry of wishful thinking and get a unicorn in return, i'd do it in a second.
could we genetically engineer a unicorn?
one that prances, in an idiosyncratically lovely, particularly unicorn-y way?
one that instinctively reacts to prokofiev, without the need to be taught?
well, step one would probably be to save the rhinos. we need the horns.
but, humans are known to grow horns from time to time, so there's nothing particularly implausible about splicing some rhino dna into a magnificent stallion, and calling that a unicorn.
justin, you better be looking out your window.
one that prances, in an idiosyncratically lovely, particularly unicorn-y way?
one that instinctively reacts to prokofiev, without the need to be taught?
well, step one would probably be to save the rhinos. we need the horns.
but, humans are known to grow horns from time to time, so there's nothing particularly implausible about splicing some rhino dna into a magnificent stallion, and calling that a unicorn.
justin, you better be looking out your window.
actually, fuck parking the unicorn in the ceo's spot.
i'm going to ride my goddamned unicorn to ottawa, and we're going to storm the gates on parliament hill, and take the elevator up to the pmo's office, and we're going to have that unicorn take a shit in the exact chair that piere fucking elliot trudeau sat in when he wrote the goddamned constitution.
i will presume that unicorn shit is multicoloured, and consequently multicultural.
so, we can have the pastel worked into the upholstery.
and, we'll let margaret legitimately wonder whether she's having a flashback or not.
i'm going to ride my goddamned unicorn to ottawa, and we're going to storm the gates on parliament hill, and take the elevator up to the pmo's office, and we're going to have that unicorn take a shit in the exact chair that piere fucking elliot trudeau sat in when he wrote the goddamned constitution.
i will presume that unicorn shit is multicoloured, and consequently multicultural.
so, we can have the pastel worked into the upholstery.
and, we'll let margaret legitimately wonder whether she's having a flashback or not.
it's not a question of "wanting to live in a world without god".
frankly, it might be kind of useful if a god existed. maybe we could get her to fix the fucking infrastructure.
but, there isn't one. so, that's not in the list of options.
i mean, it's not like i have some hate-on against unicorns, either. i don't want to destroy the unicorns; i don't have a longing to live in a world without unicorns.
i'd love to ride a fucking unicorn to work, and park it in the ceo's spot.
but there aren't any unicorns. really. there just aren't.
frankly, it might be kind of useful if a god existed. maybe we could get her to fix the fucking infrastructure.
but, there isn't one. so, that's not in the list of options.
i mean, it's not like i have some hate-on against unicorns, either. i don't want to destroy the unicorns; i don't have a longing to live in a world without unicorns.
i'd love to ride a fucking unicorn to work, and park it in the ceo's spot.
but there aren't any unicorns. really. there just aren't.
that doesn't negate the reality that religion exists, and that a community may need to defend itself against it should it attempt to enforce itself on it; it's not an argument for pacifism, or a suggestion that we should look the other way.
what it is is a tactical consideration.
and a request to be proportionate and reasonable.
you have to bomb isis, because they're indistinguishable from nazis, and they'll kill you if you don't kill them first. you can't reason with a hungry lion, you have to defend yourself.
but, that's the exception, and, most of the time, the better approach is to try to convince them that their god doesn't exist and that their rules are stupid and not worth following.
what it is is a tactical consideration.
and a request to be proportionate and reasonable.
you have to bomb isis, because they're indistinguishable from nazis, and they'll kill you if you don't kill them first. you can't reason with a hungry lion, you have to defend yourself.
but, that's the exception, and, most of the time, the better approach is to try to convince them that their god doesn't exist and that their rules are stupid and not worth following.
i'm not apologetic about this.
it's a good question - can we just kill them all? would that actually work?
but, we need to learn from history. we've tried that. repeatedly. and, no - it doesn't work.
the lesson from history is that the best ways to get rid of religion are through education and wealth redistribution, not through violence and coercion.
and, that's a lesson any anarchist should see value in teaching.
it's a good question - can we just kill them all? would that actually work?
but, we need to learn from history. we've tried that. repeatedly. and, no - it doesn't work.
the lesson from history is that the best ways to get rid of religion are through education and wealth redistribution, not through violence and coercion.
and, that's a lesson any anarchist should see value in teaching.
if i thought it was possible to actually end religion with police state brutality, i might consider being pragmatic about it, much the same way that some people consider being pragmatic about stamping out certain political views they disagree with, while paying lip service to free speech. i'd be a hypocrite, and i'd accept it, but i might wonder if the outcome justifies it.
i know better.
it doesn't work.
i know better.
it doesn't work.
i am aware of counter-examples where hateful religious groups have moved into neighbourhoods and targeted sexual minorities in such a way that warrants self-defense against the religious community, but, broadly speaking, attacks on religious people are not a productive way to move society away from conservative religious ideas and towards a post-religious secular liberalism.
i tend to have a hard time denouncing people that destroy religious property, under a "diversity of tactics" argument. i'm probably not going to criticize you too loudly for burning a church down, if that church is promoting an anti-queer ideology, which they essentially all do.
but, violence against people does nothing to advance the causes of anarchism or atheism. it's counter-productive. and, while i know that most of the violence occurring right now is intra-religious, it is something for those that oppose religion to always keep in mind and be clear about.
as a species, we've tried rooting out religion by force repeatedly, and, whatever you think of the approach, the fact is that it doesn't work. you have to convince them...
i tend to have a hard time denouncing people that destroy religious property, under a "diversity of tactics" argument. i'm probably not going to criticize you too loudly for burning a church down, if that church is promoting an anti-queer ideology, which they essentially all do.
but, violence against people does nothing to advance the causes of anarchism or atheism. it's counter-productive. and, while i know that most of the violence occurring right now is intra-religious, it is something for those that oppose religion to always keep in mind and be clear about.
as a species, we've tried rooting out religion by force repeatedly, and, whatever you think of the approach, the fact is that it doesn't work. you have to convince them...
there were two records that i failed without further comment. i did discuss them, previously.
1) if you actually enjoy that lingua ignota disc, there is something seriously wrong with you. at best, it's unlistenable. at worst, it's snuff porn. and, i'm not going to reward somebody with a good mark for making an unlistenable record that only seriously demented people could possibly listen to.
2) i lost interest in tool when maynard found god. but, the record is just a rehash of their previous work.
1) if you actually enjoy that lingua ignota disc, there is something seriously wrong with you. at best, it's unlistenable. at worst, it's snuff porn. and, i'm not going to reward somebody with a good mark for making an unlistenable record that only seriously demented people could possibly listen to.
2) i lost interest in tool when maynard found god. but, the record is just a rehash of their previous work.
Saturday, December 28, 2019
the brooklyn vegan run through is done.
let's recap.
so, my first run through the year-end lists was at pitchfork, where i pulled out the following as worth mentioning (sometimes due to name recognition, or legacy artist status), and the rest as not worth mentioning, and am now scratching out the ones that should be considered dismissed, despite being mentioned, if you can't tell which reviews are critical and which are positive, which i admit is a possibility:
floating points. B.
holly herndon. C.
1000 gecs. C.
thom yorke. D.
kim gordon. C.
fennesz. C.
fka twigs. C.
my second run through was at brooklyn vegan, where i added the following:
blanck mass. B-/C+.
vanishing twin. C.
the comet is coming. D.
kelsey lu. C.
control top. B-/C+.
sleater-kinney. F.
lingua ignota. F.
tool. F.
that means we've got the following, so far, for my own list, as constructed from the list of others:
tier 1 (As):
nothing yet.
tier 2 (Bs):
floating points. B.
blanck mass. B-/C+.
control top. B-/C+.
tier 3 (Cs - passes):
1000 gecs. C.
fka twigs. C.
holly herndon. C.
kelsey lu. C.
vanishing twin. C.
tier 4: (Cs - Fails)
fennesz. C.
kim gordon. C.
tier 5 (Ds):
the comet is coming. D.
thom yorke. D.
tier 6 (Fs):
lingua ignota. F.
sleater-kinney. F.
tool. F.
let's recap.
so, my first run through the year-end lists was at pitchfork, where i pulled out the following as worth mentioning (sometimes due to name recognition, or legacy artist status), and the rest as not worth mentioning, and am now scratching out the ones that should be considered dismissed, despite being mentioned, if you can't tell which reviews are critical and which are positive, which i admit is a possibility:
floating points. B.
holly herndon. C.
1000 gecs. C.
fka twigs. C.
my second run through was at brooklyn vegan, where i added the following:
blanck mass. B-/C+.
vanishing twin. C.
kelsey lu. C.
control top. B-/C+.
that means we've got the following, so far, for my own list, as constructed from the list of others:
tier 1 (As):
nothing yet.
tier 2 (Bs):
floating points. B.
blanck mass. B-/C+.
control top. B-/C+.
tier 3 (Cs - passes):
1000 gecs. C.
fka twigs. C.
holly herndon. C.
kelsey lu. C.
vanishing twin. C.
i need to begin by saying that i'm actually not much of a sleater-kinney fan. i'm actually more of a fan of st. vincent's work (excluding her most recent record, which i think was terrible). you want some irony? i've just always found sleater-kinney to be kind of generic frat boy rawk, actually. it's not like their discography isn't void of moments, but i'd actually argue they're one of the most overrated rock bands of the post-nirvana era.
so, the premise of bringing annie in to slap some sense into them is actually a good one, from my perspective.
i'm not really hearing her fingerprints, though. there's some kind of, like, pedestrian sequencer work, but there's not any intense orchestral programming, or any wacky guitar work. maybe even that's too much for some people, but it's really not much. to me, that is the disappointment.
i know a lot of fans are a little irked that the record is more "radio-friendly", but i never really interpreted them as some kind of an anti-commercial noise rock band or something in the first place - i'd argue they were always fairly radio-friendly, and that's the reason i could never really get into them in the first place. that's stasis, not a change.
so, i'm going to agree with the people that aren't liking this much, but for the opposite reason; if they do this again, i'd like to hear more input from annie clark.
so, the premise of bringing annie in to slap some sense into them is actually a good one, from my perspective.
i'm not really hearing her fingerprints, though. there's some kind of, like, pedestrian sequencer work, but there's not any intense orchestral programming, or any wacky guitar work. maybe even that's too much for some people, but it's really not much. to me, that is the disappointment.
i know a lot of fans are a little irked that the record is more "radio-friendly", but i never really interpreted them as some kind of an anti-commercial noise rock band or something in the first place - i'd argue they were always fairly radio-friendly, and that's the reason i could never really get into them in the first place. that's stasis, not a change.
so, i'm going to agree with the people that aren't liking this much, but for the opposite reason; if they do this again, i'd like to hear more input from annie clark.
i think i may have missed this not once but twice this year, and it's a good reminder of why i spend so much time sorting through show listings.
