[PD] "computer music" WAS: Re: Pd at a livecoding event on the BBC

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

This is the band I most enjoy recently:

http://www.slavicsoulparty.com/

I have yet to see any computer or electronic music show that can hold  
a candle to the feeling of being packed into a room of people dancing  
face-to-face with 9 musicians pouring their guts into completely  
physical instruments.  Of course, the website and digital recording  
does a poor job of conveying that.

There is something about physical exertion that lends an essential  
character to the music.  Computer and electronic music is too easy, it  
takes almost no physical effort.  And it sounds like it most of the  
time.   To me there is potential in live coding, you since it takes a  
lot of mental exertion at least.  But people are just learning, so the  
music mostly isn't good.  Most laptop music barely takes mental  
exertion during the performance.

.hc

On Sep 3, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Derek Holzer wrote:

> So let's see, it was 1996, and Bob's making noises like Jungle,  
> Drum&Bass or some other megatrend crowdpleaser just arrived to save  
> him from the avant-hegemony of the elbow patch professor crowd's  
> software diddlings. About the same time, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky  
> was lamenting how jazz has been run off the rails by the  
> (subtextually white) "downtown squeaky music scene" in New York (I  
> might argue that something called the 1980's killed it already...who  
> actually listens to the last couple drum machine- and sampler- 
> plagued Miles Davis records? Bob O?). The "high culture" vs "low  
> culture" thing was very big that decade if I remember correctly...
>
> But I will have to go with Yves on this one. Any time something  
> fossilizes into a genre it's all downhill from there. Keep your  
> references clear, quantize to grid, don't step out of line. Bob's  
> article only seems to go after one of them, but the academic  
> computer music scene and the club music scene(s) both share the  
> distinction of being some of the most conservative places I've ever  
> visited.
>
> Trying to think of a few releases that do it for me, that don't go  
> for the quantized clubstep grid or the usual academic Fast Fourier  
> Tropes, use computers and related technologies in a refreshing way  
> and sound really visceral and alive, off the top of my head I'd say:
>
> Kevin Drumm - Sheer Hellish Miasma reissue [2007 Editions Mego]
> John Wiese - Bubble Pulse [2003 Kissy Records]
> Anthony Pateras & Robin Fox - End of Daze [2009 Editions Mego]
> O.S.T. - Waetka [2008 Ideal]
> Hecker - Acid in the Style of David Tudor [2009 Editions Mego]
>
> (No I'm not anywhere near being banked by Mego, these just happened  
> all to be sitting near the top of the pile due to repeated  
> listening...although finding much "computer music" at all around my  
> house is a bit of a challenge!)
>
> D.
>
> Greg Pond wrote:
>> don't know if any of you have read Ostertag's " Why Computer Music
>> Sucks" but here is the link
>> http://bobostertag.com/writings-articles-computer-music-sucks.htm
>> (this link does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of  
>> the sender)
>
>
> -- 
> ::: derek holzer ::: http://blog.myspace.com/macumbista ::: http://www.vimeo.com/macumbista 
>  :::
> ---Oblique Strategy # 157:
> "Think
> - inside the work
> - outside the work"
>
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