Droopy's Corner: 2013

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Sounds Reviewed #6/2013: African Audio Documents - Effacer le Tableau

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Sounds Reviewed #6/2013

African Audio Documents - Effacer le tableau

(AAD01, CD-r, XI/2013)
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§1 An agencement - pour percer le mur.

Already a few minutes of attentive listening convinced me: this is really an awesome, baffling, mysterious and important release. It is a blast on all levels. Pierre Ndoki's "Effacer le tableau" (the first release of his project "African Audio Documents") combines serious aural research with poetic inventiveness and imagination that has no equal (cf. maybe it is comparable to Dominik Fernow's most recent project "Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement") . It brings the serious and essential minimalism back in. It is a hybrid, that re-connects and re-channels several important streams in modern Sound/Art from electro-acoustics, sound-installation, audio-documentary, minimal music, audio-auto-biographics, musique concrète and other relevant and serious forms of sonic spectrality, pure sounds and microtonality.

Already the poly-valent and clever use of the title "Effacer le tableau" shows that Ndoki knows what he is doing and aiming at. Effacer le tableau (putting the real meaning and its (brutal) african context aside for a moment) could be read as an audio-poetic imperative inviting the listener to put in brackets everything s/he thinks to know about sounds (mostly too much !). Effacer le tableau, premièrement ! Electro-Acoustic-Music and other forms of (Electro-)Minimalism need different and well trained listeners, because an unattentive, ill-informed and untrained listener is completely lost in this field of non-anthropomorphic sounds.

If you are willing to follow Pierre Ndoki's golden rule - Effacer le tableau, premièrement ! - listening could be the perfect tool to "percer le mur" (van Gogh) of representational ideas of sound and art in general. Eye-deology, so to speak. Helping to discover lines of flight out of the capitalist world of sound, music and visible commodities.

In this sense Deleuze/Guattari wrote in "Mille Plateaux": "L'art n'est jamais une fin, il n'est qu'un instrument pour tracer les lignes de vie, c'est-à-dire tous ces devenirs réels, qui ne se produisent pas simplement dans l'art, toutes ces fuites actives, qui ne consistent pas à fuir dans l'art, à se réfugier dans l'art, ces déterritorialisations positives, qui ne vont pas se reterritorialiser sur l'art, mais bien plutôt l'emporter avec elles, vers le régions de l'asignifiant, de l'asubjectif et du sans visage. (...) Défaire le visage, c'est la même chose que percer le mur du signifiant, sortir du trou noir de la subjectivité: cherchez vos trous noirs et vos murs blancs, connaissez-les, connaissez vos visages, vous ne les déferez pas autrement, vous ne tracerez pas autrement vos lignes de fuites."

"Effacer le tableau" is definitely a subtle composition: im-pressive, massive without mass (in the physical sense), an aural materiality without matter, vibrating, monochrome, imploding/exploding, thoughtfully folded back in time and space.

§2 The Magic of Expectation: playing with masks

Relevant art is always a play with masks and background narratives - or call it the space for de-personalisation - ask Artaud, Nietzsche or Kierkegaard. Consequently it should be no surprise, that an artist deeply indebted to Africa - t h e m a s k e d a n d v i r t u a l l y u n k n o w n c o n t i n e n t p a r e x c e l l e n c e - uses masks and complex background narratives and artistical strategies in his project. This is by far one of the very few absolutely convincing HNW-background-narratives and conceptual framings that worked for me completely. It should be also mentioned, that the complete design and concept of the project is absolutely outstanding and thoughtful.

This is an ultra-poetic and thoughtful melting of form and content. Pierre Ndoki is opening all neurones of the brain for remembrance, reinscription, silence and, repetition. A short look on Ndoki's blog (click here) shows that his narrative and soundworld will expand thematically and aesthetically (see §11 of this review) in all kinds of directions. So it is really an intellectual pleasure for any future listener to un-pack all the intricacies and implications of this project.

Since my blog is build as a landing site for all kinds of surprising and refreshing artifacts, I was very glad, that Ndoki contacted me to sent the first parts of his immense audio-poetic invention. Ndoki shows that HNW (= as always this blog uses this acronym for serious Electro-Acoustic-Minimalism only and for nothing else ) is not a style. It is from time to time (!) a neccessary tool for deeply thoughtful and private expressions produced by artists that keep the dimension of futurity open ....