it's a shame i missed them, but the bands they were opening for - ted leo, titus andronicus - are both well known acts that i wouldn't even think about going to see, and i consequently didn't bother researching the opening bands. if they had played at a smaller venue, i would have certainly caught this. but, i need to keep a closer eye out....
the record is a little generic at points, but this is one of two or three types of music where i don't spend much time worrying about that - it just needs to actually be good and this does that.
they could turn the vocals down a hair. my ideologically rigorous, enlightenment-era approach to anarchism sort of clashes with her post-nihilist anti-intellectualism, but whatever; that's academic, mostly.
that means that i won't grade this too high, but it also means i'd enjoy seeing it more than most of the stuff in the list.
https://controltop.bandcamp.com/album/covert-contracts
it's a shame i missed them, but the bands they were opening for - ted leo, titus andronicus - are both well known acts that i wouldn't even think about going to see, and i consequently didn't bother researching the opening bands. if they had played at a smaller venue, i would have certainly caught this. but, i need to keep a closer eye out....
the record is a little generic at points, but this is one of two or three types of music where i don't spend much time worrying about that - it just needs to actually be good and this does that.
they could turn the vocals down a hair. my ideologically rigorous, enlightenment-era approach to anarchism sort of clashes with her post-nihilist anti-intellectualism, but whatever; that's academic, mostly.
that means that i won't grade this too high, but it also means i'd enjoy seeing it more than most of the stuff in the list.
https://controltop.bandcamp.com/album/covert-contracts
this carries on with the theme i pointed out a while back of mixing classical music with technology, which i will repeat is the idea underlying the music of the post rock music era that we're living through, but, as was the case with the fka twigs disc, and the holly herndon disc, and to a lesser extent the floating points disc, this is fundamentally still bad pop music that is perpetuating bad mainstream cultural ideas.
i like the fact that we're seeing a new generation of artists that is less afraid of exploring actual musicianship than the last one was. this is, in some ways, a movement in the right direction. but, i've still heard these songs before - it's still not getting over the basic problems of sameness and conformity within pop culture, which is what i really want to get away from.
and, the lyrics are terrible.
maybe 2019 is shaping up to be a crossover year, where there's not much worthwhile in and of itself but the ideas have been put in place for something more substantive in the years to come.
in terms of pure pop, these records i'm drawing attention to are substantively better than the pop of the last roughly twenty years, but this movement that's afoot does not appear to be ripe, yet. let's hope it gets there.
i like the fact that we're seeing a new generation of artists that is less afraid of exploring actual musicianship than the last one was. this is, in some ways, a movement in the right direction. but, i've still heard these songs before - it's still not getting over the basic problems of sameness and conformity within pop culture, which is what i really want to get away from.
and, the lyrics are terrible.
maybe 2019 is shaping up to be a crossover year, where there's not much worthwhile in and of itself but the ideas have been put in place for something more substantive in the years to come.
in terms of pure pop, these records i'm drawing attention to are substantively better than the pop of the last roughly twenty years, but this movement that's afoot does not appear to be ripe, yet. let's hope it gets there.
i've tried to steer clear of the retro - both 60//70s and 80s/90s - that is dominating these lists this year in order to focus on forward-thinking and contemporary artists, so it may seem like i'm breaking down in reviewing this record, which comes off as pretty retro on first listen. but, that's actually a kind of a trick, as this isn't really retro in substance.
rather, i actually want to describe this as post-rock in the original sense, and suggest it's kind of futuristic sounding, and not in this goofy "we're the jetsons" retro-futuristic kind of way. i don't think that anybody projecting the end of live instrumentation is thinking clearly, as it kind of misses the plot around music being something that people enjoy doing to express themselves. we'd be kind of defaulting on our humanity. i don't expect that to happen...
it may be technically true that you can trace the synthesizer work on the record to wendy carlos or delia derbyshire or morton subotnick or something, but nobody actually made music that sounded like that in the 60s or 70s because the gear was kind of hard to gain access to. you couldn't just walk into a store and buy a synthesizer until something like 1985. check the dates on those classic analog synths, they didn't exist in the 60s or 70s. those earliest junos were from 1983, i think. people forget that. what people actually had access to were moogs and mellotrons in the recording spaces, unless they were rich arts school grads like tony banks or richard wright and could buy one from the studios or manufacturers directly. there were something like 20 mellotrons in existence in the entire world in 1970.
so, you might imagine that something like this existed at the time, but it actually couldn't exist until the 90s when the technology became accessible to normal people, and the closest thing i'm aware of to it existing at the time was stuff like the experimental reaches of sonic youth (and the other things that jim o'rourke did). you might have heard it in a movie, where the producers had access to expensive gear. you wouldn't have seen it in a club.
so, i think it's actually rather forward thinking to project the idea of organic and electronic instrumentation interacting in a small club or cabaret style space as a means of jazzy expression; it hasn't happened yet, even if you think it has. i think it's entirely plausible that you could walk into a watering hole in 2073 and see some musicians playing something that sounds vaguely like this, in a way that is contemporary to 2073 and culturally relevant to the people alive at the time. that's more plausible than walking into the same space to come face to face with robots performing music via ai, certainly.
there's not a lot of spaces left to try and carve out a novel sound in this genre, but this does actually manage to do it, even if you don't actually realize it, and i'm taking note of it on that level - this is contemporary electronic music with a bit of a 60s shtick to it, it's not retro or regurgitated music from a bygone era. it makes sense for me to draw attention to the effects work, then, as it's the central part of the record. this would not be worth taking note of, otherwise.
and, i would be excited to hear more forward-looking music that attempts to combine electronic sound effects and organic percussion.
vision.
creation.
newsun...
rather, i actually want to describe this as post-rock in the original sense, and suggest it's kind of futuristic sounding, and not in this goofy "we're the jetsons" retro-futuristic kind of way. i don't think that anybody projecting the end of live instrumentation is thinking clearly, as it kind of misses the plot around music being something that people enjoy doing to express themselves. we'd be kind of defaulting on our humanity. i don't expect that to happen...
it may be technically true that you can trace the synthesizer work on the record to wendy carlos or delia derbyshire or morton subotnick or something, but nobody actually made music that sounded like that in the 60s or 70s because the gear was kind of hard to gain access to. you couldn't just walk into a store and buy a synthesizer until something like 1985. check the dates on those classic analog synths, they didn't exist in the 60s or 70s. those earliest junos were from 1983, i think. people forget that. what people actually had access to were moogs and mellotrons in the recording spaces, unless they were rich arts school grads like tony banks or richard wright and could buy one from the studios or manufacturers directly. there were something like 20 mellotrons in existence in the entire world in 1970.
so, you might imagine that something like this existed at the time, but it actually couldn't exist until the 90s when the technology became accessible to normal people, and the closest thing i'm aware of to it existing at the time was stuff like the experimental reaches of sonic youth (and the other things that jim o'rourke did). you might have heard it in a movie, where the producers had access to expensive gear. you wouldn't have seen it in a club.
so, i think it's actually rather forward thinking to project the idea of organic and electronic instrumentation interacting in a small club or cabaret style space as a means of jazzy expression; it hasn't happened yet, even if you think it has. i think it's entirely plausible that you could walk into a watering hole in 2073 and see some musicians playing something that sounds vaguely like this, in a way that is contemporary to 2073 and culturally relevant to the people alive at the time. that's more plausible than walking into the same space to come face to face with robots performing music via ai, certainly.
there's not a lot of spaces left to try and carve out a novel sound in this genre, but this does actually manage to do it, even if you don't actually realize it, and i'm taking note of it on that level - this is contemporary electronic music with a bit of a 60s shtick to it, it's not retro or regurgitated music from a bygone era. it makes sense for me to draw attention to the effects work, then, as it's the central part of the record. this would not be worth taking note of, otherwise.
and, i would be excited to hear more forward-looking music that attempts to combine electronic sound effects and organic percussion.
vision.
creation.
newsun...
Friday, December 27, 2019
i've been very clear that i think screaming like this is stupid, and i've spent the bulk of the last twenty years, at this point, waiting for this to just go away.
it refuses to go away.
so, i'm going to say the same thing i've been saying for twenty years when i run across something in the genre that has some kind of potential: this might be alright, if they'd stop screaming like fucking idiots. the drumming, in particular, is fairly impressive.
but, i'm going to turn this off now and i'll never listen to it again because it makes me feel dumb to do so.
it refuses to go away.
so, i'm going to say the same thing i've been saying for twenty years when i run across something in the genre that has some kind of potential: this might be alright, if they'd stop screaming like fucking idiots. the drumming, in particular, is fairly impressive.
but, i'm going to turn this off now and i'll never listen to it again because it makes me feel dumb to do so.
well, ok.
there's a little bit of raunchy noise on the newest blanck mass disc.
but, it's scattered, and short-lived, and the end result is just not satisfying. i don't see why i should have to sit through 6 or 7 or whatever minutes of sappy dance club bullshit to get to thirty seconds of cacophony at the end. just bring the anarchy from the start.
it's not that the juxtaposition isn't welcome, either, it's that it's not really working. the gentle arpeggiation in the sixth track is one of the most interesting parts of the record, but you want it to blow up into an aural catastrophe that kills your brain cells; instead, it opens up into a boring techno-pop thing that meanders for a few minutes before shutting itself off. there was great promise there, but it was totally squandered.
i'm sure the show was enjoyable enough, in the presence of enough drugs. but, the frustration is longstanding and palpable. i don't know who he thinks wants to listen to this.
there's a little bit of raunchy noise on the newest blanck mass disc.
but, it's scattered, and short-lived, and the end result is just not satisfying. i don't see why i should have to sit through 6 or 7 or whatever minutes of sappy dance club bullshit to get to thirty seconds of cacophony at the end. just bring the anarchy from the start.
it's not that the juxtaposition isn't welcome, either, it's that it's not really working. the gentle arpeggiation in the sixth track is one of the most interesting parts of the record, but you want it to blow up into an aural catastrophe that kills your brain cells; instead, it opens up into a boring techno-pop thing that meanders for a few minutes before shutting itself off. there was great promise there, but it was totally squandered.
i'm sure the show was enjoyable enough, in the presence of enough drugs. but, the frustration is longstanding and palpable. i don't know who he thinks wants to listen to this.
i fully expected to go to blanck mass at the end of september, but my pay dates get weird when the last day of the month is a monday, and i miscalculated it and got screwed. i'll probably forget this the next time it matters, but when the last day of the month is a monday, the money comes in on the saturday. this is nonsensical, because the money comes in on friday when the last day is a saturday.
i needed to get paid on friday morning to hit the show on saturday night; instead, i got paid at about 3:00 on saturday morning, when the show was just ovver. drats.
i caught fuck buttons open for caribou in 2007 or 2008 and have been keeping a distant eye on them ever since, through various disparate shifts in sound. i'm not sure why they shift their sound so dramatically, but it comes off as throwing shit out there, hoping something sticks.
this is actually kind of generic ebm, and i'm not very impressed by it. however they shift their sound, what i want to hear is that dissonant power electronics head cave - i want to be floored by the noise. it's not here.
this is mostly pretty boring.
i consequently suspect that i may have found the show a little disappointing.
https://blanckmass.bandcamp.com/album/animated-violence-mild
i needed to get paid on friday morning to hit the show on saturday night; instead, i got paid at about 3:00 on saturday morning, when the show was just ovver. drats.
i caught fuck buttons open for caribou in 2007 or 2008 and have been keeping a distant eye on them ever since, through various disparate shifts in sound. i'm not sure why they shift their sound so dramatically, but it comes off as throwing shit out there, hoping something sticks.
this is actually kind of generic ebm, and i'm not very impressed by it. however they shift their sound, what i want to hear is that dissonant power electronics head cave - i want to be floored by the noise. it's not here.
this is mostly pretty boring.
i consequently suspect that i may have found the show a little disappointing.
https://blanckmass.bandcamp.com/album/animated-violence-mild
and, that would be all of the records from the pitchfork list that i think are worth commenting on.
