Episode 26: Experimental Music in China with Edward Sanderson

On the occasion of the Zoomin Nights and End of the Alphabet Records co-release of the compilation There is No Music From China (compiled by Yan Jun & Zhu Wenbo), I discuss the Chinese experimental music and sound art scene with curator and researcher Edward Sanderson.

Edward Sanderson is a researcher and writer about contemporary art in China. He lives and works mainly in China and most recently, curated 'Grounds for Sound' at Inside - Out Art Museum in Beijing. He blogs about Chinese visual and sound art here.  






Tracklist
-Flower [Wang Zhipeng] - Flower Crash (from ‘ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SEVEN’ by Various Artists, on playreclabel 2017) https://playreclabel.bandcamp.com/album/one-hundred-and-twenty-seven
-Jun-y Ciao - Vibration No​.​1129 (from ‘there is no music from china’ by Various Artists, on Zoomin' Night/ End of the Alphabet Records 2017) 
-Isan - Music for Gallery (from ‘Music For Museum’ by Various Artists, on Sub Jam 2008)-Fiona Lee - Delight (from ‘walking in a daze’ by Fiona Lee, self-published 2016)
http://fionaobscura.com/wordpress/product/walking-in-a-daze/
-Yao Qingmei - Internationale (from ‘there is no music from china’ by Various Artists, on Zoomin Nights/End of the Alphabet 2017)
https://zoominnight.bandcamp.com/…/there-is-no-music-from-c…
-Dancing Stone (Nelson Hui (flute) + Ling Lee (voice)) - Two (from ‘An Anthology of Chinese Experimental Music 1992–2008’ by Various Artists, on Sub Rosa 2009)
https://www.subrosa.net/…/an-anthology-of-chinese-experimen…
-718 [Sun Lei] - Music for Bathroom (from ‘Music For Museums’ by Various Artists, on Sub Jam 2008) https://subjamlabel.bandcamp.com/album/music-for-museum
-Hsia Yu & Yan Jun - We Came This Way to Know the Evening (from ‘7 Poems And Some Tinnitus’ by Hsia Yu and Yan Jun, on Sub Jam 2016) https://subjamlabel.bandcamp.com/…/7-poems-and-some-tinnitus
-Yan Jun - Wormhole Trip (from ‘Wormhole Trip OST’ by Yan Jun, on The Shop + Sub Jam/Kwanyin Records 2009) http://www.subjam.org/archives/615#more-615
-Wang Fan - 噪声时代 (from ‘内心的噪音 Noises Inside’ by Various Artists, on Sub Jam 2001)
http://www.subjam.org/archives/135
-Sheng Jie - 一只鸟死了 (from ‘Nine​-​dimensional space’ by playreclabel 2017) https://playreclabel.bandcamp.com/al…/nine-dimensional-space

Links:

Subjam Records

Zoomin Nights

Revolutions Per Minute

Yan Jun

Image: Li Weisi (left), at Miji Concert 15: Family Impro Committee, At Yan Junʼs apartment, Beijing, 28 August 2013

no performance (Zhu Wenbo, Sean Lee), At fRUITYSPACE, Beijing, 23 February 2017

VAVABOND And Li Jianhong, Zoomin Night, at Sanyuanqiao Underpass, Beijing, 26 October 2015

TORTURING NURSE, Sally Can't Dance Festival, at School Bar, Beijing, 7 November 2015

Sun Wei, Miji Concert 32, at Meridian Space, Beijing, 9 January 2016

Jason Kahn and Yan Jun, Zoomin Night, at Sanyuanqiao Underpass, Beijing, 22 March 2016

Zhao Cong, Miji Concert 36 at Meridian Space, Beijing, 29 June 2016

Gao Jiafeng, ⼀一个即兴的周三, at fRUITYSPACE, Beijing, 6 July 2016

(left to right) Yan Yulong, Sheng Jie, Ding Chenchen, Miji Concert 39, at Meridian Space, Beijing,  1 September 2016

Ake, Zhao Cong, Miji Concert 40, at Meridian Space, Beijing, 21 October 2016

All photos courtesy of Edward Sanderson

Episode 25: Beyond Unwanted Sound with Marie Thompson

On this month's episode I discuss the recent book Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism with its author, Marie Thompson. We discuss different conceptions of 'noise', as anti-music or the cacophony of industrial society, competing theories of noise and Marie's powerful argument that noise is neither inherently bothersome nor transgressive. We end by discussing some of the musicians and sound artists that Marie argues transcend the dominant morality by which noise is related to.