§3 Afrikanische Spiele / Jeux Africains / Somber dreams

Pierre Ndoki's African Audio Documents invites you to experience your own innermost and outermost - intimate and extimate - Africa. An artificial implant - because there is no Africa as such. But he also relates your imaginary or imagined Africa to the horrors of the most recent history of Africa. So it is really rewarding (if not essential) to follow all the traces Ndoki has laid out so carefully. There is a real historical background behind all his recordings. It is one of the most carefully and thoughtfully conceived HNW-projects - so pay attention !

So please take the name of his project African Audio Documents seriously. But draw the conclusions yourself ! And please try to enrich your image of Africa with books like Raymond Roussel's "Impressions d'Afrique" (1910), Michel Leiris's "L'Afrique fantôme" (1934), the artworks and theories of Jean Dubuffet, the last dreams of Arthur Rimbaud, Joseph Conrad, or to give a more recent example Yannick Haenel's novel "Les renard pâles" (2013) based on a central-myth of an african tribe called the Dogon.

For me, the release "Effacer le tableau", was a good opportunity to revisit the famous novel "Afrikanische Spiele" by Ernst Jünger written in 1936. It is about a very young man dreaming of discovering "his" Africa, the river Nil and the Congo. In a key passage Ernst Jünger wrote: "Es gibt eine Zeit, in der dem Herzen das Geheimnisvolle nur räumlich, nur auf weissen Flecken der Landkarte erreichbar erscheint und in der alles Dunkle und Unbekannte eine mächtige Anziehung ausübt. Lange, halb trunkene Wachträume während meiner nächtlichen Spaziergänge durch den Stadtwall hatten mir jene entfernten Länder so nahegerückt, dass nur noch der Entschluss in sie einzudringen und ihrer Genüsse teilhaftig zu sein. Mich zog vielmehr eine Zone an, in der der Kampf menschlicher Gewalten rein und zwecklos zum Ausdruck kam. Auch die zweite Nacht verbrachte ich auf meinem Segeltuch. Früh wurde ich von Benoit geweckt; er forderte mich auf, Afrika zu sehen."

Ndoki delivers somber dreams of dark continents: it is a "double promenade (...) le voyage extérieur géographique des distances indecomposables, le voyage historique intérieur suivant des intensités enveloppantes. (...) elle porte le réel hors de son principe où il est exactement produit par la machine désirante." (Anti-Oedipe, 104).

§4 The Dogon-Egg: Intensities

The crisp minimalism of "Effacer le tableau" opens and amplifies feverish fantasies and daydreams. It is a pure cerebral music with a massive narrative floating in between the sounds like in the Dogon-Egg:

(L'oeuf de dogon et la répartition d'intensités,)

§5 L'homme au point zéro / Humanity at point zero

Sadly the image of the cradle and point-zero of civilisation co-incide in "Africa". "Africa" could also be seen as an reflecting image of European underworlds and hells. Look at "Africa" and tell me what you see ? Somber and uncanny dreams of a violent Africa are evoked on "Effacer le tableau" and the subsequent releases. To call this a documentary about an African tragedy would be an insult and a sedative, because it projects worn european theatrical forms on real exploitation, violence and poverty. Something else it at work here.

In an essay with the title "L'homme au point zéro" written by the french poet-thinker Maurice Blanchot dedicated to his (then deceased) friend Georges Bataille we can read the lines: "Monde barbare, sans respect, sans humanité. Il nous vide atrocement de tout ce que nous aimons et aimons être, nous chasse du bonheur de nos refuges, du faux-semblant de nos vérités, détruit ce à quoi nous appartenons et parfois se détruit lui-même. Effrayante épreuve. Mais cette contestation, précisement parce qu'elle nous laisse pauvre de tout, sauf de la puissance, nous donne peut-être aussi la chance qui accompagne toute rupture : quand on est contraint de renoncer à soi, il faut périr ou commencer ; périr afin de recommencer. Tel serait alors le sens de la tâche que représente le mythe de l'homme sans mythe: l'espoir, l'angoisse et l'illusion de l'homme au point zéro" (Maurice Blanchot, L'homme au point zéro).

A few lines to support the intricacies of the poetic-audio-documentary character of the project "African Audio Documents" - and something to think about, when you listen attentively.