50. floating points. B.
44. holly herndon. C.
42. 1000 gecs. C.
40. thom yorke. D.
24. kim gordon. C.
08. fennesz. C.
02. fka twigs. C.
i don't exactly want to give everything else an F, so much as i just don't even want to bother listening to it. i did at least check a song or two out from most of it.
i know better than to rely too much on pitchfork, but based solely on their analysis, that would be a pretty shitty year for music.
50. floating points. B.
44. holly herndon. C.
42. 1000 gecs. C.
40. thom yorke. D.
24. kim gordon. C.
08. fennesz. C.
02. fka twigs. C.
i don't exactly want to give everything else an F, so much as i just don't even want to bother listening to it. i did at least check a song or two out from most of it.
i know better than to rely too much on pitchfork, but based solely on their analysis, that would be a pretty shitty year for music.
so, what am i thinking about this fka twigs disc?
it picks up a little after the fourth track, which is horrible. the second track is also terrible. if you scratch those two tracks out, what's left is more along the lines of an ep, and i think you should probably look at this that way - it's a relatively interesting ep with some bad pop pushed down into it to move units. this is what happens when you release your music through major record labels, and that's my first reaction - somebody tell her to sign to warp, instead, so she doesn't need to ruin her records with bad singles.
thematically, i was right to be skeptical about the idea of her elevating mary magdalene to an icon of female autonomy. rather, the record broadly promotes a concept of female weakness that is consistent with patriarchal dominance. her female characters are consistently reliant on the men in her life for strength and meaning, and that should actually be seen as kind of a problem from a young person in 2019. i would suspect that fka twigs is actually a christian, and is trying to reclaim mary magdalene from both a submissive female perspective (as patriarchy programs us with) and ultimately a theistic perspective. i don't want to tell people what they should or should not relate to as their life experiences are their own and they will work things out as they will, but i'd be worried if i found my daughter relating to something like this - it would suggest i was losing the fight against the media in trying to instill a sense of autonomy in her.
musically, she doesn't really explore the promise that exists on a few of the tracks to delve into more substantive, serious music, preferring instead to dabble in pop forms. as is the norm in pop music, these melodies and structures are all borrowed from existing tracks. you've heard these songs before.
and, if there was one thing i wanted from a list of best records of the year, it was some songs i hadn't heard before.
the production on the record is often very thick, but the focus here is on writing marketable pop songs rather than on creating abstract art. these are essentially pop songs sprinkled with ideas from classical music as gimmicks, rather than a substantive synthesis of low and high art.
i would advise keeping an eye on her, as she's clearly talented, and she's clearly interested in being creative. but, this is a step towards an end point, rather than an endpoint in itself.
it picks up a little after the fourth track, which is horrible. the second track is also terrible. if you scratch those two tracks out, what's left is more along the lines of an ep, and i think you should probably look at this that way - it's a relatively interesting ep with some bad pop pushed down into it to move units. this is what happens when you release your music through major record labels, and that's my first reaction - somebody tell her to sign to warp, instead, so she doesn't need to ruin her records with bad singles.
thematically, i was right to be skeptical about the idea of her elevating mary magdalene to an icon of female autonomy. rather, the record broadly promotes a concept of female weakness that is consistent with patriarchal dominance. her female characters are consistently reliant on the men in her life for strength and meaning, and that should actually be seen as kind of a problem from a young person in 2019. i would suspect that fka twigs is actually a christian, and is trying to reclaim mary magdalene from both a submissive female perspective (as patriarchy programs us with) and ultimately a theistic perspective. i don't want to tell people what they should or should not relate to as their life experiences are their own and they will work things out as they will, but i'd be worried if i found my daughter relating to something like this - it would suggest i was losing the fight against the media in trying to instill a sense of autonomy in her.
musically, she doesn't really explore the promise that exists on a few of the tracks to delve into more substantive, serious music, preferring instead to dabble in pop forms. as is the norm in pop music, these melodies and structures are all borrowed from existing tracks. you've heard these songs before.
and, if there was one thing i wanted from a list of best records of the year, it was some songs i hadn't heard before.
the production on the record is often very thick, but the focus here is on writing marketable pop songs rather than on creating abstract art. these are essentially pop songs sprinkled with ideas from classical music as gimmicks, rather than a substantive synthesis of low and high art.
i would advise keeping an eye on her, as she's clearly talented, and she's clearly interested in being creative. but, this is a step towards an end point, rather than an endpoint in itself.
the liner notes in this newish fka twigs record are something else, aren't they? lots of people involved in this....
it's also a poppier record overall, as far as i can tell, poppy enough that it's probably fallen out of my sphere. what's going to be left to me to connect to with this is the more serious side of the writing, which is kind of what i said for all of these records, isn't it? this is actually consistent with something i posted not that long ago that argued that the basic concept of this era is rooted in the idea of merging serious music with electronic music.
i'm in need of a little rest, and will get back to this. maybe. if i can connect to it, and i might not be able to.
i want to briefly comment on mary magdalene, though.
like jesus himself, mary magdalene probably did not actually exist. we can't be completely sure of course, none of us were there, but she should be seen as a fictional character rather than a historical figure. it is absolutely true, though, that the character of mary magdalene has been suppressed by the church, which saw her as a threat to patriarchy.
and, let's be clear on the purpose of medieval patriarchy, too. it was to create soldiers. we have patriarchy because of war. it's not some glib comment to suggest that we'd have less wars if women were in charge of things, it is literally the historical fact of the matter - patriarchy is upheld by religion to ensure the rulers have soldiers for war. that's what it is.
so, when these gnostic christians started promoting this woman as a potential equal to jesus, it threatened a revolutionary overthrow. that was dangerous; she had to be destroyed. yet, there are fragments of a gospel that is attributed to her.
despite what you may have heard, there is no extant biblical source that suggests her character was written as a prostitute. that's actually ancient propaganda, designed to smear or discredit her. it's just not in the source.
there are sources that suggest she was jesus' partner, and a few that suggest she may have borne him children. as neither of these people actually existed, it's not likely that a bloodline exists. but, the premise of the character of jesus having sex contradicted christian dogma.
what i'm getting at is that, while it benefits nobody to treat her historically, there is value in deconstructing her back into the composite legends she came from, and treating her as an allegorical myth. as an atheist with classicist and neo-paganist tendencies, i'm actually pretty strongly in favour of that. the greek, roman, egyptian and babylonian constituents into the magdalene syncretism are powerful and should be, err, resurrected. as we decolonize and dechristianize (and deislamicize), we can learn a lot from these ideas that were suppressed, in rebuilding a new post-messianic society. the magdalene myth has powerful potential to help re-establish a cultural norm of female autonomy.
i'm not sure that this is the angle she's coming at with this.
but, it's the angle i need to approach something like this with, and i'll be pondering it when i get back to this after i get some rest.
it's also a poppier record overall, as far as i can tell, poppy enough that it's probably fallen out of my sphere. what's going to be left to me to connect to with this is the more serious side of the writing, which is kind of what i said for all of these records, isn't it? this is actually consistent with something i posted not that long ago that argued that the basic concept of this era is rooted in the idea of merging serious music with electronic music.
i'm in need of a little rest, and will get back to this. maybe. if i can connect to it, and i might not be able to.
i want to briefly comment on mary magdalene, though.
like jesus himself, mary magdalene probably did not actually exist. we can't be completely sure of course, none of us were there, but she should be seen as a fictional character rather than a historical figure. it is absolutely true, though, that the character of mary magdalene has been suppressed by the church, which saw her as a threat to patriarchy.
and, let's be clear on the purpose of medieval patriarchy, too. it was to create soldiers. we have patriarchy because of war. it's not some glib comment to suggest that we'd have less wars if women were in charge of things, it is literally the historical fact of the matter - patriarchy is upheld by religion to ensure the rulers have soldiers for war. that's what it is.
so, when these gnostic christians started promoting this woman as a potential equal to jesus, it threatened a revolutionary overthrow. that was dangerous; she had to be destroyed. yet, there are fragments of a gospel that is attributed to her.
despite what you may have heard, there is no extant biblical source that suggests her character was written as a prostitute. that's actually ancient propaganda, designed to smear or discredit her. it's just not in the source.
there are sources that suggest she was jesus' partner, and a few that suggest she may have borne him children. as neither of these people actually existed, it's not likely that a bloodline exists. but, the premise of the character of jesus having sex contradicted christian dogma.
what i'm getting at is that, while it benefits nobody to treat her historically, there is value in deconstructing her back into the composite legends she came from, and treating her as an allegorical myth. as an atheist with classicist and neo-paganist tendencies, i'm actually pretty strongly in favour of that. the greek, roman, egyptian and babylonian constituents into the magdalene syncretism are powerful and should be, err, resurrected. as we decolonize and dechristianize (and deislamicize), we can learn a lot from these ideas that were suppressed, in rebuilding a new post-messianic society. the magdalene myth has powerful potential to help re-establish a cultural norm of female autonomy.
i'm not sure that this is the angle she's coming at with this.
but, it's the angle i need to approach something like this with, and i'll be pondering it when i get back to this after i get some rest.
the people at pitchfork tend to prefer a collection of static ambient artists that includes the like of fennesz and hecker over more sweeping, moving ambient music. they're consistent on this point, and i'd suppose it probably comes down to the personal tastes of some senior writer there. something else they keep coming back to that i find kind of head-scratching is 4tet.
fennesz is something i've tried to get into a whole bunch of times, and i'm just consistently left with the feeling that nothing is really happening. should i be listening more closely? well, i think i'm doing that, already, and that i'm actually pretty good at careful listening. if this is my fault, it's that i'm defining "nothing" as less sparse than others, that my nothing is somebody else's something, but that's the premise of me doing this, isn't it?
