In the early 1990s I spent rather a lot of time listening avidly to the sort of thing advertised in the small ads in the back of The Wire: where the far end of post-hardcore-punk rock music, the far end of jazz and the far end of twentieth-century classical (Schoenberg is the barest start of the good stuff) converged. Most people would call this hideous racket, and I must admit that, despite all the thought that went into it, this was an aspect I would have called a feature. Disappointment was going to a concert of modern stuff and hearing something that sounded like a film soundtrack or a soundscape rather than an assault on the senses.
For some reason, I thought of this, which I shouldn’t have liked but did anyway.
Yoko Ono gets such a bad rap. As Lester Bangs notes in the linked piece, she had quite the excellent line in really good horrible noise.
Once you get the idea that horrible noise music is supposed to sound like that, you can start sorting out what works for you and what doesn’t and when and why.
(Current kick: There’s a lot of ’80s and ’90s industrial-towards-neofolk bands who did limited-edition albums in runs of a few hundred. These became legendary due to rarity. Now we have the Internet and approximately all recorded music is readily available free, and it becomes clear why the runs were only a few hundred. I play them and they brighten my day and the teenagers, taking a break from their bad heavy metal with inept sub-Metallica solos and floppy fringes, look at me like I shat in their ears personally. Fair warms the heart. Of course, horses for courses. I am not actually recommending anyone else actually bother doing this.)
For some reason, I thought of this, which I shouldn’t have liked but did anyway.
Yoko Ono gets such a bad rap. As Lester Bangs notes in the linked piece, she had quite the excellent line in really good horrible noise.
Once you get the idea that horrible noise music is supposed to sound like that, you can start sorting out what works for you and what doesn’t and when and why.
(Current kick: There’s a lot of ’80s and ’90s industrial-towards-neofolk bands who did limited-edition albums in runs of a few hundred. These became legendary due to rarity. Now we have the Internet and approximately all recorded music is readily available free, and it becomes clear why the runs were only a few hundred. I play them and they brighten my day and the teenagers, taking a break from their bad heavy metal with inept sub-Metallica solos and floppy fringes, look at me like I shat in their ears personally. Fair warms the heart. Of course, horses for courses. I am not actually recommending anyone else actually bother doing this.)