§6 Grids and Frames

The crisp, rigorously de-naturalized and dry sounds on "Effacer le tableau" work like a kind of contrast-liquid, or conceptual grid or frame to open a more artificial and sophisticated TIME/SPACE-articulation. Making the medium of sound - the air or simply matter if you like - nearly tactile and visible. These sounds point towards a tension between visibility, tactility and audibility. This recording is relevant, because it opens a huge space in which prominent ideas of the anti-mimetic character of modern art could resonate. This recordings delivers also very good arguments to re-inscribe HNW into the history of radical minimalism and anti-mimetism in the Fine Arts (let's say at least since Mondrian) and spectral, micro-tonal, electronic and electro-acoustic music. HNW is not a derivative of HN. PERIOD.

In her now famous paper on "Grids" the american art-historian Rosalind Krauss wrote: "There are two ways in which the grid functions to declare the modernity of modern art. One is spatial; the other is temporal. In the spatial sense, the grid states the autonomy of the realm of art. Flattened, geometricized, ordered, it is antinatural, antimimetic, antireal. It is what art looks like when it turns its back on nature. In the flatness that results from its coordinates, the grid is the means of crowding out the dimensions of the real and replacing them with the lateral spread of a single surface.

In the overall regularity of its organization, it is the result not of imitation, but of aesthetic decree. Insofar as its order is that of pure relationship, the grid is a way of abrogating the claims of natural objects to have an order particular to themselves; the relationships in the aesthetic field are shown by the grid to be in a world apart and, with respect to natural objects, to be both prior and final. The grid declares the space of art to be at once autonomous and autotelic.

In the temporal dimension, the grid is an emblem of modernity by being just that: the form that is ubiquitous in the art of our century, while appearing nowhere, nowhere at all, in the art of the last one. In that great chain of reactions by which modernism was born out of the efforts of the nineteenth century, one final shift resulted in breaking the chain. By "discovering" the grid, cubism, de Stijl, Mondrian, Malevich . . . landed in a place that was out of reach of everything that went before. Which is to say, they landed in the present, and everything else was declared to be the past.

If we open any tract - Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art or The Non- Objective World, for instance - we will find that Mondrian and Malevich are not discussing canvas or pigment or graphite or any other form of matter. They are talking about Being or Mind or Spirit. From their point of view, the grid is a staircase to the Universal, and they are not interested in what happens below in the Concrete. Or, to take a more up-to-date example, we could think about Ad Reinhardt who, despite his repeated insistence that "Art is art," ended up by painting a series of black nine-square grids in which the motif that inescapably emerges is a Greek cross. " (Rosalind Krauss 1979)

Keep this in mind - when you listen to Pierre Ndoki's "African Audio Documents". His works are a constant play with framings and un-framings, focussing and un-focussing. An elegant floating in between thinking and listening, inside and outside: a conceptual grid or filter-system that's moving through space and time enflaming dark fantasies and desperate awakenings.

§7 Electro-acoustic textures - Essential minimalism.

Pierre Ndoki's project "African Audio Documents" is an essential and serious research in the field of electronic and electro-acoustic minimalism. It could be easily reconnected to the contemporary non-anthropomorphic soundworlds of Carsten Nicolai, Ryoji Ikeda, Emptyset, Eleh, Basic House, the sadly deceased Zbigniew Karkowski, Francisco López to name a few - but also to the worlds of the classical minimalisms of Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros, Edgard Varèse, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, LaMonte Young, Walter Marchetti, Luigi Nono, Giacinto Scelsi, etc, etc. [All references are deliberately chosen from different contextes to open the eyes and ears for different viewpoints and to extract essential soundworlds out of the context of the "noise-scene" (for me a deeply pejorative and useless term)]

This project understands that sounds are absolutely non-anthropomorph, non-natural, non-related to the interiority of the listener or the composer, rigorously non-mimetic - they are almost like colours in monochrome or abstract paintings. There are no natural receptors for sounds or pre-given, pre-configured , symmetrical human correlates to sound-emissions. But who stated that sounds are related to humans - alone ? The late capitalist music-industry, who else ? Obviously it is not enough to have ears to listen - listening is a question of training - like everything else. There are no guarantees here: Whoever has ears ought to hear !

§8 Subtle Bass-Undercurrents.

If you are the owner of a multi-speaker soundsystem with a seperate subwoofer please play it in 3D Surround. Press play and switch-off the lights. Let the composition resculpture and alter the Time-Space of your room ... bass .... slumbering bass .... subtle bass-undercurrents ... out of my subwoofers .... so cleary composed com-ponents ... never heard something like this before ... bass at the edge of existence ... nearly unperceivable .... at certain volumes carved out .... like a stone ....