historically, fennesz is kind of like what would have happened if the fripp that worked with eno on records like (no pussyfooting) and evening star had become the fripp - if he had denounced his pop work with the gabriels and bowies, and forgotten about reforming crimson, and just did the frippertronics thing. and, is his output worthwhile in that context?
i'd like to hear something more developed from him, and keep hoping i will. this record isn't bad, relative to his previous ones, but it's not the artistic breakthrough i keep hoping for, either.
https://fenneszreleases.bandcamp.com/album/agora
fennesz is something i've tried to get into a whole bunch of times, and i'm just consistently left with the feeling that nothing is really happening. should i be listening more closely? well, i think i'm doing that, already, and that i'm actually pretty good at careful listening. if this is my fault, it's that i'm defining "nothing" as less sparse than others, that my nothing is somebody else's something, but that's the premise of me doing this, isn't it?
historically, fennesz is kind of like what would have happened if the fripp that worked with eno on records like (no pussyfooting) and evening star had become the fripp - if he had denounced his pop work with the gabriels and bowies, and forgotten about reforming crimson, and just did the frippertronics thing. and, is his output worthwhile in that context?
i'd like to hear something more developed from him, and keep hoping i will. this record isn't bad, relative to his previous ones, but it's not the artistic breakthrough i keep hoping for, either.
https://fenneszreleases.bandcamp.com/album/agora
i want to be clear: kim directs some of the best sonic youth tracks. the sprawl, for instance.
but, she's also responsible for some of the band's least interesting and most pretentious moments, and, left to her own devices, without any sort of a check, the pretension has really dominated the sound, since the band broke up.
there are some moments on the things she's done over the last ten years, but it's mostly been largely forgettable, imo. what she needs to be able to do, stylistically, is write killer one-liners to cut through the noise, and she's mostly not done that - it's been more of a cathartic process, for her, with the listener kind of just peering in on it.
but, she's also responsible for some of the band's least interesting and most pretentious moments, and, left to her own devices, without any sort of a check, the pretension has really dominated the sound, since the band broke up.
there are some moments on the things she's done over the last ten years, but it's mostly been largely forgettable, imo. what she needs to be able to do, stylistically, is write killer one-liners to cut through the noise, and she's mostly not done that - it's been more of a cathartic process, for her, with the listener kind of just peering in on it.
it would be easy, but very silly, to nail kim gordon for not making guitar rock, because she was always the least inclined to actually do so. that said, this is certainly a departure from the previous body //head sound, which was at least expected by those familiar with her dominant direction over the syr projects.
with the exception of 'air bnb' and 'hungry baby' (the weakest tracks on the record), i guess she's really just traded in her treated guitars for skittery beats; it's otherwise more or less fundamentally the same thing she's been doing for quite a while, in the sense of producing scattered statements over soundscapes of noise. the change in aesthetic may be jarring, but it's kind of just surface deep.
and, here's the thing: if you found her work with feedback to be a little on the aimless side, the fact that the shift to electronics is really just aesthetic means that it shouldn't fundamentally alter your perception of what she's doing. if you liked the rambling over atonal guitar noise, you should still like the rambling over glitchy electronic beats; if you didn't, it's hard to see how the shift in sound is going to shift your opinion.
personally, i always liked my kim gordon in smaller doses, and the sonic youth records where she overpowers are, in my opinion, their weakest. i could maybe handle an ep. but the process of removing the other two singers is mostly going to tune me out, and that's just the absolute truth of it.
but, don't let the layers of technology scare you off - there is no fundamental shift in compositional style, here, and your opinion of her solo work should more or less remain static after digesting this.
with the exception of 'air bnb' and 'hungry baby' (the weakest tracks on the record), i guess she's really just traded in her treated guitars for skittery beats; it's otherwise more or less fundamentally the same thing she's been doing for quite a while, in the sense of producing scattered statements over soundscapes of noise. the change in aesthetic may be jarring, but it's kind of just surface deep.
and, here's the thing: if you found her work with feedback to be a little on the aimless side, the fact that the shift to electronics is really just aesthetic means that it shouldn't fundamentally alter your perception of what she's doing. if you liked the rambling over atonal guitar noise, you should still like the rambling over glitchy electronic beats; if you didn't, it's hard to see how the shift in sound is going to shift your opinion.
personally, i always liked my kim gordon in smaller doses, and the sonic youth records where she overpowers are, in my opinion, their weakest. i could maybe handle an ep. but the process of removing the other two singers is mostly going to tune me out, and that's just the absolute truth of it.
but, don't let the layers of technology scare you off - there is no fundamental shift in compositional style, here, and your opinion of her solo work should more or less remain static after digesting this.
i haven't said anything about thom yorke's new record, have i?
there was a time in like 1998 when i was a very big radiohead fan, but i actually didn't really like the direction they took in the early 00s, and i haven't kept up at all. i've heard very small amounts of music by radiohead or thom yorke since hail to the thief, which most of his existing fan base is too young to even remember.
i actually had a discussion with somebody outside of a bar about this not that long ago.
"you don't even remember ok computer, do you?"
"no."
he even seemed sort of baffled that i was that old.
my perspective is actually to liken radiohead to the smashing pumpkins, and yorke to corgan; it's just a constant process of disappointment, to realize where these guys are at now, and how distant it is from where i'm at. corgan's stuff is often unlistenably bad. yorke's tends to be uneventful, predictable, repetitive and downright boring.
it seems like everything he's done for the last fifteen years is essentially exactly the same.
so, i mean, i could no doubt throw the record on, and listen to it a few times, and have it pass over me like a blur, unable to distinguish one song from the next, on this record or the last however many; i'm not going to bother. i checked a few tracks out to confirm the basic truth that it sounds exactly the same as everything else he's done this century. and, i'll just leave it at that.
i don't know if yorke has ever come out in public with exactly what his mental illness is. i think everybody knows there's something there, but what? i'd hazard a guess that it's ocd. the repetition gives it away.
there was a time in like 1998 when i was a very big radiohead fan, but i actually didn't really like the direction they took in the early 00s, and i haven't kept up at all. i've heard very small amounts of music by radiohead or thom yorke since hail to the thief, which most of his existing fan base is too young to even remember.
i actually had a discussion with somebody outside of a bar about this not that long ago.
"you don't even remember ok computer, do you?"
"no."
he even seemed sort of baffled that i was that old.
my perspective is actually to liken radiohead to the smashing pumpkins, and yorke to corgan; it's just a constant process of disappointment, to realize where these guys are at now, and how distant it is from where i'm at. corgan's stuff is often unlistenably bad. yorke's tends to be uneventful, predictable, repetitive and downright boring.
it seems like everything he's done for the last fifteen years is essentially exactly the same.
so, i mean, i could no doubt throw the record on, and listen to it a few times, and have it pass over me like a blur, unable to distinguish one song from the next, on this record or the last however many; i'm not going to bother. i checked a few tracks out to confirm the basic truth that it sounds exactly the same as everything else he's done this century. and, i'll just leave it at that.
i don't know if yorke has ever come out in public with exactly what his mental illness is. i think everybody knows there's something there, but what? i'd hazard a guess that it's ocd. the repetition gives it away.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
dude.
listen to the stuff i just posted.
i was doing wacky sample pop art in the fucking 90s. 1000 gecs is actually right up my alley. i'd rather listen to that than 98% of what you see in the clubs out there nowadays.
well, almost, anyways - i'd like a little less pop and a little more noise.
but, i make this shit.
listen to the stuff i just posted.
i was doing wacky sample pop art in the fucking 90s. 1000 gecs is actually right up my alley. i'd rather listen to that than 98% of what you see in the clubs out there nowadays.
well, almost, anyways - i'd like a little less pop and a little more noise.
but, i make this shit.
i'm going to give this some moral support for, in some way, being a step in the right direction.
but, yeah. it's pretty stupid.
see, i may be the only person that responds to it by arguing that it's not chaotic or weird enough. there's too many down points, too many cliches. if they could take this and really fuck it up to the next level, they might catch up to the experimental music that was being made in the early 80s.
but, like i say, it's the direction i want to hear, even if it's not enough - and it is probably more like what the future sounds like than a lot of people are going to want to grapple with.
we've been here before, though. remember born gold? that was, what, 2012? it evaporated in favour of bad 80s retro. can we not make that mistake again?
but, yeah. it's pretty stupid.
see, i may be the only person that responds to it by arguing that it's not chaotic or weird enough. there's too many down points, too many cliches. if they could take this and really fuck it up to the next level, they might catch up to the experimental music that was being made in the early 80s.
but, like i say, it's the direction i want to hear, even if it's not enough - and it is probably more like what the future sounds like than a lot of people are going to want to grapple with.
we've been here before, though. remember born gold? that was, what, 2012? it evaporated in favour of bad 80s retro. can we not make that mistake again?
first liner note release for inri029
this was
my grade 12 final project in electronic music design. the assignment was
something along the lines of creating a piece of music with a social
message.
the message is part dystopian, but focuses more on the idea of identifying certain threats that would become a problem in the upcoming century. remember that this was the middle of 1999. how close was i?
1) intro
2) war
3) noise pollution, or pollution in general
4) conformity (or the collapse of individualism)*
5) chemical warfare
6) global warming
7) outro
* i was thinking in terms of personality/uniqueness, rather than something political. and i think the extreme conformity underlying gen y social attitudes have played this out frighteningly well, actually. it's a reaction to the radical mindset of anti-conformity that dominated gen x, but it's still a very real thing that will have very real ramifications in the upcoming decades. if you thought the 50s were creepy, wait until you see what these kids grow up into!
i should have included something about inequality. i also removed a vegan track, partly due to time restraints. besides that, i think i got all of the broad ideas right.
the piece is made to be played in an indefinitely repeated loop.
most of the tracks are slightly remixed/resequenced versions of tracks from inri or inriched. track 5 is brand new, and recorded on the school's synthesizer (part of the project requirements).
recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published on november 30, 2013. re-released (with new hidden track) and finalized as symph003 on sept 13, 2017. first liner note release added on dec 26, 2019. this is my third symphony; as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 26, 2019, the release includes a 15 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
the message is part dystopian, but focuses more on the idea of identifying certain threats that would become a problem in the upcoming century. remember that this was the middle of 1999. how close was i?
