Collapsing Rock, Pop & Noise

2	Sound & Noise 2	Listening examples include: Merzbow/SBOTHI; Gum; Negativland; Neu; Faust; Praxis; Jungle Bros; Mark Stewart; LL Cook J
	The inversion of Sound	Developing definitions; processing noise; vinyl records; designed instruments; the sound of rock; remix culture

DEVELOPING DEFINITIONS

Where the previous lecture's examples of Sound & Noise primarily looked at ways in which the musical/cultural coding of 'noise' could be appreciated and experienced in a broader sono-acoustic framework, this lecture's examples look at ways in which artists and composers have started from a totally collapsed distinction between sound, noise and music, and have thus inverted sound to be the meta-set within which all sono-musical incidents occur.
 
EXAMPLES
 
PROCESSING NOISE

Negativland - BABACD'BABC (1981)
A sonic collage of environmental recordings which accentuate noise as a disruptive sonic force to those environments. Basically, this piece is a tape cut-up of about 3 distinct recordings:
1. a rumpus room cacophony of musical toys and cheap synthesizers
2. a kitchen recording of household instruments interfering with the transmission of a TV soap playing in the room
3. a deliberately unskilled garage jam of organ, bass and guitar.
The three domestic environments are sited as cacophonic realms where only noise can occur. This is very much in keeping with Negativland's 'punk suburbia' approach to musical collage.

S.B.O.T.H.I./Merzbow - COLLABORATION LP (1988)
A collaborative collage project by two performers - one based in England, the other in Japan. Each mailed to the other a multi-track tape which the other would overlay, so that the multi-track recording built up through a series of layers as each composer related to and/or reacted to the other performer's work. As such, this kind of process piece is in a continual state of development until there is a consensus reached that the project is 'finished'. The approach to the making of sounds is thus primarily focused upon under this kind of evolving logic.
 
THE VINYL RECORD AS INSTRUMENT

Dennis Oppenheim - BROKEN RECORD BLUES (1976)
A sound performance of broken and scratched records to construct a sonic environment generated by the malfunctioning and communication-breakdown of recorded music.

Gum - STORMY WEATHER & TESTICLE STRETCH (both 1987)
A studio recording based on the overdubbing of around 10 turntables, each playing records in varying stages of decay or determined alteration (warping, melting, fragmenting, re-surfacing, etc.). Note the deliberate use of the sound of the vinyl's surface - the 'surface noise' - as a sonic identity intrinsic to the medium of vinyl recordings.
 
DESIGNED INSTRUMENTS

Max Eastley - HYDRAPHONE, METALLAPHONE & THE CENTRIPHONE (all 1975)
Site-specific location recordings of designed instruments. Recordings like these are not 'compositional' as such because it is in the making of the instrument that compositional issues are explored. The 'recording' is literally a recording of how the instrument sounds when allowed to 'perform itself' (via wind, water, gravity, etc.).
 
THE SOUND OF ROCK

Neu - IM GLUCH (1971) & SPITZENQUALITAT (1973)
German band Neu explored ways in which the environment of the studio was a major contributing factor to the sound of rock music. The first piece IM GLUCH is a multi-track layering of one of the essential textures of rock music: the crash cymbal. The second piece SPITZENQUALITAT is a deconstruction of the rhythmic essence of standard rock music. Note how the rhythm is gradually slowed down and reduced to a series of isolated sonic explosions. Note also the effect of employing a cassette recording of traffic which is deliberately stopped and re-started.

Faust - KRAUTROCK (1973)
Similar to Neu's SPITZENQUALITAT in process, KRAUTROCK is a timbrel distillation of the sound of rock music. Whereas Neu worked the studio as a machine that generated rock music, Faust employed rock instrumentation as the means for musically constructing a sonic version of rock music. Note the effect of distance in this piece, recalling the effect of ten records playing loudly in a large empty hall: all beat and rhythm is submerged by the tonal wash of 'rockness'.

Praxis - NBS-4 (1984)
A deconstructivist 'dance-rock' fusion, based on a restricted range of instruments: turntables, radios and drum machines. Here the technology designed to simulate and transmit dance and rock rhythms is turned in on itself to perform its own sound.
 
REMIX CULTURE

Jungle Brothers - JUNGLE BEATS (1989)
Dub remix which concentrates on revealing and displaying the pure and static quality of sampled vinyl, where surface noise is privileged and samples are deliberately forced out as fragmented loops. Despite this, a discernible 'groove effect' is generated, where a new kind of rhythmic sensibility is defined by the continuum of breakages which typifies this piece.

Beastie Boys - 33 & 1/3% GOD (1989)
Similar to JUNGLE BEATS but with more of an iconic folk purpose to the piece - ie. collaging a range of recognizable dance/funk/disco elements and call-signs which advertise the 'roots' of the music which largely inform the Beastie Boys punk explorations of early 70s funk.

L.L.Cool J - GOIN' BACK TO CALI (1987)
Highly indicative of the total-collage approach that typifies hip hop culture, this track clearly sets up stylistic generiec traits in order to clash them with each other. Consider the anti-fusion of these elements: the solo trumpet; the heavy vinyl record scratch; the booming 808 kick drum; the light vocal delivery; the various sampled percussive textures; and the jazzy brass backing. This is not simply a stylistic conglomeration, but more a mutation betwen parts that sometimes fit and other times don't.

Mark Stewart & The Mafia - ANGER IS HOLY (1987)
An example of Adrian Sherwood's 'dance floor terrorist' mixing style where all sounds only exist to be detonated and scattered across the sonic space of the dub mix. Note the guitar sample from Billy Idol's FLESH & FANTASY ironically employed as a sound-byte of 'the angry young man' which is then degraded and distorted into the wall of hate which stylistically defines the piece. Note also the extreme distortion on Mark Stewart's screaming vocals.