NOISE: How much is too much?

Although I agree that some of the makers of this material aren't very diligent about creating a compositional framework, even for more meandering noise projects, I find that the best material is always that which has some sort of musical development throughout: introduction, movements, closure. If it's just some guy whacking a barrel at random for half an hour, then it's less interesting than something that develops throughout the piece, or at the very least has something interesting at a deeper level.

I'm not quite sure where Metal Machine Music falls in this spectrum, because it's obvious that Lou was just fucking around with sounds, and just happened to get these particular slabs--I don't believe that he spent much time work on the individual sections, like he said. I think he just set the machines up to feed back, twiddled some knobs, and called it an album. That said, there's a lot of interesting stuff happening in there with the harmonics, and I find it fascinating to listen to.

What's the cut off point? I don't really think I have one short of tones that generate pain or disorientation (see Flaming Lips' "How Will We Know" or some bits on certain works from Labradford). Granted, I really have to be in the mood for Masonna or Merzbow, and it's much easier to take something like Lustm0rd. It doesn't generally move me like a good piece of pop, but it's great to lose myself in. I think the best material in that type isn't j

Q: What's that horrible noise outside? A: They're digging the road up. Q: And who's the slim, pale fellow with the notebook? A: That's B*ba K*pf, giving it a good review.

George Crumbs Black Angels Boredoms Most 70s Punk

Whitehouse - go to mp3.com - to find out try and listen to live 22 track Whitehouse

The complete legendary concert at the Roebuck, London 1/7/1983 where police ended up breaking down the doors of the venue to stop the music. Listen to the incredible dialogue at the end - see also 'Song Story' for full review.

This cannot be described as music - it is just pure high distorted pitched electronics abuse like an alarm going off at extreme level 130 DB + and harsh (in)human screaming like torture.

I have only experienced the track once.

(Am I all blue and underline-y also? It's that Martian's fault.)

There is no such thing as too much noise.

Noise music does have a place in my life. Sometimes I think of it in terms similar to a roller coaster. There is such an overpowering feeling of "Oh, man, I shouldn't be doing this" when listening to noise music at substantial volume, alone. Very different feelings start bubbling up, some unpleasant, some exhilarating (different in terms of what I feel listing to pop music.) I'm thinking of the first track from Janek Schaefer's Above Buildings. That scraping and (yes) shimmering drone is so life affirming for me.

And if Ned ever reads this post, of course the whole MbV/shoegaze ethos comes from using noise in a specific way. What would JaMC be without the noise? What do you think that adds to their music, in terms of emotional quality? I think it does more than just making it rock, if you follow.

Also directed to Ned, I think of Windy & Carl as a noise band, in a way. They're certainly not playing melodies or chord changes w/ a lot of their stuff.

As I've written elsewhere, some of my appreciation for this kind of thing also comes from trying to confront the sound of pure, untamed electricity (though I know noise music only gives the illusion of such a thing in a carefully controlled environment.) Appreciating noise(y) music seems closely connected to appreciating nature.

Here is a fun experiment to try sometime: Put some Merzbow on the Discman and go for a walk in some diverse city neighborhood. It turns consciousness into a disturbing interactive art piece.

Also directed to Ned, I think of Windy & Carl as a noise band, in a way. They're certainly not playing melodies or chord changes w/ a lot of their stuff.

I'm called! I'm loved! *showers self with kisses* Er, onward.

Before answering the question -- I was actually going to pitch in somewhere about how wonderfully effective and entertaining stuff like Skullflower is. You really do need music like that which will clean out your earwax without trying. Picked up two more of their CDs over the weekend and I want the rest I don't already have. And I'm still amazed that the Gary Mundy behind Ramleh is the same Gary Mundy who plays guitar in Breathless -- would never have guessed if I hadn't've read it myself!

I also was vaguely tempted to get the Merzbox this weekend -- not quite cheap enough, though. I'm with Kris in that there is no such thing as too much noise. At the same time, I'm reminded of Simon Reynolds' assertion somewhere that the search for ever more extreme results is often a mug's game in the end. Still, a world that produces stuff like Aube is a good world (he and some other guy from Japan did a live on- air broadcast at KUCI that was a wonder to see happen).

For Mark -- first, the MBV/JAMC ethic. In both their cases, it's candy-colored noise, which is the whole point. My good friend Eric J. Lawrence made the telling comment when _Loveless_ came out that it was sound and not deathless songwriting per se which made the record -- true, though my own thought is that the intentionally simple hooks at the heart of JAMC and MBV makes what would otherwise be a more diffused experience that much more memorable. You certainly don't need the focus to get overall sonic rapture, but for me I'd argue that's what the Reid brothers and Kevin Shields and company needed in order to maximize impact. And why the volume? Not merely to rock, but to fill up the spaces. To take over, to make whatever gaps that are there more noticeable, to turn the hearing field, to borrow a wonderful description Mike Daddino made about MBV once, into the equivalent of an awesome vision of a lovely sky crammed full of millions of airplanes roaring everywhere so that in fact you can't *see* any sky. Shields himself mentioned in the interview I did with him that he wanted to create even louder music onstage than he could -- he knew he was getting results on a simply caustic level, but he wanted the band's stuff to be fully, physically felt. God knows with the legendary open- ended chord sequence they played for encores on those final tours they came close.

Windy and Carl (who are friendly folks! put them up at your house when they tour, just mention my name) do indeed have an increasingly more open ended approach to their music, but rather than full crushing involvement they aim for a more self-consciously 'beautiful' approach - - that's a poor word for what I'm trying to convey, but they're not trying to beat skulls in at the same time they're weaving cocoons around them (not using drums no doubt helps). When they amp up and go for it live, it's a gentle cascade that envelopes, not a corrosive one.

Hope that answers yer question and raises other ones.

It's why with glitch music (and I think glitch is noise if noise is basically disorded sounds) I prefer the more dance-friendly house-based stuff that's coming out at the moment, because the 'disorder' almost sounds like it's engaged in a struggle with the 'order' of the groove. Flirtations with noise, at any level of spectrum from Max Martin to Merzbow, have to be conducted within self-imposed rules - regardless of whether they are broad or narrow - or they signify nothing *but* noise; whereas I think it's the tension between noise and order that is so satisfying.

Skip the mild stuff, and the stuff that's only noisy because it's not recorded properly. I don't understand that stuff either. The Merzbow on the headphones while you're walking through the city idea is dead on. When it's really loud, it's more of a physical than an aural experience anyway. Like the left side of your brain is slam-dancing with the right.

MASONNA = my fave Noise musician though. I find so much in his works!

Heh heh heh. I actually consider Noise the purest form of music. Put it this way. You don’t need tunes or melody to make music – hard Techno testifies to this. Equally, free jazz & purely improvised music shows structure makes no impact. Morton Feldman made music with nary a pulse, and drone music can contain no rhythm. Doesn’t that mean these things count as inessential fluff? The icing on the proverbial cake? I don’t care about hooks, etc, but once you strip these inessentials away you find the core of music – texture, tone, colour, horizontal layering, etc. And that, to me, represents the spirit of Noise. To quote a good friend of mine: “NOIZU! IN BRAIN! IN BRAIN!”

2. Nick - oh, yes, I see what you mean.

http://www.blacet.com

Great stuff, and well worth the (low) asking price.

x0x0

Cool! BTW, you've got m@il!

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