1) intro
2) war
3) noise pollution, or pollution in general
4) conformity (or the collapse of individualism)*
5) chemical warfare
6) global warming
7) outro
* i was thinking in terms of personality/uniqueness, rather than something political. and i think the extreme conformity underlying gen y social attitudes have played this out frighteningly well, actually. it's a reaction to the radical mindset of anti-conformity that dominated gen x, but it's still a very real thing that will have very real ramifications in the upcoming decades. if you thought the 50s were creepy, wait until you see what these kids grow up into!
i should have included something about inequality. i also removed a vegan track, partly due to time restraints. besides that, i think i got all of the broad ideas right.
the piece is made to be played in an indefinitely repeated loop.
most of the tracks are slightly remixed/resequenced versions of tracks from inri or inriched. track 5 is brand new, and recorded on the school's synthesizer (part of the project requirements).
recorded over 1997-1999. constructed in this form in june, 1999. published on november 30, 2013. re-released (with new hidden track) and finalized as symph003 on sept 13, 2017. first liner note release added on dec 26, 2019. this is my third symphony; as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 26, 2019, the release includes a 15 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
credits
released June 20, 1999
j - synthesizers, sequencers, effects, guitar, bass, piano, drum programming, noise generators, metronome, a broken tape deck, sampling, loops, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, sound design, digital wave editing, production
j - synthesizers, sequencers, effects, guitar, bass, piano, drum programming, noise generators, metronome, a broken tape deck, sampling, loops, cool edit synthesis, windows 95 sound recorder, sound design, digital wave editing, production
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/warning
yeah.
it's probably a dissenting opinion, but i'm not afraid of dissenting. and, what i'd actually like to hear is less autotuned millennial whomp pop like "frontier" and more renaissance vocal music like "crawling".
i don't want to come off as a luddite; i'm not suggesting she drop the technology entirely. but, i think she's better when she's operating in roughly the same realm as a julia holter than when she's basically writing action film movie scores.
it's probably a dissenting opinion, but i'm not afraid of dissenting. and, what i'd actually like to hear is less autotuned millennial whomp pop like "frontier" and more renaissance vocal music like "crawling".
i don't want to come off as a luddite; i'm not suggesting she drop the technology entirely. but, i think she's better when she's operating in roughly the same realm as a julia holter than when she's basically writing action film movie scores.
it is a rare scenario where i'm going to judge a record by the tools made to use it, so i wanted to actually listen to this holly herndon record (which you can stream on youtube, despite the link to the paywall on bandcamp) before i posted an analysis of it, but i guess the basic reality you have to come up against before you can really analyze it is that this is fundamentally a record built around two components:
(1) autotuned vocals
(2) cinematic heavyocity drum samples (which were built for use in film scores rather than music)
now, you can go off on a spiel about the ai bit if you want, but i'm ultimately going to listen to this and if you write me a thousand line program that, in the end, sounds like an autotuned pop song, i'm just going to kind of shrug it off and tell you it sounds like an autotuned pop song. i'm not going to concern myself with how you designed your autotuned pop song so much as i'm going to interpret it as what it is.
this isn't quite as boring as the bulk of contemporary pop, but the fact is that it isn't that different from it, either. where it differs from it is primarily in the vocal harmonization, which is certainly more developed, but that's not always to it's benefits; at some point, you also have to ask yourself why, exactly, you're listening to a gregorian chant, or, worse, a white woman appropriate black church music by getting a computer to perform the parts.
my primary takeaway from the record is actually that she'd be more interesting if she pulled away from the technology a little. this is essentially being marketed as a gimmick, but i'd actually argue that the pure musicality of it is more interesting than all of the gadgets being used are, and it may actually come across better as purely choiral music.
it's dynamic, though. and, i'm going to spend a bit longer listening to it. as was the case with the floating points disc, i'm willing to give her a passing grade on listenability, even if i'm actually not that impressed by the academic component.
https://hollyherndon.bandcamp.com/album/proto
(1) autotuned vocals
(2) cinematic heavyocity drum samples (which were built for use in film scores rather than music)
now, you can go off on a spiel about the ai bit if you want, but i'm ultimately going to listen to this and if you write me a thousand line program that, in the end, sounds like an autotuned pop song, i'm just going to kind of shrug it off and tell you it sounds like an autotuned pop song. i'm not going to concern myself with how you designed your autotuned pop song so much as i'm going to interpret it as what it is.
this isn't quite as boring as the bulk of contemporary pop, but the fact is that it isn't that different from it, either. where it differs from it is primarily in the vocal harmonization, which is certainly more developed, but that's not always to it's benefits; at some point, you also have to ask yourself why, exactly, you're listening to a gregorian chant, or, worse, a white woman appropriate black church music by getting a computer to perform the parts.
my primary takeaway from the record is actually that she'd be more interesting if she pulled away from the technology a little. this is essentially being marketed as a gimmick, but i'd actually argue that the pure musicality of it is more interesting than all of the gadgets being used are, and it may actually come across better as purely choiral music.
it's dynamic, though. and, i'm going to spend a bit longer listening to it. as was the case with the floating points disc, i'm willing to give her a passing grade on listenability, even if i'm actually not that impressed by the academic component.
https://hollyherndon.bandcamp.com/album/proto
i have one more of these things left, but i had to stop to sleep when i realized i forgot to add the track-by-track to inri029.
i have two requests to make.
1) i am getting some hits to this blog, recently, as well as the other three. the music release & concert review posts seem to get the most hits. there also appears to be two people that are keeping a close eye on the site. i'd like to know who you are. reach out.
2) i get the impression sometimes that there are discussions about me that are happening without my knowledge, which means i cannot correct any misinformation or generally defend myself. i think it should be clear that i don't go to any specific fora, at this point. if you have any information about this sort of thing, please direct me to it so that i may have the opportunity to defend myself and correct any false information that may be floating around about me.
i'm not sure exactly what i'm doing with inri029, yet. i need to add something, but i want to find the closest representation to what actually existed in 2013. i'm going to get something to eat after that, and decide if i want to go on to december right away or stop for some legal stuff.
i have two requests to make.
1) i am getting some hits to this blog, recently, as well as the other three. the music release & concert review posts seem to get the most hits. there also appears to be two people that are keeping a close eye on the site. i'd like to know who you are. reach out.
2) i get the impression sometimes that there are discussions about me that are happening without my knowledge, which means i cannot correct any misinformation or generally defend myself. i think it should be clear that i don't go to any specific fora, at this point. if you have any information about this sort of thing, please direct me to it so that i may have the opportunity to defend myself and correct any false information that may be floating around about me.
i'm not sure exactly what i'm doing with inri029, yet. i need to add something, but i want to find the closest representation to what actually existed in 2013. i'm going to get something to eat after that, and decide if i want to go on to december right away or stop for some legal stuff.
first liner note release for inri028
i can't
date this exactly. i know it was the first half of the second semester
of grade 12, which was spring of 1999. further, i'm taking it forward to
about midway because the first part of the course was about
voice-leading and i spent it orchestrating the beatles' something. i
don't have any files.
i was lucky: i went to a high school with a big music department. not an arts school, mind you. just a school that had enough funding to run a wide array of course options that are outside the basic core topics. there were three main assignments in the course, and while i don't remember the exact assignment questions, i do have two pieces to show for it.
this, here, is a conceptual piece about pop music. all of the sounds are created from pop cans. yes, puns are fun. the samples run from pouring water out of pop cans into the sink, to crushing and smashing pop cans, to opening them, to exploding them, etc.
i used the tab of a pop can as a pick as i played the ambient guitar parts. it's all thrown together, processed, warped and perfected in a wave editor.
constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. first liner note release added on dec 26, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this track appears unmodified on my third record, inridiculous (inri033): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 26, 2019, the release includes a 5 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
i was lucky: i went to a high school with a big music department. not an arts school, mind you. just a school that had enough funding to run a wide array of course options that are outside the basic core topics. there were three main assignments in the course, and while i don't remember the exact assignment questions, i do have two pieces to show for it.
this, here, is a conceptual piece about pop music. all of the sounds are created from pop cans. yes, puns are fun. the samples run from pouring water out of pop cans into the sink, to crushing and smashing pop cans, to opening them, to exploding them, etc.
i used the tab of a pop can as a pick as i played the ambient guitar parts. it's all thrown together, processed, warped and perfected in a wave editor.
constructed over a few days in april, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. first liner note release added on dec 26, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this track appears unmodified on my third record, inridiculous (inri033): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 26, 2019, the release includes a 5 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
credits
released April 15, 1999
j - guitars, effects, samples, loops, digital wave editing
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/pop-music-a-tribute-to-carbon-dioxide
j - guitars, effects, samples, loops, digital wave editing
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/pop-music-a-tribute-to-carbon-dioxide
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
putting this in any kind of 'best-of' list makes no sense to me at all.
if it was my record label, i wouldn't even release it.
https://sambarker.bandcamp.com/album/utility
if it was my record label, i wouldn't even release it.
https://sambarker.bandcamp.com/album/utility
first liner note release for inri027
somebody
asked me to do this for them for a school project in the second half of
grade 12, which was early 1999. we're both italian. silly joke, no
offense intended.
i never saw the final version, but the guy described it to me. it was an anti drinking and driving ad (think madd) for a marketing class. they sequenced it up with shots of one of them stumbling towards a car, getting in and driving off. very clownish, apparently.
i didn't spend a lot of time on this, so i didn't charge them for it or anything. i think i was more hoping that it would float around a little, but if it did i'm not aware of it.
streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. first liner note released added on dec 25, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this track appears in slightly modified form on my third record, inridiculous (inri033): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 25, 2019, the release includes a 4 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
i never saw the final version, but the guy described it to me. it was an anti drinking and driving ad (think madd) for a marketing class. they sequenced it up with shots of one of them stumbling towards a car, getting in and driving off. very clownish, apparently.
i didn't spend a lot of time on this, so i didn't charge them for it or anything. i think i was more hoping that it would float around a little, but if it did i'm not aware of it.
streamed to disk in one take on the afternoon of march 9, 1999. ripped back to wav format from cd-r in late 2013. released as a one track single on nov 21, 2013. release finalized on sept 12, 2017. first liner note released added on dec 25, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this track appears in slightly modified form on my third record, inridiculous (inri033): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1999, 2013-2019). as of dec 25, 2019, the release includes a 4 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
credits
released March 9, 1999
j - hammerhead (909 emulator), digital wave editing
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/gene-os-a-soundtrack-for-an-italian-breakfast-cereal
j - hammerhead (909 emulator), digital wave editing
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/gene-os-a-soundtrack-for-an-italian-breakfast-cereal
regarding this floating points disc, i just want to double down on the analysis. it's enjoyable, but it's just not that creative. iirc, the first record pulled heavily from chick corea. on this one, you can tell when he wants to sound like rdj, or autechre, or key/goettel/(western), or radiohead or debussy or whatever else - and if you don't know, you don't know, but if you do know, it pulls the sound into the realm of something that already exists.
but, i mean, i've been saying for around ten years now that this genre is pretty much closed. a lot of people are just tuning in; i get it. but, pretty much anything you can imagine doing in techno has already been done, so, like rock music, what's left to do is just novelty acts.
and, i think that's the broader point that a lot of people are missing - it's not just rock that's over, it's the collection of genres that developed alongside rock that are over, too.