Marie Thompson is a Lecturer in Lincoln School of Film and Media. Her research centres on the affective, material and gendered dimensions of sound, noise and music. She is the author of Beyond Unwanted Sound: Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism (Bloomsbury, 2017) and the co-editor of Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience (Bloomsbury, 2013). She has also published a number of chapters and articles on the intersections of noise and femininity.

Tracklist
Bredbeddle – Keep the Salt

Pauline Oliveros and Reynols – Cathedral Juice 

Teddy and the Frat Girls– I owe it to the girls

Vile evil veil – left luck #1

Angel Ho – removals

Henry Cowell – Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance

Klein - Cry Theme

Helen Papaioannou – In the Loop (performed by  Helen Papaioannou and Hannabiell Sanders)  

Mmeellttiinngg – flower

John T. Gast - Sedna

Lamers - Inthro (Breathing exercise)

Torturing Nurse - ncsda

Pole – Modul 

Sachiko M – don’t ask

Diamanda Galas – Looks could Kill

Inga Copeland and Dean Blunt - 2 

References
R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, Destiny Books, 1994.
Claude Shannon, "The Mathematical Theory of Communication", The Mathematical Theory of Communication, University of Illinois Press, 1949.
Michel Serres, The Parasite (translated by Lawrence R. Schehr), University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
Steven Shaviro, "Accelerationist Aesthetics: Necessary Inefficiency in Times of Real Subsumption", E-Flux, No.13, June 2013.
Tiqqun, "The Cybernetic Hypothesis"

Episode 24: Blood of an American - Soul Music and the Vietnam War

This month's episode marks the forthcoming Melodies International reissue of the beautiful anti-war folk-soul ballad 'Blood of an American' by Bobby Wright (now Abu Talib). Little known and rarely heard, the record stages a reflection upon the unique intersection of popular music and radical politics in late 1960s and early 1970s soul music.  This becomes an opportunity to think critically about the ways in which counter-cultural soundtracks have been sanitised and re-packaged in recent decades.

References

-Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, Canongate Books, 2002.

-Craig Hansen Werner, A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America, University of Michigan Press, 2006.

-Doug Bradley & Craig Werner, We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War, 2015.

-Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations, University of California Press, 1998.

-Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Blues People: Negro Music in White America, Greenwood Press, 1980.
-Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Black Music, Akashic Books, 2010.

Tracklist

Bobby Wright, 'Blood of an American'

Marion Brown, 'Porto Novo'

Archie Shepp, 'Poem for Malcolm'

Cecil Taylor, 'Enter Evening (Soft line structure)'

Eddie Kendricks, 'My People... Hold On'

Syl Johnson, 'Is It Because I'm Black'

The Last Poets, 'Ho Chi Minh'

The Sweet Inspirations, 'Am I Ever Gonna See My Baby Again'

Archie Bell & the Drells, 'A Soldier's Plea'

Johnny & Jon, 'Christmas in Vietnam'

Penny Goodwin, 'Too Soon You're Old'

Lou Bond, 'To The Establishment'

Episode 23: Calmly Smoke

Ketan Shankardass examines representations of stress and drug use in American hip-hop.