Like a good monochrome - or a so called abstract painting - the composition reacts. It has different effects on the listener if you experiment in terms of loudness or volume. I would prefer the term "volume" because it is more related to the space in which the sound is played in. It describes the extension (also a title of a marvellous composition by the german composer Mathias Spahlinger) of the effect the sound has in a given room.

"Effacer le tableau" focusses on the aesthetic aspects of resonance, time, sound and listening. It is no secret that this blog is seriously (!) interested in the research of basic acoustic phenomena at the edge to be perceived as "music". This blog is a plea to discover the complete sonic field without any reserves. This record here is a good exemple for an absolutely sensitive musician ! This is a recording you will listen to more than once - absolutely exceptional in this field !

§9 Explosante-fixe et magique-circonstancielle

Another collector of African Art, the french poet and father of surrealism André Breton wrote in the final passage of his book "Amour fou":

"La beauté convulsive sera érotique-voilée,

explosante-fixe, magique-circonstancielle, ou ne sera pas".

Take this as a hint when you listen to Pierre Ndoki's soundworlds frequently and attentively ! This is also the title of a brilliant composition by Pierre Boulez - risk an ear ... or two ! By the way the acronym A.A.D. for African Audio Documents points also back to the good old days when analog recordings and codes were recoded or transcoded into digital CD-codes. One of the codes was A-nalog A-nalog D-igital - which meant analog source, analog mixing, digital recoding. Another proof for the deeply thoughtful character of this project ...

§10 Effacer le tableau: an African Aural Suprematism.

"Effacer le tableau" is the starting point for an African Aural Suprematism. In a famous passage written by one of the "fathers" of Suprematism Kasimir Malevich distinguishes two basic types of creation: "one, initiated by the conscious mind, serves practical life, so-called, and deals with concrete visual phenomena; the other, stemming from the subconscious or superconcious mind, stands apart from all practical utility and treats abstract phenomena" (Malevich, The Non-Objective World). Abstract phenomena are related to the ineffable. The primary goal of suprematist art is to provide the occasion for the latter form of awareness in the viewer to appear by evoking the ineffable. The experience of the ineffable helps to overcome the plagues of representation and mimesis. Since the awareness of the infinite is sub- or super-conscious, it cannot be represented figuratively but must be presented nonobjectively.

It should be obvious, that Ndoki's work "Effacer le tableau" is informed by all the intricacies of Modern Avantgarde Abstractionism(s) and Minimalism(s). I would even risk to say, that he takes the suprematist abstraction on step further from the visual to the aural and from Europe to Africa - that's the reason why I would like to call his Sound-Aesthetics an "African Aural Suprematism". In the words of Malevich again: "The black square on the white field was the first form in which non-objective feeling came to be expressed. The black square = feeling, the white field = the void beyond this feeling" (Malevich, The Non-Objective World).

So please follow the radicalized minimalism(s) of Ndoki and cut off the ear from the eye ! Let the frequencies alone structure your "thoughts" - let them effacer le tableau ... black and white, white and black, white on black, black on white, zeros and ones, ones and zeros, zeros projected on ones, ones projected on zeros - contrasts .... and primordial differences ... this piece ought to be imagined to have been played in a remote cabin made of clay with flickering rests of electricity causing these sounds - morse-codes from an abyssal Inner-Outer-Africa. Or maybe a secretly registered concussion, or repercussion of age old earthquakes, or cochlea-memories from an antilope.

This is really an Abstract-Anti-Expressionism - open only for a different plane of consciousness - close to Malevich's, Artaud's and Deleuze/Guattari's ideas of it. Antonin Artaud wrote in this sense in his famous text "Les Tarahumaras" quoted and included in an important passage of "Mille Plateaux": "Artaud pèse et mesure chaque de ses mots: la conscience "sait ce qui est bon pour elle et ce qui ne lui vaut rien. (...) Elle sait surtout jusqu'où va son être, et jusqu'où il n'est pas encore allé (...) Plan où la conscience normale atteint pas mais où Ciguri nous permet d'atteindre, et qui est le mystère même de toute poésie. Mais il ya dans l'être humain un autre plan celui-là obscur, informe, où la conscience n'est pas entrée, mais qui l'entoure comme un prolongement inéclairci ou d'une menace suivant le cas. Et qui dégage aussi des sensations aventureuses, des perceptions"(Les Tarahumaras). [...] Ce n'est plus un Moi qui sent, agit, et se rappelle, c'est "une brume brillante, une buée jaune et sombre", qui a des affects et éprouve des mouvements, des vitesses." (Mille Plateaux).

