The HNW-Q No.1: A View from Nihil

A View from Nihil

Dear Readers,

I am proud to present the first completed HNW-Questionary. I am glad, that the subtle and unique HNW-Master Andrew McQuaid from A View from Nihil was so kind to complete it. As you probably remember, Andrew McQuaid was already featured on my blog with his important and groundbreaking HNW-masterpiece "The Eternal Present" in February 2012 (click here to read). For me it is absolutely necessary, that he and no one else starts this feature.

The HNW-Questionary consists of 32 phrases to be completed in a playful, insightful, poetic, prolific and philosophical manner. The featured artist decides, which phrases he wants to accomplish. It is the task for the reader to perceive the voids and to think about the subtle interactions between Being and Nothingness, which is also an important ingredient of the HNW-Artform. But, it is always important to see and hear, what someone is saying and what he is not saying.

The idea of the whole feature is to help the few real HNW-Artists to show and establish themselves as leading artists and to give them an encyclopedic space for their aesthetic and artistic convictions, conceptions and beliefs. It is a space to publish serious, original and important thoughts and ideas for the future of HNW as an important artform.

It is first of all exclusively for leading musicians, but in the future painters, writers and philosophers could also be invited to contribute to the seriousness of HNW and to the interrelatedness of HNW with other artforms. Maybe one day I will fill out this Questionary myself (Thanks for your suggestion, Andrew !). I have several completed versions of it in the upper drawer of my mind. This HNW-Questionary was only conceived for the best. Consequently, my deliberately very elitist motto for this Questionary is: Light for the Best, Darkness over the Rest !

All lines in green ink are written and copyright by Andrew McQuaid (contact here  and here ). All lines in italics and normal ink show you the HNW-Questionary written and copyright by me. This is the first HNW-Questionary brilliantly completed by Andrew McQuaid:

The HNW-Q No. 1: 

[1] I discovered and invented HNW for myself, when .................

[2] The initial radicality of HNW would be preserved, if such things were possible.

[3] HNW is order.
  
[4] HNW is not disorder.


[5] I feel a strong sense of allegiance towards the acronym HNW, even if I realise it is no longer an accurate term for what I, or many other HNW artists, do.


[6] HNW is pure .......................................................................

[7] The sound of machines are .............................................

[8] HNW helps ....................................................... to be revealed.


[9] Monolithic walls are ...................................................................


[10] The future of HNW would be support and acknowledgement from the elite of underground experimental music.

[11] The death of HNW would be its acceptance by the great unwashed masses of the underground music world.



[12] HNW should be related to all underground experimental music to understand it better.

[13] Singularity and originality in HNW are as important as conformity and orthodoxy.

[14] HNW should be called Static Minimalism, because Static Minimalism is a broader term that must surely encompass HNW.

[15] HNW should not be called Static Minimalism, because HNW is a more specific term and hence more accurate in certain cases.

[16] The permanent repetition of the HNW-Mantra (No ideas, no change, no dynamics, no development etc.) leads to a ..............................

[17] Volume in HNW is ...............................................................

[18] Distortion in HNW is ..........................................................

[19] My Unconscious is .................................................. in HNW. 

[20] Narratives, Analogies and Metaphors in HNW are .............

[21] Time and Space in HNW are ...............................................

[22] HNW .............................................. absolute Nothingness.

[23] My HNW amplifies ............................................................

[24] Minimal Music and Cosmic Drones are also capable of fulfilling some of the main functions of HNW.

[25] Conceptualism is the ................................................... of HNW.

[26] The main ingredient of brilliant HNW is meticulous composition, above all else.

[27] The purpose and concept of my HNW is continuously evolving, but from late 2010/early 2011 till now I have been primarily concerned with investigating, expressing and glorifying order. I decided to follow this particular direction after becoming dissatisfied with producing what I had come to regard as negative music. That is, music which expresses a negative opinion, which up to that point had been a sort of defeatist nihilism mixed with a strong contempt for modernity. Inspired by personal musical heroes, I resolved only to make positive music; music that glorified and exalted, music that affirmed. The only question was what to take as my subject. But, I thought to myself, whatever I chose, it had to correlate to the sound form of HNW.  And so the right way only became clear through an intense listening to, and deep consideration of, HNW. It became apparent to me that one of the features that I enjoy most in HNW are the different textural patterns that reveal themselves when listening. I love how patterns appear out of the static aether, crystalising into perfect threads that transfix the mind with a clarity of structure that seems eternal, only to succumb to new dominant patterns, and this process leaves me wondering whether those patterns evolved naturally out of the static interactions, whether the composer put them there intentionally, or whether my brain, in its endless attempt to make sense of the world around it, simply constructed that order out of the static void.

I find this emergent order of HNW, and the ambiguities surrounding it, endlessly fascinating. And in many ways, I perceive parallels between this effect and my interpretation of the wider human experience (a case of apophenia, maybe). Furthermore, I have always defined HNW in opposition to what bores me most in experimental music, that is; self-indulgent improvisation, performance theatrics at the expense of composition, and pretentious chancers who produce half-arsed nonsense. In a word: disorder. For me HNW has always been deliberate and structured, and I have always considered it the antithesis of junk noise, free/improv noise, and anything that could be broadly described as fun or entertainment in experimental music. After this realisation then, I knew that order would be my positive purpose. For, as I understand it, order is the source of all wisdom and power, of all beauty, and of all life. Disorder is weakness, ugliness, death. And I have no desire to spend my time expressing these things. For there's enough of that about, and the age of nihilism is well begun, and needs no more proselytising than it has.

Now, bearing that in mind, it remains to be said that, order is surely present in all corners of existence, and so the theme of AVFN need not be limited to abstract order (Order), but can range from ideas of cosmic creation and destruction (Primordial Sea), to human thought and perception (The Eternal Present), and beyond. And indeed, it ought to be pointed out that, there are many different and contrasting, often conflicting orders, so it should be said that I have an interest in, and a bias towards, the philosophy and metaphysics of archaic man and his particular understanding and expression of order. These are the ideas, then, that currently inform the purpose and concept of my HNW.

 

[28] The distinction between ANW/HNW is unnecessary to me: HNW had already become an inaccurate term, but, to me, that doesn't render it unusable. Genre titles are often inaccurate and quite often they say more about the early history of the style than it does about contemporary practice.

  

[29] The philosophy of HNW can change ................................

  

[30] My first words about HNW were .......................................

  

[31] My final words about HNW would be .................................

 

[32] The phrase I would like to add to this Questionary is ..............

(Photo and copyright by Frédéric Brenner)

Cordial thanks to Andrew for filling out

the HNW-Questionary !

SKG.