There are more of Ketan's on his Soundcloud

Tracklist

Organized Konfusion – Stress (Remix)

Ronnie Laws – Tidal Wave

Fat Joe – Success (DJ Premier Remix Instrumental)

Toddy Tee – The Batteram

Ice Cube – Bird in the Hand

One Gud Cide – Bad Dreams

Kendrick Lamar – Cartoons and Cereal f. Gunplay

Maze – Lady of Magic

DJ Quik – The Maze

Mobb Deep – Drink Away The Pain (Situations)

Goodie Mob – Thought Process

Alchemist – Calmly Smoke (f. Styles P)

Ab-Soul – The Book of Soul

Bobby McFerrin – Moondance

Megalon – When I Go Out

Meek Mill f. Young Thug – We Ball

Fetty Wap – Wake Up

Soft Machine – Drop

Schoolboy Q – Black Thoughts

Episode 22: A Personal Hip Hop Odyssey with Warren Ali

On this month's show Warren Ali offers an autobiographical story of growing up under apartheid and later, post-apartheid South Africa and then moving to London, all through the lens of rap music and what it meant to him.

Episode 21: Sun Ra's Synths

A conversation with the writer and critic Francis Gooding about Sun Ra's groundbreaking use of synthesizers, the topic of his forthcoming book.

Tracklist
Sun Ra & , Of Other Tomorrows Never Known
Sun Ra, The Perfect Man
John Coltrane, Interstellar Space
Sun Ra, Aurora Borealis
Sun Ra, The Wind Speaks
Sun Ra, Sun Thoughts
Sun Ra, Outside the Time Zone
Sun Ra, Solar Ship Voyage
Thelonious Monk, I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You
Herbie Hancock, Chameleon
Fred Wesley & the JBs, Blow Your Head
Miles Davis, Thinkin One Thing Doing Another

Francis Gooding is a writer. You can read him in the Wire, the London Review of Books, and in liner notes for releases by labels including Jazzman, Strut, Matsuli and others. He is currently working on a book about Sun Ra's use of electronics, and on a history of South African jazz musicians in exile. 

Episode 20: An Organic Adornment

Geographer of sound Anja Kanngieser joins Paul Rekret for a discussion of the growing use of field recording in pop and dance music in recent years.

Tracklist

Peter Mannferfelt, Mambuti Pygmy flutes

Kink Gong, Kavet Lalai 1

Robert Belmont (aka ‘The Human Bird’)

Some birds

Black Merlin, Wave

Anthony Child, Waiting and Watching

18+, Crow

Some crows

Balam Acab, Fragile Hope

Edgar Froese, Maroubra Bay

Ariel Karma, Rainy Day

Joel Graham, Geomancy

Ernest Hood, August Haze

Patrick Cowley, The Jungle Dream

Simon Fisher Turner, Into Bush

Ariel Karma, Merry Forest

Aine O’Dwyer, An Unkindness of Ravens

Joanna Brouk, Playing in the Water

Steve Halpern, Dawn

Episode 19: Noise and Capitalism

A discussion and music revolving around the book Noise and Capitalism with its co-editor Anthony Iles.  Anthony discusses the book's emergence out of a London noise scene, the potentials that the music opened and also its limitations, and the very notion of noise as a genre itself.

Anthony Iles is currently a doctoral candidate at the School of Art & Design, Middlesex University and a contributing editor with Mute / Metamute and Cesura//Acceso magazines. He is the author, with Josephine Berry Slater, of the book, No Room to Move: Art and the Regenerate City (Mute Books, 2011), editor of the recent publication, Anguish Language: Writing and Crisis (Archive Books, 2015), and contributor to Brave New Work: A Reader on Harun Farocki's Film A New Product. Recent essays have been published in Radical Philosophy, Rab-Rab: Journal for Political and Formal Inquiries in Art and Logos.

Tracklist

DJ Scud, "Next One Dead (Outronoise by Nomex)"

Throbbing Gristle, "Very Friendly"

Sarcomasine Bloc, "Internecine Slakes"
DJ Scud, "Each One Teach One"
The Bug, "WWW (feat. Mexican)"
Luc Ferrrari, "Musique Socialiste ou Programme Commun Pour Clavecin Amplifie et Bande Mechanique"

Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, Barry Guy, Eddie Prévost, "Supercession"

To Live and Shave in LA, "Ideas Make Men Hard"

Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock, "Fur Scheide Schnecke und Rassiermesser"

Movement Soul: Live Recordings of Songs and Sayings from the Freedom Movement in the Deep South"

Episode 16: Noise

Sound artist and producer Patchfinder confronts Jacques Attali's influential book Noise: the Political Economy of Music.