§11 Une cartographie africaine, un voyage sur place

The best you can say about soundworlds is that they travel to your ears and make you travel accordingly. These soundworlds are like soundcards from strange, unknown continents. Pierre Ndoki's Sound-Art project African Audio Documents is such a project of multi-dimensional soundcards (understood in analogy to postcards) he sends us from "his" "Africa".

Soundcards are game-cards and geo-graphic, geo-politic and geo-aesthetic cards at once. These cards are not re-productive or re-presentational. They are productive. They produce the territory in the act of description or transcription. A card - write Deleuze/Gauttari: "ne reproduit pas un inconscient fermé sur lui-même, elle le construit. Elle concourt à la connexion des champs, au déblocage des corps sans organes, à leur ouverture maximum sur un plan de consistance. Elle fait elle-même partie du rhizome" (Mille Plateaux).

In this sense Pierre Ndoki's project African Audio Documents delivers a complex audio-haptico-spiritual-fictional cartography of Africa - no more, no less. It is an intriguing complex of real facts from the most recent entanglement of African-French and African history, feverish dreams of somber continents, and subtle audio-poetic-reflections about the nature and conditions of minimal electro-acoustic soundworlds.

Ndoki's soundcards open up immense and unheard of possibilities of immobile voyages. His soundcards let secrets travels through the labyrinths of your cochlea supported by uncertain and risky "musical" forms and frequencies. "Voyage sur la place, c'est le nom de toutes le intensités, même si elles se developpent aussi en extension. Penser, c'est voyager (...) Voyager en lisse c'est tout un devenir, et encore un devenir difficile, incertain." (Mille Plateaux).

During the writing of this review Pierre Ndoki was so kind to provide me with the three subsequent releases of his immense project African-Audio-Documents entitled "Cellule Africaine" (AAD02, CD-r, 40 min.), "Hermetica"(AAD05, Mini-CD-r, 10 min. ) and "Loi fondamentale" (AAD04, CD-r, 50 min.).The spectrum goes from raw analogue HNW ("Cellule Africaine"), to an intricate Audio-Documentary-Sound-Collage ("Hermetica") or fantastic Electro-Acoustic-Minimalism ("Loi fondamentale").

Since this blog is a voice for the singular and the unique, it would be a violation of my own working principles to treat these three releases in an overhasted manner. Each of these releases would deserve an attentive listener and a different review. As you can see Effacer le tableau is the starting point of one of the most interesting, inventive, fascinating and conceptually thick and strong projects in HNW. It is a strong recabling of Electro-Acoustic-Minimalism(s) with other Avantgarde-Sound-Art-Formats. It will be surprising and rewarding to watch this rhizome grow over the next years ! A quote from the first e-mail Ndoki sent me, gives a good summary of his ideas:

"I have ties to the African Continent and as time went by I found out that HNW was the best way for me to express the different thoughts and emotions that arose in me when confronted to the violent magic of Africa."

(10/10 Admiration-Points)

(written by S.K.G., XI-XII.2013)

African Audio Documents
Effacer le tableau
(AAD01, CD-r, XI/2013)

Support and contact
Pierre Nkodi
here and here

Highest possible recommendation !

Friday, October 25, 2013

The HNW-Q No.7: Clive Henry

Listen ! Micro-Sounds for the Inner-Ear !

Dear readers,

this is the seventh installment of the HNW-Questionary. And “seven” seems to be the magic number here in this now pretty undead genre. I am seduced (with an acerbic and diabolic subtone) to call HNW the seven-possible-paradigms-music. No new approaches possible - only repetitions. Repetitions are not a priori bad, like LaMonte Young once said “I am wildly interested in repetition, because I think it demonstrates control”. But the musical versatility, dexterity and skill needed to put into close and controlled proximity identity and difference, control and repetition, chaos and order, silence and sound, tradition and innovation is constantly and totally underestimated in HNW.

That’s the tragic development in HNW: a complete switch from the serious to the ridiculous has taken place; from HNW as a necessary aural exploration and singular expression to "HNW" as a worn style or genre. A few signs: several important, serious, silent, and fragile voices interested in "pure sounds" (without any crude metaphors, stupid mimesis of "natural" sounds, dull ana-logics or silly narratives and other futile decorations as a backdrop) like Lungwash, Ghost/Ruine, KT disappeared and one of the most important and most inventive HNW-projects ever A View from Nihil will hopefully return soon (last sign: an unreleased 2012 track posted 10/7/13, listen here). Vast Glory has sadly not found the support and the critical company and estimation it really deserves. On the other hand a giant amount of new HNW- "artists" ("ha ha !") appeared and artistically already dead veterans decided to stay. Why? - obviously to repeat themselves as uninspired and tiresome as it gets ! What is really left of the serious aural research ? Please start to discover your honesty and stop all this silly it-hurts-my-ears-it's-radical-crap right now !

