IDM Mailing Archive

quoted 1 line Please elaborate on what you find worthwhile about Industrial Folksongs..

>Please elaborate on what you find worthwhile about Industrial Folksongs..

Industrial Folk Songs belongs to a pan-genre categoy of Extreme Music. What is extreme music? It's any music that takes something that audiences generally don't like, isolate it and magnify it. When Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were formulating Be-Bop, many listeners complained that it was too fast, random, and obtuse. But they weren't concerned with satisfying listeners expectations honed by Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. They were pursuing their own style, making music that expressed what they felt inside. Jimi Hendrix took the sound that most electric guitarists of his day sought to avoid -- distorted, overdriven, noisy. He made that the core of how he played. Sonic Youth formed a career around taking the crazy difficult part of Hendrix's playing -- the feedback and soupy effects upon effects -- and left his more melodic, lyrical playing out. The result was to redefine the aesthetic -- work with something ugly until you can make it beautiful if you can find a new way of listening. Bob Mould in an interview described early Husker Du shows, where at the end of the set they'd play one note, over and over again until half of the audience left. The result was to let the audience self-sort, so that only the people who were really with the band were left. I attended a Philip Glass Ensemble concert here in Iowa City in the late 70s where half the audience left at intermission. The same effect -- everyone who came because it was part of a classical subscription series without knowing what to expect were gone, and the remainder of the audience were well up for what he had to offer. Industrial Folk Songs fits this strategy. I remember before it came out, Grant from Rephlex got onto IDM and hyped it as something entirely new. For it's time it was -- even as it partook of influences from industrial music, gabber and US Drop-Bass hardcore. He deliberately worked with a pallete of sounds that were harsh and ugly. These were not tracks that met you half way -- you had to go all the way to where they were in order to get it. Now if you aren't (in the hip hop parlance) feeling it, it's not any disrespect to you. Everyone should really listen to what speaks to their condition. It is simply music that makes no concessions to the audience. There is beauty to be found there, but the music formulates its own aesthetic, instead of fitting into an existing aesthetic. Either you'll like it or you won't. Give it a chance, though and you may come to respect it and see what it's about. kent williams -- kent@avalon.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org