Tracklist

nurse with wound - I cannot feel you as the dogs are laughing and I am blind - homotopy to marie - united dairies - 1982

phool - good dick will imprison you - not on label - 2016

pierre henry - sacrifice - machine danse - philips - 1973

pierrot lunaire - plaisir d'amour  - gudrun - it - 1977

haruomi hosono - mabui dance #2 - medicine compilation - epic - 1993

esplendor geométrico - el acero del partido IV - el acero del partido - tic tac - 1982

coil - here to here (double headed secret) - transparent - nekrophile - 1984

normal brain - you are busy, I am easy - lady maid - vanity - 1981

aphex twin - come on you slags - …i care because you do -  warp 1995

fantômas - investigation of a citizen above suspicion - the director's cut - ipecac - 2001

fantômas - the omen (ave satani) - the director's cut - ipecac - 2001

heldon - perspective III (baader-meinhof blues) - heldon IV agneta nilsson - urus - 1976

art of noise - instruments of darkness (all of us are one people) prodigy remix - china - 1991

rufige kru - ghosts of my life - ghosts ep - reinforced - 1993

christoph de babalon - what you call a life - if you're into it, i'm out of it - digital hardcore - 1997

slava tsukerman, brenda i. hutchinson, clive smith - aliens theme I - liquid sky original soundtrack - varèse sarabande  - 1983

orphan drift - xes avatar hybridised mix - syzygy - not on label - 1999

evolution control committee - cacaphony (outro) - notes of nihilistic bliss - fistful of love - 1988


References
Jacques Attali - Noise: the Political Economy of Music, University of Minnesota Press, 1988
Susan McClary - The Politics of Silence and Sound, University of Minnesota Press, 1985
Theodor Adorno - The Philosophy of New Music, Seabury Press, 1973
Theodor Adorno - Dissonanzen, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1963
Guy Debord - The Society of The Spectacle, Buchet-Chastel, 1967
Sven Lütticken - Who Makes The Nazis, http://www.e-flux.com/journal/76/69408/who-makes-the-nazis/, 2016
Mark Fisher - k-punk blog, http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/011172.html, 2009
McKenzie Wark - The Vectorialist Class, http://supercommunity.e-flux.com/authors/mckenzie-wark/, 2015
Jacques Attali - TEDx, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpQ0N8uvjEQ, 2014
Bonnie Camplin, David Luke, Michele Occelli - A trialogue looking at altered states of consciousness and exceptional human experience, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnC5JjmL1zU, 2016
McKenzie Wark - review of William Gibson's The Peripheral, http://www.publicseminar.org/2014/11/william-gibsons-the-peripheral/, 2014

For more Patchfinder PATCHFINDER.EU    bandcamp    soundcloud

For a copy of the transcript of the episode, email p[dot]rekret[at]gmail

Episode 14: Process and Industry

On this episode  a discussion with the writer Alexei Monroe on the history, context and political desire of industrial music. From Throbbing Gristle to Laibach we discuss the divergent paths of British and Yugoslavian groups and more recent iterations of their aesthetic. Finally, we discuss the sound and visual art group Autopsia, the subject of Alexei's latest book and an exhibition at London's Horse Hospital from November 19th to 26th.

                                                                                                                             Image: Autopsia

References
Alexei Monroe, (ed), Test Dept: Total State Machine, PC Press, 2015.
Alexei Monroe, Interrogation Machine: Laibach and NSK, MIT Press, 2005.
Alexei Monroe, Autopsia: Thanatopolis, Divus, 2016.