Sadly quality control is also a dirty word in the musical underground. But what’s the reason ? A severe misconception about the intricacies of producing “high quality” experimental-free-form-music ! To say it in a classic philosophical terminology: the subject-side is made too strong here. Conceptualism is in retreat. Sounds are again oppressed by all too human and all too subjective desires and tastes ; a severe regression towards pre-Cage-aesthetics. Sounds are not sounds anymore, but the expression of something else (mostly accompanied by totally idiotic titles, and cover-artworks).That's why most of the HNW-soundworlds today are musically totally irrelevant and by no means an alternative to the aural crap contaminating our planet day and night on all possible frequencies and channels !

HNW is like pop-music now. A predictable and ridiculous assemblage of worn, bleached out, totally de-radicalized formulas, sounds and ideas produced mainly by childish posers for a pre-existing, unchanging, ill-informed, stone-deaf and dogmatic audience. A sinister Begleitmusik for the brain-dead zombies of late capitalism: living in basements, praising blocked out desires and negativity tout le jour. Without knowing anything about the deeply affirmative character of negation and opposition ! It seems, that anyone who owns a few distorters and a recording-device believes that he is already a musician. Ridiculous. The soundworld of a real musician is never limited by the capacity of the used machines and instruments. It is only limited by the capacities of the musician's brain to imagine and invent unheard sounds and mixtures of sounds. In the process of invention, technical limitations could be chosen deliberately out of conceptual reasons. But: aural fantasy and "technical" reality have to ignite themselves mutually in the creation of a briliant musical work. Consequently the aural fantasy precedes the chosen “instrument” and not vice versa !

One decisive question remains unanswered: What is an outstanding microsound-composition and what justifies its release ? The sheer amount of HNW-releases documents, that such solid criteria weren't found and developped yet (despite a handful attempts to look out for quantitative and qualitative criteria). Nevertheless it is possible ! The "spirit" of HNW still remains to be unveiled and re-discovered ! There are regularities, restrictions and infinities in aural sculpturing. And there is already a huge and infinitely rich history of microsonic compositions (that dates back at least one-hundred years). If you want to be decisive as an artist - start to study the works of the real musical masters. Most of the ideas used in HNW are recycled, old hats ! The so called "free expression" is very hard to achieve (it has to be the realization of the formless self). Never forget: self-betrayal and free self-expression are close friends ! So please be careful when you enter this an-archic deathtrap. Or go ahead and make a fool out of yourself. PERIOD.

It might be a naïve illusion, that there is a chance to correct the distorted image of HNW with the HNW-Q, but anyway, this blog will not stop to filter out the real important voices in this so young and paradoxically at the same time already deceased musical genre. And today it is time for one of the very few singular voices in “HNW”. I am very proud, that Clive Henry, one of the most versatile artists in the field of experimental and multi-non-genre-free-non-(con)form-music, decided to complete the HNW-Q. And Clive Henry will definitely bring your braincells into motion with his thoughts and ideas formulated as the seventh HNW-Q (allusion here to one of his major works named after a film by Michael Haneke “Der siebente Kontinent”- get it here). Burying with his releases the whole "HNW"-archè-tectonic under a aural mikado-pile of astonishing aural recablings, micrological inventions and unheard of frequencies and adventurous soundscapes.

And he is definitely piling into HNW (if you like the football imagery in this context) in a poetic manner with his soundworlds. Clive Henry is one of the few artists in HNW, who is capable to implant interfaces, bridges and seams in between the future and the past: the classics of electroacoustic-music and avantgarde-music (from Stockhausen, Pade, Lucier, Nono, Koenig, Xenakis, Lachenmann, Cage, Tudor, Oliveros, Parmegiani, Radigue, Karkowski, Kosugi, Schaeffer etc etc etc.) and the unausgeschöpften possibilities of aural research in the infinitely small world of microsounds making the listening at once a challenge and a pleasure.