this guy is still pretty young. he could still find himself.
but, as it is, you have to interpret this as what it is, which is derivative pop music rather than forward-thinking experimental music.
so, i'll give him a B for the enjoyment level. but, we both know he deserves an F for plagiarism.
https://floatingpoints.bandcamp.com/album/crush
but, i mean, i've been saying for around ten years now that this genre is pretty much closed. a lot of people are just tuning in; i get it. but, pretty much anything you can imagine doing in techno has already been done, so, like rock music, what's left to do is just novelty acts.
and, i think that's the broader point that a lot of people are missing - it's not just rock that's over, it's the collection of genres that developed alongside rock that are over, too.
this guy is still pretty young. he could still find himself.
but, as it is, you have to interpret this as what it is, which is derivative pop music rather than forward-thinking experimental music.
so, i'll give him a B for the enjoyment level. but, we both know he deserves an F for plagiarism.
https://floatingpoints.bandcamp.com/album/crush
first liner note release for inri016
this is something i did between inri demos. i needed a break from structured writing. just wanted to make some noise...
i suppose this is the biggest sample collage of them all, but it's best not to take it too seriously. the idea here eventually morphed into a project called "fuel true anarchy in the americas" (inri068), a play on the ftaa trade agreement, which itself got toned down in scope.
there's everything from science docs to hitler in here. it's meant to be a passive trip through real and imaginary time that is experienced with the aid of psychedelic drugs, rather than any kind of political statement. it's quite consciously absurd, often juxtaposing ironic statements with their contradictions.
the core of the ambience was produced by a program called sound raider. i then took the sound it created and shaped it by adding in vocal samples, looping certain parts, running things through effects, sequencing the noise into a more melodic shape, etc. it's consequently a sort of a collaboration between myself and the machine, rather than the work of the machine itself.
no sane person could really listen to this passively. you basically *need* drugs to get anything out of this at all.
...and i think i'm probably the only person that ever experienced it properly. hey, it's never too late...
created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16, 2013. audio permanently closed on oct 12, 2016. release finalized on oct 27, 2016. first liner not release added on dec 25, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this track also appears on my third record, inridiculous (inri033): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1998, 2013, 2016). as of dec 25, 2019, the release includes a 5 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
i suppose this is the biggest sample collage of them all, but it's best not to take it too seriously. the idea here eventually morphed into a project called "fuel true anarchy in the americas" (inri068), a play on the ftaa trade agreement, which itself got toned down in scope.
there's everything from science docs to hitler in here. it's meant to be a passive trip through real and imaginary time that is experienced with the aid of psychedelic drugs, rather than any kind of political statement. it's quite consciously absurd, often juxtaposing ironic statements with their contradictions.
the core of the ambience was produced by a program called sound raider. i then took the sound it created and shaped it by adding in vocal samples, looping certain parts, running things through effects, sequencing the noise into a more melodic shape, etc. it's consequently a sort of a collaboration between myself and the machine, rather than the work of the machine itself.
no sane person could really listen to this passively. you basically *need* drugs to get anything out of this at all.
...and i think i'm probably the only person that ever experienced it properly. hey, it's never too late...
created in the summer of 1998. released as a standalone ep on nov 16, 2013. audio permanently closed on oct 12, 2016. release finalized on oct 27, 2016. first liner not release added on dec 25, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this track also appears on my third record, inridiculous (inri033): jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inridiculous
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1998, 2013, 2016). as of dec 25, 2019, the release includes a 5 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
credits
released July 1, 1998
j - sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
gauntk9 - anti-social quip
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/eat-my-fuck
j - sound raider, sampling, cool edit synthesis/sequencing, digital effects processing, digital wave editing, flute
gauntk9 - anti-social quip
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/eat-my-fuck
see, i like this, and i could very well spend most of the afternoon listening to it, and with the collapse of electronic music near the turn of the century it may come off as groundbreaking to a lot of younger ears, but the general impression i've always had of floating points is that, yes, it's enjoyable, but it's also highly derivative and this upholds that - it sounds like a mashup of early 90s warp & subconscious releases, as remixed by william orbit.
which is a good idea.
but, it's retro.
and, i want these lists to be full of forward-thinking artistry, not kids trying to sound like something that already happened.
if you kids like this, that's good, this is far more interesting than the stuff in the nightclubs right now, but check out some of the stuff that i just, err, plugged.
https://floatingpoints.bandcamp.com/album/crush
which is a good idea.
but, it's retro.
and, i want these lists to be full of forward-thinking artistry, not kids trying to sound like something that already happened.
if you kids like this, that's good, this is far more interesting than the stuff in the nightclubs right now, but check out some of the stuff that i just, err, plugged.
https://floatingpoints.bandcamp.com/album/crush
i've heard of a few more of these, but there's not much more substantive, here.
maybe i should check a few of these out, though, and let you know what i think of them.
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/brooklynvegans-top-50-albums-of-2019/
maybe i should check a few of these out, though, and let you know what i think of them.
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/brooklynvegans-top-50-albums-of-2019/
i actually haven't heard any of these records, except a couple that i checked out briefly in relation to shows, and dismissed offhand. there are a few that i'm guessing i'd probably like well enough.
but, with the sole exceptions of floating points and fka twigs, everything i'd be interested in in this list was created by people in the 40-60 age range.
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-albums-2019/
but, with the sole exceptions of floating points and fka twigs, everything i'd be interested in in this list was created by people in the 40-60 age range.
https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/best-albums-2019/
i will need to do a lookahead for january soon, but i don't see any obvious shows until march, and i may decide to stay in until then.
the scary winter that the weather people forecasted, and that i was skeptical about, appears to be happening slightly to my north; i've ducked in under the jetstream, which is indicative of a slightly stronger magnetic field from the sun, which is on schedule. it should be another ten years or so before the brutally cold winters return, and we'll have to see if they're even able to take hold at all, with the warmer oceans.
but, even a warm january is still cold, in detroit. and, the kinds of all-nighters that i like to pull on marginally interesting shows are not going to be very realistic for quite a while. i'd have to really want to get out to something, and, for right now, i don't see it. we'll see, though.
if i get out to anything this winter, it's most likely to be at the dso.
i actually expect to tone things down for 2020. i don't do resolutions, but i'm aware that the interestingness of the shows that are happening is decreasing with my age. and, with the pivot back to finishing releases, i actually expect to be too immersed in my art to care much.
as far as i can tell, we're living through a down period for music as an art form. the music of the 20th century (which includes techno & hip-hop, in addition to rock & jazz) has already exited it's creative phase and is winding itself down, and what promises to replace it, these amalgams of electronic and psychedelic music, hasn't materialized into an actual art form, yet. maybe i should be contributing; but, maybe i am.
if something changes, i'll react. but, it seems like the most interesting shows this year are probably going to be rock bands full of aging gen xers, and legacy electronic artists that actually aren't that much younger.
if the millennial generation (which, like their boomer inspiration, are primarily consumers and emulators of art rather than innovators or creators of it) runs from 1980-2000, then the youngest of them will be entering their 20s soon, and there will be pressure on them for generational overturn relatively soon. i've been very clear that i think there's more potential with gen z as a kind of "gen x echo", and you can see it starting to develop with the youngest millennials who are maybe blazing a bit of a path. but, this will probably take a few more years to develop.
i'm happy to focus on my own work, while i'm waiting.
but, i do have to keep an ear to the ground, even if it's a critical one. as a musician, i'm required to have some concept of what's happening around me, even if i just dismiss it.
the scary winter that the weather people forecasted, and that i was skeptical about, appears to be happening slightly to my north; i've ducked in under the jetstream, which is indicative of a slightly stronger magnetic field from the sun, which is on schedule. it should be another ten years or so before the brutally cold winters return, and we'll have to see if they're even able to take hold at all, with the warmer oceans.
but, even a warm january is still cold, in detroit. and, the kinds of all-nighters that i like to pull on marginally interesting shows are not going to be very realistic for quite a while. i'd have to really want to get out to something, and, for right now, i don't see it. we'll see, though.
if i get out to anything this winter, it's most likely to be at the dso.
i actually expect to tone things down for 2020. i don't do resolutions, but i'm aware that the interestingness of the shows that are happening is decreasing with my age. and, with the pivot back to finishing releases, i actually expect to be too immersed in my art to care much.
as far as i can tell, we're living through a down period for music as an art form. the music of the 20th century (which includes techno & hip-hop, in addition to rock & jazz) has already exited it's creative phase and is winding itself down, and what promises to replace it, these amalgams of electronic and psychedelic music, hasn't materialized into an actual art form, yet. maybe i should be contributing; but, maybe i am.
if something changes, i'll react. but, it seems like the most interesting shows this year are probably going to be rock bands full of aging gen xers, and legacy electronic artists that actually aren't that much younger.
if the millennial generation (which, like their boomer inspiration, are primarily consumers and emulators of art rather than innovators or creators of it) runs from 1980-2000, then the youngest of them will be entering their 20s soon, and there will be pressure on them for generational overturn relatively soon. i've been very clear that i think there's more potential with gen z as a kind of "gen x echo", and you can see it starting to develop with the youngest millennials who are maybe blazing a bit of a path. but, this will probably take a few more years to develop.
i'm happy to focus on my own work, while i'm waiting.
but, i do have to keep an ear to the ground, even if it's a critical one. as a musician, i'm required to have some concept of what's happening around me, even if i just dismiss it.