Tracklist
Kraftwerk, Ohm Sweet Ohm
Seesselberg, Synthetik 1
Cabaret Voltaire, Spies in the Wires
Throbbing Gristle, Discipline (Live)
Front 242, Couteau
Throbbing Gristle, Hot on the Heels of Love
Test Dept., Comrade Enver Hoxha
Test Dept., Gdansk
Mario Maržidovšek, Serial Dialog
Mario Maržidovšek, Dictator
Aporea, Dzvjazdo, Javljajustaja Solnce
Laibach, F.I.A.T.
Laibach, Across the Universe
Laibach, Siemens
Laibach, Illumination
Prager Kodex, Lux Aeterna
Autopsia, Weltuntergang Theme 1 1990
Autopsia, Death and Entertainment 1988
Autopsia, The Time of Pain and of Waiting
Autopsia, Lacrimae Mundi
Autopsia, Hymn II
BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Wind-Mine Machine
Autopsia, Night Landscape III
Autopsia, Palladium - Der Reichtum Des Vielen Und Das Eine
Autopsia, 1-06 T.O. 2.0
Autopsia, Night Landscape
eSz. Berlin. Nationalhymne 2009 (Autopsia Remix)

Episode 13: Incipient Intentions

"Music points to true language in the sense that content is apparent in it, but it does so at the cost of unambiguous meaning, which has migrated to the languages of intentionality. And as though Music, that most eloquent of all languages, needed consoling for the curse of ambiguity - its mythic aspect, intentions are poured into it." Theodor Adorno, 'Music and Language - A Fragment'

Final episode for a couple months. Given little foresight, Beholder Halfway has often amounted to sociological interrogation of issues around popular musics, but there are severe limits to the sociological imagination's capacity to inform music. With this in mind, on this finale episode, I wanted to elicit statements, at times profound and others banal, by musicians about music, as a way of marking the limits of the sociological imagination.

Image: still from Morgan Fisher, Projection Instructions (1976)

Tracklist
TJ Hustler, The Individual You

Black Warrior, Move

Gigi Masin, Miren Miren Maitea

Interview with John Coltrane

Amiri Baraka/the Advanced Workers, You Was Dancin' You Need to be Marchin'

Edgar Froese, Police Disco

Linda Perhacs,  BBC Interview

Phil Niblock, Hurdy Hurry

Big L, Put It On (acapella)

Fatima Al Qadiri, Curfew

Nurse With Wound, Alien [Act Side Second Band]

Interview with Nina Simone

Test Dept., Slow Hunger

Interview with the Supremes

Henri Roger, Au Dela Du Langage

Interview with GG Allin

Patchfinder, Das Herz

Interview with Dead Kennedys

Interview with Crass

Guy Debord, Critique de la Separation (audio excerpt)

Interview with Karlhein Stockhausen

Harald Grosskopf, 1847 Earth

Interview with MF Grimm

Michael Wadleigh (Dir.), Woodstock (1970) (audio excerpt)

Interview with Gucci Mane

Interview with Garth Brooks

Inga Copeland, Advice for Young Girls (w/ Actress)

Episode 11: Why Trap?

                                                                                                                 Image: still from Wang Bing, 'Coal Money' (2008)

An attempt to think the popular emergence of trap music around the mid-2000s. Draws on Neil Smith's concept of the "revanchist city" in post-Fordism. Also thinks trap rap as a unique form of work music.

Tracklist (instrumentals for Ofcomm)
Rich Gang, Imma Ride (instrumental)

Chief Keef, Love Sosa (Instrumental)

Trinidad James, feat. T.I., Young Jeezy, BPM (Instrumental)

OJ da Juiceman, feat Gucci Mane, Make the Trap Say Aye (Instrumental)

Rick Ross, Trap Love (Instrumental)

Young Dolph, Preach (Instrumental)

Wacka Flocka Flame, Hard in da Paint (Instrumental)

Young Jeezy, Guess Who Back (Instrumental)

Chief Keef, Trap (Instrumental)

Young Thug, Stoner (Instrumental)

