VITAL WEEKLY - The Netherlands
June 30, 2009



100 PIECES: EBOLA HEMORRHAGIC SUITE
(CDR by Backwards Records NW)





MURDER: BURNIN DOWN YR BLEAK VILLAGE
(CDR by Backwards Records NW)

100 pieces is two tracks of spoken audio describing the disease followed by fairly harsh noise- 4 tracks of chop up noise ending strangely in a short piano melody?  Murder's 8 tracks of noise looped drum sequences and electronic guitar riffs.. (i think  are remixes?) - a strange collision of - showing my ignorance drum and bass beat?s with chop-up noise sound effects makes rather compelling listening. 

Both seem to be attempting at pushing the envelope. a quirky americanaist move? An attempt to (if they are located within noise) politicize -  or  even moralize the emptiness, to co-opt noise- but noise in itself has a metaphysics which is part of post-modernism (I can hear the sighs) in which there is no one single big idea and so sub-groups can co-opt noise- surrealism dada etc with no need to worry about meaning. Noise is essentially disorganized (sound) and so cannot as is - in itself- represent anything. Rather like abstract painting - it simply 'is'. At this point it in effect questions the ontology of culture. in its refusal to communicate.

This is a radical destructive / critical questioning of  the ideas of truth, beauty, ethics - the great grand narratives - western creations - fictions- just like the old idea (grand western narrative) that art - music had a meaning outside of culture - the music of the spheres - noise is a direct counter to that idea of music - OR ANY OTHER which marks the end of music. Some people will find it hard, even unacceptable at the removal to the plane of "culture" these things that they assumed were outside, but that is an act of bad faith - so-  It's not surprising then that noise artists get into politics and politico uses of noise- but as the reality- that all of these are just arbitrary choices- is what N called the greatest weight. That is the individual can't bear that meaningless individuality and so joins a group. (herd) And herds do not communicate other than noises to identify their existence, mooing. and sameness.." (jliat)