Monday, January 13, 2020

would this be better if it was a little more structured?

it works, as it is, as background music. they'd have to focus a bit more for it to work as something in the active listening category.

if you like that intersection between davis style jazz, canterbury style prog and no wave-ish branca/zorn noise rock, this should do it for you, though.

i just want some kind of process.

https://mouthbreathr.bandcamp.com/releases
people arguing against daws are literally arguing against automation.

they're on the wrong side of history.

they should embrace the technology...
for an act that bills itself as being dawless as a selling point (and i think that to daw or not to daw is a triviality - i care about what it sounds like, not what gear you use to make it. i'm willing to use real synths and software synths, myself, depending on what i have access to - sometimes in the same song. and, no, you can't tell me you can hear the difference between somebody using a nord lead plugin programmed with a midi sequence, and somebody using an actual nord lead programmed with a hardware sequencer. but, a nord lead costs about $5000 and you can download plugins for free. people that push the point too strenuously are just being juvenile, but it's worse than that - it's more of a class argument, a status position, and an attempt to restrict people's access to the technology. that is the great thing about daws - they make the technology more accessible to more people. a good sound artist should have room for everything they can find, and a wish list of things they can't.), it's a shame that you can't really tell.

they make a lot of use of the kinds of sounds that trent reznor & atticus ross did about ten years ago. they were using daws. and sound fonts. and, they drew very heavily from stuff that moby was doing a little earlier.

it's pleasant.

but, i can't help but think that if they just programmed this as a backbeat (and, they could. easily.) then it would open up a lot of space to do some more dynamic and creative writing. there are points that could use a good lead part, or something to otherwise break out of the loops. if they weren't so focused on operating all of this legacy gear....

https://pinksky.bandcamp.com/album/meditations-ii
i'd rather use serbia as a model than iraq.
if american troops stormed tehran, would the iranians treat them us liberators?

well, that seems unlikely.

but, american air power (precision strikes targeting the clerics, specifically) could conceivably create a tipping point that allows the protestors to seize power - that would be the ideal.

but, as mentioned, i wonder if they wouldn't be better off with a classic imperial deposition, via whatever carnage it necessitates.
it's worth remembering what the argument against the invasion of iraq actually was, on the left.

nobody argued it was immoral. nobody - on the left - argued it was costly. there was a scholarly argument against the legality of it, but the implication was that it would have been fine, if the united nations hadn't voted against it, which made it a sort of a red herring on the question of if it was actually justified. and, nobody argued in terms of cultural relativism, either, if you want to even imagine what that means, as applied to the baathist regime of saddam hussein.

rather, the argument was "we can't do it for them. they have to do it themselves.".

and, there was no movement on the ground in iraq, except a movement towards backwardsness. bush went on tv and argued that they'd treat us as liberators; smart people knew better.

the situation is reversed in iran. it is still true - they have to do it themselves. but, they're trying. i'd like to help.
do i think that iran is building a nuclear weapon?

the evidence i've seen suggests otherwise.

but, i don't think that this really has much to do with what's actually happening, and it doesn't have much of an effect on my support of or opposition to military action against them.
like, i'm not trying to take a side here.

i stand with the iranian people against the tyranny of the iranian state.
fwiw, i would also support military action for the purposes of regime change to secular democracy in saudi arabia.
i'm somewhere not far from hitchens on iran, if you want a reference. i disagreed with him about iraq, but this is a contextual thing - there was no serious opposition on the ground, and the bombing was punitive rather than productive.

i also opposed the action in libya (for similar reasons) and continue to oppose military action in syria (against assad, i mean. i supported the bombing of isis.). 

but, i might have supported an invasion of iran in 2003, and i might support one tomorrow, or in 2023.

i don't think that governments should pretend they can determine what's "moral" and what isn't, but i would challenge the claim that military action against iran would be immoral.

the iranian regime is one of the most brutally vicious regimes on the planet, and has been for the entire extent of my lifetime. the oppression suffered by the iranian people since the 1979 counter-revolution has been worse than those suffered by almost any other people on earth.

i am an insurrectionary anarchist; i am in favour of struggle, of revolution. there is no place on earth where such a revolution is more justified than iran. there is no government anywhere that deserves to be torn down more than the one in iran.

and, no leftist would write off the oppression perpetuated by the iranian government by appeals to cultural relativism. the iranian people have spoken out about their hardships. to assign the iranian people a lesser concept of freedom, or a lesser concept of democracy, based on the tyrannical dictates and brutality of their existing ruling class would be blatantly racist. their women deserve the same rights as women everywhere else. their queers deserve the same rights as queers everywhere else. and, if you will not stand with them against the government and the religion that oppresses them, you have no reasonable claim to stand on the left - you are a reactionary liberal and must stand with the bourgeois rulers you sympathize with.

so, my solidarity is where it has always been - with the secular left in iran, the socialists, the atheists and those seeking to overthrow the totalitarian state.

i have nothing but disdain for those that would stand with the mullahs. you are on the wrong side of history. you will be struck down.