Nicki Minaj, Feat 2 Chainz, Beez in the Trap (instrumental)

5^th Ward JP feat Kirko Bangz, Too Many Bosses (Instrumental)

Gucci Mane, Lemonade (Instrumental)

Gucci Mane, I Think I’m in Love (Instrumental)

Wiz Khalifa & Curren$y, Uber (Instrumental)

Gucci Mane, Pyrex Pot (Instrumental)

Gucci Mane, Neva Had Shit (Instrumental)

Rich Gang, Take Kare (Instrumental)

Gorilla Zoe, What It Is (Instrumental)

DJ Drama feat. Jim Jones, Rick Ross, Young Buck, Willie the Kid, Young Jeezy & T.I., Taking Pictures (Instrumental)

Fetty Wap, Trap Queen (Instrumental)

Lil Wayne feat Young Jeezy & Rick Ross, Represent Street Dream (Instrumental)

Migos, Nawfside (Instrumental)

Bun B feat Young Jeezy & Scarface – Pushin’ (Instrumental)

Boyz in Da Hood, Dem Boyz (instrumental)

Big Kuntry feat. Young Dolph – Trap Mode (Instrumental)

Young Thug – Red Star (Instrumental)

Young Thug & Rich Homie Quan – Lifestyle (Instrumental)

Gucci Mane – Spit in Your Face (Instrumental)

Young Jeezy – Mr. 17.5 (Instrumental)

Gucci Mane – Trap House (Instrumental)

UGK – It’s Supposed to Bubble (Clean version)

References

Adam Krims, Music and Urban Geography, Routledge, 2007.

Robin Kelley, Yo Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America, Beacon Press, 1998.

Michael Jeffries, Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop, University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Noah Angell, “Everything Gucci: The Poetic and Political Economy of Gucci Mane”, lecture recorded at http://beingres.org/2015/11/04/everything-gucci/

Episode 9: Rave Politik

Thinking about the politics behind rave culture 86-94.

Tracklist

Victor Romeo feat. Latreece Brown, Love Will Find a Way

Willie Colon, Set Fire to Me

Patrick Cowley, Mind Warp

Fingers Inc., Distant Planet (Intergalactic Dub)

Jesse Velez, Girls Out on the Floor

Jack Frost, Tom Tom

Jeff Mills, The Hacker

Kenny Larkin, Maritime

Femme Fion, Jack the House

The Joubert Singers, Stand on the Word (Larry Levan mix)

References

Phillip Tagg, "From Refrain to Rave: the Decline of Figure and the Rise of Ground" Popular Music, Vol.1, 1994.

Jeremy Gilbert & Ewan Pearson, Discographies: Dance Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound

Simon Reynolds, Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture

Simon Reynolds, “Technical Ecstasy”, The Wire, November 1992.

Joshua Clover, 1989: Bob Dylan Didn’t Have this to Sing About

Aufheben, “Kill or Chill: An Analysis of the Opposition to the CriminalJustice Bill”

Anthony Iles & Eve Lever, “Media, Secession and Recession”, Cesura//Acceso, #1, October 2014.

Neil Transpontine, “Revolt of the Ravers: The Movement Against the Criminal Justice Act in Britain 1993-95. Datacide

Episode 7: Endings

Anna Wood hosts a discussion of endings.

Beholder Halfway - Anna Wood - 4th February 2016 by Resonanceextra on Mixcloud

Tracklist

Going Home - Alice Coltrane

Walking Out – John Carpenter

Assault On Precinct 13, end theme – John Carpenter

Shake It Up And Go - John Lee Hooker

Rollin' - Randy Newman

The Dead - John Huston (excerpt)

Rock'n'Roll Suicide – David Bowie

Goodbye Goebbels – Fat White Family

The Four Horsemen – Aphrodite's Child

Some Things Last A Long Time – Daniel Johnston

Long Long Long – The Beatles

Only Skin – Joanna Newsom

Time To Go Home - Chastity Belt

Time To Go - Delia Derbyshire

Turtles All The Way Down - Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band