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
read this if you want to understand what pete buttigieg is.
https://archive.org/stream/carrollquigley_angloamericanestablishment/Carroll%20Quigley%20-%20The%20Anglo-American%20Establishment_djvu.txt
https://archive.org/stream/carrollquigley_angloamericanestablishment/Carroll%20Quigley%20-%20The%20Anglo-American%20Establishment_djvu.txt
Monday, December 23, 2019
first liner note release for inri003
i spent
the summer and fall of 1997 programming drum tracks into an ry30,
notating them into a tablature program and sequencing them using
noteworthy composer. i did not know how i was going to record these
tracks. i think i was expecting to use the computer, but that was
probably naive; instead, i was gifted a 4-track recording machine. i
then spent the next year and a half rearranging and rerecording the
songs i programmed over that period. as these tracks were recorded into
my pc, they are time stamped...so i have a much clearer understanding of
when they were finished.
the jump to incorporating computers into the recording process is something i always wanted to do, it's just that it wasn't really previously feasible. first, there was a learning curve. i was a smart kid, though; the learning curve was just a time concern. the larger problem was simply access to a pc. i did have a pc at my disposal, but it did not have a modem and it was only equipped to run windows 3.1, which basically meant i could run civ 2 and wolfenstein and little else. the windows 95 computer had dial up but it was in a central location for family use.
when we moved across the city, my dad bought a new computer and i happily inherited his old one. this gave me internet access, which allowed me to download some freeware. it also gave me the time i needed to learn how to do certain things.
i'm separating out a handful of my first electronic sound experiments and collecting them together into an ep. what these blasts of noise have in common is that they were constructed on a windows 95 computer out of samples or generated sound and with very primitive software while i was waiting to get some kind of recording equipment. most of it was pasted together meticulously using the windows 95 sound recorder; the rest of it was constructed in cool edit, which i used as a sort of a synthesizer.
for the most part, these weren't really ever meant to be songs. i ended up using them as connectors, introductions, background. "continuity". yet, i find the idea of throwing them together here to be interesting from an autobiographical perspective.
created in mid 1997. sequenced and converted to stereo in november, 2013. released on nov 9, 2013. corrected in september, 2014. finalized on july 5, 2016. first liner note released added on dec 23, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 2013, 2016). as of dec 23, 2019, the release includes an 8 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
the jump to incorporating computers into the recording process is something i always wanted to do, it's just that it wasn't really previously feasible. first, there was a learning curve. i was a smart kid, though; the learning curve was just a time concern. the larger problem was simply access to a pc. i did have a pc at my disposal, but it did not have a modem and it was only equipped to run windows 3.1, which basically meant i could run civ 2 and wolfenstein and little else. the windows 95 computer had dial up but it was in a central location for family use.
when we moved across the city, my dad bought a new computer and i happily inherited his old one. this gave me internet access, which allowed me to download some freeware. it also gave me the time i needed to learn how to do certain things.
i'm separating out a handful of my first electronic sound experiments and collecting them together into an ep. what these blasts of noise have in common is that they were constructed on a windows 95 computer out of samples or generated sound and with very primitive software while i was waiting to get some kind of recording equipment. most of it was pasted together meticulously using the windows 95 sound recorder; the rest of it was constructed in cool edit, which i used as a sort of a synthesizer.
for the most part, these weren't really ever meant to be songs. i ended up using them as connectors, introductions, background. "continuity". yet, i find the idea of throwing them together here to be interesting from an autobiographical perspective.
created in mid 1997. sequenced and converted to stereo in november, 2013. released on nov 9, 2013. corrected in september, 2014. finalized on july 5, 2016. first liner note released added on dec 23, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
this release also includes a printable jewel case insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 2013, 2016). as of dec 23, 2019, the release includes an 8 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
credits
released December 1, 1997
j - cool edit (wave synthesis, digital wave editing), windows 95 sound recorder (sampling, digital wave editing), yamaha ry30 drum machine (programming)
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrisampled
j - cool edit (wave synthesis, digital wave editing), windows 95 sound recorder (sampling, digital wave editing), yamaha ry30 drum machine (programming)
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inrisampled
first liner note release for inri001
my second
demo, recorded over the second half of the tenth grade, is a
considerably more polished recording. by this time, i had learned a lot
about how to record things and had improved my drumming and keyboard
playing. while the vocals remain highly erratic, ranging from
precociously insightful to devastatingly stupid, the music here is
actually not far from a professional recording.
recorded in spring 1997, remastered in fall 2013. finalized on july 3, 2016. first liner note release added on dec 23, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
i consider this an archival release with little direct listening value. i've pointed out repeatedly that i was 16. however, various segments have been isolated and pulled out for a higher listenability value over here:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-a
this release also includes a printable j-card insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 2013-2019). as of dec 23, 2019, the release includes a 35 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
recorded in spring 1997, remastered in fall 2013. finalized on july 3, 2016. first liner note release added on dec 23, 2019. as always, please use headphones.
i consider this an archival release with little direct listening value. i've pointed out repeatedly that i was 16. however, various segments have been isolated and pulled out for a higher listenability value over here:
jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inricycled-a
this release also includes a printable j-card insert and will also eventually include a comprehensive package of journal entries from all phases of production (1997, 2013-2019). as of dec 23, 2019, the release includes a 35 page booklet in doc, pdf & html, with an html5 audio frontend, that includes journal entries from the remastering process over nov, 2013.
credits
released June 1, 1997
j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, keyboards, tapes, vocals, found sounds, metronomes, production
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-2
j - guitars, effects, bass, drums, keyboards, tapes, vocals, found sounds, metronomes, production
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-2
so, i've now updated inri000 to include some posts from nov, 2013.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
Sunday, December 22, 2019
i finally have the template for the html5 frontend done, and have
uploaded it to the bandcamp site. this is not a formal rerelease, but an
addition to the previous rerelease. the formal rereleases moving
forward will include the html5 frontends by default.
there is an instructions file, but you basically just unzip and load the index into your browser.
this is overdue, but there should be some more releases up over the next few days.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
there is an instructions file, but you basically just unzip and load the index into your browser.
this is overdue, but there should be some more releases up over the next few days.
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/inri-cassette-demo-1
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
but, just to finish my thought...
honestly?
those hip-hop fans probably don't want me around, either. i don't bother showing up because i don't really like the artform, but i know they'd actually largely rather i don't show up.
again, i don't want to paint with too broad brushes. but, trans people get killed in detroit relatively frequently, actually. my disinterest in it aside, that's not the best scene for me to hover around - they wouldn't want me around, and i might actually get hurt.
ok, so we have an unlikely solstice party on saturday night that it probably makes no sense to go to. it's an info line. it depends entirely on where it is, and how i'm feeling, and last minute updates to the forecast.
very low likelihood.
same thing for next saturday, and on new years, i'm essentially not scratching them out yet, because i might change my mind. but it's almost certain that i'm in for the rest of the year, at least.
the weather down here, at the southernmost tip of canada, is actually not that bad for the next two weeks. there's a cold snap that clears out tomorrow night, and then we should be mostly above freezing until new year's day.
it's starting to look like a timid winter here, actually. it's still too early. but, an early spring is looking more and more likely...
i'm just south of the jetstream, though. even toronto is experiencing something rather different right now. i think that even london is getting hit, right now.
very low likelihood.
same thing for next saturday, and on new years, i'm essentially not scratching them out yet, because i might change my mind. but it's almost certain that i'm in for the rest of the year, at least.
the weather down here, at the southernmost tip of canada, is actually not that bad for the next two weeks. there's a cold snap that clears out tomorrow night, and then we should be mostly above freezing until new year's day.
it's starting to look like a timid winter here, actually. it's still too early. but, an early spring is looking more and more likely...
i'm just south of the jetstream, though. even toronto is experiencing something rather different right now. i think that even london is getting hit, right now.
and, this is the aforementioned headliner, which is kind of doing
everything right, but not quite doing it with enough....grit? is that
the term i want?
i just want it to be a little rougher around the edges, to pull out the more psychedelic aspects. i want those guitar parts to be a little less planned out. i want some more freeform jams. i want it to be just a little less poppy, overall.
it's
the kind of thing that might grow on me, but it's also the kind of
thing that i might get tired of very quickly. i'm still toying with this
weekend, actually, but it's pretty unlikely at this point.
https://thewornflints.bandcamp.com/
i just want it to be a little rougher around the edges, to pull out the more psychedelic aspects. i want those guitar parts to be a little less planned out. i want some more freeform jams. i want it to be just a little less poppy, overall.
https://thewornflints.bandcamp.com/
actually, i would show up early to see something like this. it's a
little slow moving, but it's varied enough to hold my attention.
it's a shame the headliner isn't just a tad edgier.
https://aemmprecordsrock.bandcamp.com/album/daylight-sinners
https://aemmprecordsrock.bandcamp.com/album/daylight-sinners
it's way too cold to go out tonight.
is this actually any good, though?
see,
my perception of this is that it's just very silly, but i said the same
thing about earth, as well as earthless, and i ended up at both shows.
there would be a non-zero chance that i'd show up at something like this
if it wasn't one of the coldest nights of the year.
there are, however, certain things that would dramatically minimize my chances, as well.
first, i know they're purposefully retro, a novelty act, but hasn't the satanic theme run it's course? i have dead kennedys records from like 1985 that argue pretty convincingly that satanic rock music is overdone and tired and stupid and cliched, and here we are 35 years later and still watching in confusion as they headbang their heads against the same wall.
second, it's actually hard not to giggle when you hear the vocal tone. no, really. this is just so widely ridiculed at this point, that you're going to end up giggling by default. you can't avoid it. admit it. you're laughing...
i'd deal with that, though, if i was in the right mood, if the guitar playing was actually interesting. and, it's kind of not.
so, no. it isn't actually any good.
first, i know they're purposefully retro, a novelty act, but hasn't the satanic theme run it's course? i have dead kennedys records from like 1985 that argue pretty convincingly that satanic rock music is overdone and tired and stupid and cliched, and here we are 35 years later and still watching in confusion as they headbang their heads against the same wall.
second, it's actually hard not to giggle when you hear the vocal tone. no, really. this is just so widely ridiculed at this point, that you're going to end up giggling by default. you can't avoid it. admit it. you're laughing...
i'd deal with that, though, if i was in the right mood, if the guitar playing was actually interesting. and, it's kind of not.
so, no. it isn't actually any good.
why don't i go see hip-hop shows, though?
well, i'd challenge the premise just a little. i saw actress not that long ago. it's rare, though.
stated tersely, i think hip-hop is boring. that's the flat out reality - it's slow-moving, musically simplistic and, usually, boring as fuck.
but, you'll also notice that i almost never go to macho rock or metal shows, either, because i have some issues with the misogyny in the music. i don't go to see these like pro-capitalist guitarists like ted nugent, either. and, broadly speaking, i don't like the politics promoted by most hip-hop. even when it's acceptable on a political level, it's still a pretty bro-ish genre of music.
so, let's be clear about the reasons:
1) musically, i find almost all hip-hop to be boring. there are rare counter-examples, but it usually ends up being instrumental music, like burial.
2) politically, i find most hip-hop to be drastically lacking. it's staunchly pro-capitalist, and it's usually pretty broish.
so, if i don't like the way it sounds, and i don't like the ideas it's disseminating, what exactly would my interest in the genre be?
don't misunderstand me - i'd like to keep an open mind. if you think there's a hip-hop artist i'd love, suggest it to me. i've dabbled in some of the anticon stuff, and it's at least politically closer to what i want, even if it doesn't get close to what i need, musically.
but, it's not a young genre, anymore. in fact, it's probably mostly already run it's course - the best hip-hop is probably behind us. and, almost none of it has been good enough to excite me.
you'll see me at jazz concerts, and you'll see me at techno concerts. but, you'll almost never see me at an opera, and you'll almost never see me at a hip-hop show, either.
we can't all like everything, and hip-hop's in the list of things that doesn't do much for me.
well, i'd challenge the premise just a little. i saw actress not that long ago. it's rare, though.
stated tersely, i think hip-hop is boring. that's the flat out reality - it's slow-moving, musically simplistic and, usually, boring as fuck.
but, you'll also notice that i almost never go to macho rock or metal shows, either, because i have some issues with the misogyny in the music. i don't go to see these like pro-capitalist guitarists like ted nugent, either. and, broadly speaking, i don't like the politics promoted by most hip-hop. even when it's acceptable on a political level, it's still a pretty bro-ish genre of music.
so, let's be clear about the reasons:
1) musically, i find almost all hip-hop to be boring. there are rare counter-examples, but it usually ends up being instrumental music, like burial.