Clive Henry and his works always remind me of the reasons, why I got interested in HNW in the first place a few years ago. At that time HNW seemed to develop into a new form of serious and free aural research in the field of micro-sounds. Opening music again (after this giant opening round the 1950-1970’s into stochastic, minimal, free-improvisational, fluxus, serial, post-serial and based-on-chance-operations-music-forms) to the level below traditional musical organisation of sounds - below the level of the musical note. Underneath the musical note lies the realm of microsound, of sound particles lasting less than one-tenth of a second. Recent technological advances allow us to probe and manipulate these pinpoints of sound, dissolving the traditional building blocks of music -- notes and their intervals -- into a more fluid and supple medium. The sensations of point, pulse (series of points), line (tone), and surface (texture) emerge as particle density increases. Sounds coalesce, evaporate, and mutate into other sounds.

In an impressive row of "Number pieces" Clive Henry tries to re-embody, re-assemble all the still undiscovered aural energies, sonic desires, and blind spots of "HNW". I call them "Number Pieces" since all his HNW-works bear roman numerals (the allusion to John Cage's late works is deliberately here). In his number pieces you can almost feel the desire to weld the worlds of electroacoustic, subintervallic, free-form-music to one singular hybrid. I can imagine how difficult all the microsonic, micrographic and microscopic operations and decisions are. Trying to make the frequencies coalesce - sequencing them. A process close to welding, maybe. Keeping the sounds at the edge of fitting together exactly - make them tremble, float or vibrate in between. Alchemistic in a way - trying to reach and work out of the sonic prima materia - silence. Henry puts noise into spacetime like a woodcutter puts inlaid works into wooden furniture. The reason: making out of HNW a trance-genre-music and trans-genre-music again.

Hopefully this gateway of infinite possibilities - provided by the most ambitious composers and technologies of our times (we sometimes call the present) - towards a rigorously and deliberately post-pre-human, non-anthropomorphic, or machinal soundworld remains open. Whether this happens under the name HNW (obviously this acronym is beyond interesting now) or not is not decisive anymore. More decisive is the deliberate turn to discover the infinitely small: to become "Meister des kleinsten Übergangs". Clive Henry in a way demonstrates, that a synthesis of experimental musician's craftmanship , artistical integrity and truthfulness is still possible. You should definitely give - for example - : XVIII. Der Siebente Kontinent (Altar of Waste 2013), XIII (Vagary Records 2012) or VI (self-released split with DBC), or the (for sure impressive) XX (a huge 6 C90 Box, available here) an attentive listening. Or visit Clive Henry's site here and here.

A lot would change in the "HNW"-world if more artists would follow the artistical credo written down by the polish composer Lucia Dlugoszewski: "The first concern of all music in one way or another is to shatter the indifference of hearing, the callousness of sensitivity, to create that moment of solution we call poetry, our rigidity dissolved when we occur reborn - in a sense hearing for the first time." ,Clive Henry (and the other artists already featured on my blog) has opened new trajectories and channels for ~~HNW~~ (now written crossed out).

So, what are you waiting for ? Sound-sculpturing has to be as abstract as possible. Good soundworlds should not remind the listener of anything pre-existing. Good sounds are ab-solute - (derived from the Latin absolutus) - cut off. Good sounds should transcend their sources and make them unrecognizable. Good soundworlds bring aural processes to the ear - be they static or not. All sounds fall into time and space - they are processual - and HNW is no exception. Consequently the more the sounds are cut off from already existing and well known "natural", "machinal", "environmental sounds" or "instrumental" soundworlds the better. The majority of the HNW- sounds are pointless and dull, because the used sounds weren't filtered out or cut off rigorously enough from all too known soundworlds to build up pure aural phenomena or implant a pure aural process. HNW-sounds nearly always remind of something else: absolute sounds are sadly scarce articles here. A shame ! So please open your ears for soundcolors, space, time, density, volume, rhythms and textures ! Try to produce aural micro-shiftings. Try to create a wall consciously, that lasts only 3 minutes with clearly planned nano-second-shiftings and nano-sound-events ! 1 minute is already an eternity in music ! The times of long monolithic walls are hopefully and definitely over. It's not the capacity of the medium (Cassette, CD-R, etc.), that decides how long the wall is ! It's you and your artistic consciousness and versatility .....