2) politically, i find most hip-hop to be drastically lacking. it's staunchly pro-capitalist, and it's usually pretty broish.
so, if i don't like the way it sounds, and i don't like the ideas it's disseminating, what exactly would my interest in the genre be?
don't misunderstand me - i'd like to keep an open mind. if you think there's a hip-hop artist i'd love, suggest it to me. i've dabbled in some of the anticon stuff, and it's at least politically closer to what i want, even if it doesn't get close to what i need, musically.
but, it's not a young genre, anymore. in fact, it's probably mostly already run it's course - the best hip-hop is probably behind us. and, almost none of it has been good enough to excite me.
you'll see me at jazz concerts, and you'll see me at techno concerts. but, you'll almost never see me at an opera, and you'll almost never see me at a hip-hop show, either.
we can't all like everything, and hip-hop's in the list of things that doesn't do much for me.
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
am i teasing?
the answer to the gould-dawkins debate is...
you won't like this. really.
one day, people will look at the canid fossil record for north america over the late 20th and early 21st century and notice that both the larger and smaller forms disappeared at about the same time, making way for an intermediate form. if made solely using 21st century science, the deduction will likely be that a warming climate made it harder for the larger form to survive, and the smaller form rapidly speciated to fill the niche. gould would essentially make a lamarckian argument that increased rates of mutation followed as a result of the climate change, whereas dawkins would argue that the fossil record is incomplete, and the variation that lead to the intermediate form is simply lost.
but, we're living through this; we know they're both wrong.
what has happened in the canid population is that coyotes and wolves have hybridized, and the hybrid form has outcompeted both of the source forms.
i do believe that this observation in canids - as well as, soon, in ursids - should have long term implications in resolving this debate.
and, who is right?
there is simply neither a solid logical argument nor any convincing evidence to back up gould's argument for lamarckian reactions to environmental change. gould is not making an epigenetic argument, either. he's explicitly arguing for variable mutation rates, as a reaction to the environment. so, gould is wrong. full stop.
and, dawkins' variation is actually right in front of him in the form of the two ancestral species, he just doesn't realize it. in a mechanical sense, he's essentially correct, even if he's missing the way it works.
i looked into this in 2003-2005ish. so, it will come up in 2033-2035ish.
the answer to the gould-dawkins debate is...
you won't like this. really.
one day, people will look at the canid fossil record for north america over the late 20th and early 21st century and notice that both the larger and smaller forms disappeared at about the same time, making way for an intermediate form. if made solely using 21st century science, the deduction will likely be that a warming climate made it harder for the larger form to survive, and the smaller form rapidly speciated to fill the niche. gould would essentially make a lamarckian argument that increased rates of mutation followed as a result of the climate change, whereas dawkins would argue that the fossil record is incomplete, and the variation that lead to the intermediate form is simply lost.
but, we're living through this; we know they're both wrong.
what has happened in the canid population is that coyotes and wolves have hybridized, and the hybrid form has outcompeted both of the source forms.
i do believe that this observation in canids - as well as, soon, in ursids - should have long term implications in resolving this debate.
and, who is right?
there is simply neither a solid logical argument nor any convincing evidence to back up gould's argument for lamarckian reactions to environmental change. gould is not making an epigenetic argument, either. he's explicitly arguing for variable mutation rates, as a reaction to the environment. so, gould is wrong. full stop.
and, dawkins' variation is actually right in front of him in the form of the two ancestral species, he just doesn't realize it. in a mechanical sense, he's essentially correct, even if he's missing the way it works.
i looked into this in 2003-2005ish. so, it will come up in 2033-2035ish.
it might not be clear from the sample i've published since 2013 (i know. it's still a lot.) but i've actually written extensively in opposition to stephen jay gould, who i don't think was a very good scientist.
the article points out that dawkins has mentioned kropotkin only sporadically and mostly dismissively, which i believe is true, and then quotes both gould and chomsky (who i have much more respect for.) liberally on the topic of kropotkin. i don't see any use in flailing against that, and don't actually have any specific rebuttal to anything that was cited.
but, i broadly dislike gould, and broadly prefer to avoid citing him.
the article points out that dawkins has mentioned kropotkin only sporadically and mostly dismissively, which i believe is true, and then quotes both gould and chomsky (who i have much more respect for.) liberally on the topic of kropotkin. i don't see any use in flailing against that, and don't actually have any specific rebuttal to anything that was cited.
but, i broadly dislike gould, and broadly prefer to avoid citing him.
i also think that the article is presenting a confused concept of group selection when it means to be talking about kin selection, which i think is the better commonality between wilson and kropotkin
in the context of his mutual aid theory specifically, it really is kin selection and not group selection that should be being discussed.
and, in the context of homo sapiens, as well as primates in general, it is pretty clear that we have very developed concepts of kin selection guiding our evolution at every step, and have from the start of the clade.
in the context of his mutual aid theory specifically, it really is kin selection and not group selection that should be being discussed.
and, in the context of homo sapiens, as well as primates in general, it is pretty clear that we have very developed concepts of kin selection guiding our evolution at every step, and have from the start of the clade.
i think that maybe the point that the author is missing, in the moment if not more generally, is that there is no "after the revolution".
abolishing the state is not something that happens at 3:00 next wednesday afternoon, but a process that will carry on for the next ten thousand years.
so, to say something like "anarchists wouldn't be anarchists if they rejected the concept of human nature" is to essentially fall into a lenninist trap. it assumes a day after the revolution exists, and we'll still have the same nature, and will still need to restrict ourselves. neither marx nor any of the early anarchist thinkers, all of whom were ultimately hegelians remember, would have seen the revolutionary process as anything like that - they would have all seen it as a, well, evolution from one state of society to the next.
yes, there will be punctuated periods of necessary violence, as the struggle brings itself to a head.
but, we don't really have to sit here and wonder about what happens after the revolution, because that's not how this actually happens.
abolishing the state is not something that happens at 3:00 next wednesday afternoon, but a process that will carry on for the next ten thousand years.
so, to say something like "anarchists wouldn't be anarchists if they rejected the concept of human nature" is to essentially fall into a lenninist trap. it assumes a day after the revolution exists, and we'll still have the same nature, and will still need to restrict ourselves. neither marx nor any of the early anarchist thinkers, all of whom were ultimately hegelians remember, would have seen the revolutionary process as anything like that - they would have all seen it as a, well, evolution from one state of society to the next.
yes, there will be punctuated periods of necessary violence, as the struggle brings itself to a head.
but, we don't really have to sit here and wonder about what happens after the revolution, because that's not how this actually happens.
the author of that article is also misrepresenting the views of kropotkin (and others) on the topic of "human nature", and even goes so far as to contradict the thrust of the article by actually quoting kropotkin, which is a little ironic given the prose.
kropotkin, like most liberal-leftists of the era, including most socialists and most anarchists, accepted a tabula rasa concept of human nature, stemming ultimately from rousseau. he wasn't a hobbesian. he didn't believe in original sin.
it's an anachronism, but we're standing in 2019 and not 1899, so we should just go ahead and cite gramsci, which we mostly get via chomsky & herman, nowadays. we're in a weird period, where people don't really read anymore, and consequently don't really hold consistent politics; people that call themselves leftists nowadays no longer seem to really care if they're just a mess of contradictions, as products of capitalism, themselves. but, the standard leftist position on human nature, which kropotkin held like everybody else, is supposed to be something like this:
1) humans have no fixed nature. tabula rasa.
2) but, capitalism is evil. and, the capitalist class controls how we think, through it's dominance of education and media.
3) therefore, we're taught to be complete pieces of shit from the time we're born. that is the reason we're assholes - the system teaches us to be assholes.
4) to reverse this, you need to abolish the system.
and, then what? well, then we have a debate is what. do we embrace an anti-intellectualism and demand that education is abolished altogether, in fears that it will teach us to be evil all over again? that's the primitivist position, and it's out there, but it's hard for anybody to take seriously, unless you have a fetish for the dark ages. more often is that anarchists tend to push concepts of decentralization, horizontalism and radical levels of democracy, when it comes to education. i've published a short work on what i think an anarchist grade school ought to be like to my appspot site on the side.
so, you're going to see a lot of debate and a lot of dissent on the topic, actually. it's one of the points where we have as many different approaches as we have different strains of anarchism.
but, the commonality on the anarchist left is supposed to be a combination of rousseaulian tabula rasa with gramscian social conditioning, and a consensus that you have to abolish the state to undo the programming. kropotkin's views fall pretty much in the centre of that consensus, even if some of the language that we use nowadays postdates him.
kropotkin, like most liberal-leftists of the era, including most socialists and most anarchists, accepted a tabula rasa concept of human nature, stemming ultimately from rousseau. he wasn't a hobbesian. he didn't believe in original sin.
it's an anachronism, but we're standing in 2019 and not 1899, so we should just go ahead and cite gramsci, which we mostly get via chomsky & herman, nowadays. we're in a weird period, where people don't really read anymore, and consequently don't really hold consistent politics; people that call themselves leftists nowadays no longer seem to really care if they're just a mess of contradictions, as products of capitalism, themselves. but, the standard leftist position on human nature, which kropotkin held like everybody else, is supposed to be something like this:
1) humans have no fixed nature. tabula rasa.
2) but, capitalism is evil. and, the capitalist class controls how we think, through it's dominance of education and media.
3) therefore, we're taught to be complete pieces of shit from the time we're born. that is the reason we're assholes - the system teaches us to be assholes.
4) to reverse this, you need to abolish the system.
and, then what? well, then we have a debate is what. do we embrace an anti-intellectualism and demand that education is abolished altogether, in fears that it will teach us to be evil all over again? that's the primitivist position, and it's out there, but it's hard for anybody to take seriously, unless you have a fetish for the dark ages. more often is that anarchists tend to push concepts of decentralization, horizontalism and radical levels of democracy, when it comes to education. i've published a short work on what i think an anarchist grade school ought to be like to my appspot site on the side.
so, you're going to see a lot of debate and a lot of dissent on the topic, actually. it's one of the points where we have as many different approaches as we have different strains of anarchism.
but, the commonality on the anarchist left is supposed to be a combination of rousseaulian tabula rasa with gramscian social conditioning, and a consensus that you have to abolish the state to undo the programming. kropotkin's views fall pretty much in the centre of that consensus, even if some of the language that we use nowadays postdates him.
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