You can attend a Clive Henry performance - live on Halloween:
WITH LUMPS | CLIVE HENRY | ROBIN FOSTER | SETH COOKE & IAN WATSON
Café Kino | 108 Stokes Croft | Bristol | BS1 3RU
Thursday 31st October 2013 | £5
Read more HERE

This is the HNW-Q No.7 brilliantly completed
by Clive Henry:

The HNW-Q No.7:

[1] I discovered and invented HNW for myself, when several experiences piled up on top of one another. The more material aspects were traceable to a childhood love of the sound of rain on the outside of a tent, as well as early experiments with my 4-track - pushing the faders into crackling oversaturation. The more abstract and idealistic aspects were traceable to an afternoon in my 21 st year, spent staring into a black hole; followed by further, shorter periods staring into that hole in later years. Both of these aspects were underpinned by the sheer sensual pleasure that sound gives me.

[2] The initial radicality of HNW would be preserved, if it had ever existed in the ﬁrst place.

[3] HNW is the name of a sub-genre in “Noise”. Iʼm not a great fan of genres in general, because they create pigeon holes; which are rarely useful. However, H.N.W. is interesting, as its been founded on rather “black and white” terms - bands can often be “mathy” or “progish”, whereas projects tend to either be HNW or not. So it comes with rather rigorous and strict parameters and boundaries, which do conspire to delineate it from other works of sound. These also make it a rewarding space in which to work: I often seem to work harder and more creatively under restraining conditions. Beyond my ﬁrst few projects, which were a little sub-genre ﬁxated, I think this is the ﬁrst time that Iʼve knowingly placed myself in a “genre” and paid any respect to its boundaries. Iʼm not interested in paying homage to any genre or tradition - I believe in essentially two kinds of music/sound: good, and bad; however, as I said, the extreme limitations of HNW have made it interesting to explore and bend. So Iʼve done what Iʼve wanted to, as regarding HNW; sometimes Iʼve kept close to the “tradition”, and other times Iʼve strayed pretty far - whilst trying maintain the “feel” of HNW.

[4] HNW is not boring, easy or an excuse to be boring or lazy. Though this could be said of any amount of “genres”.

[5] I begrudgingly humour the acronym H.N.W. “Harsh Noise Walls” sounds like a good description for something, but as a name in itself, its somewhat silly. No?

[6] HNW is pure sound, and aspires to a purity. I do see HNW as pure sound - I ﬁnd it hard to attach emotional (etc) content to it. I donʼt see it as violent or extreme, or representative of painful aspects of existence; nor do I completely understand the notion of “themes” in the genre. For me, its just a concentrated exploration of aesthetics and sensuality - this search for a “perfect” sound. This “perfect sound” will change every time I look for it, and past “perfect sounds” might be discarded in time; but at the point of exploration/recording, I feel that that is the pursuit Iʼm undertaking. Careful, microscopic sculpting of the textures, using the slightest tweaks of pedal knobs; for hours on end: thats the work. Once the textures are found and recorded, there they are - nothing more, nothing less. Just a very beautiful, distilled, concentrated sound; presented in an almost clinical state for contemplation. Everything and nothing. A notion of purity rings loud in a lot of HNW. When I ﬁrst got into it, I was obsessed with careful, concentrated listening - seeing how apparently “static” patterns in fact repeated themselves with variations and difference (weʼre back to Feldman and his rugs, here). I even objected to samples (for example) being used in walls, because they contaminated this “purity”. Now I will sometimes listen with that concentrated focus, or just let the sound wash over me, ﬁll the room - I feel both are entirely valid. Iʼll even ﬂick through a new album, in place of a proper listen - something I would never do with any other genre (Iʼm always compelled to listen from beginning to end). I donʼt see this as remotely disrespectful at all - its like a quick hit of the textures/colours of the track in question.

[7] The sounds of machines are normally pretty prevalent in HNW; or, to be more precise, the sounds of electronics are. A fairly standard HNW set-up might involve a white noise generator being fed through a chain of pedals. The human operator tweaks the signal until they ﬁnd something satisfying, and then records the signal. During the recording they might make minor adjustments, or may not touch the equipment at all. So, once the human has made various choices in preparation, in layman terms, its the electronics that do all the “work” thereafter. HNW is probably one of the least “human” of musics, and whether this is good or bad, its certainly very interesting - thereʼs a clear parallel with the ideas of Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio and his “industrial painting”; with the works being created by machines and sold by the metre. Compared to the average HNW track, the supposedly “cold/inhuman” tones of techno look positively warm with humanity. Its like listening to machines talking to themselves - or more precisely, playing chinese whispers. The idea of a device that can create music without human input or guidance is something that has always appealed to me; though weʼll need to achieve AI before that can happen.

[8] HNW helps the nature of existence to be revealed. I realise that sounds just a little pretentious, but bear with me. I often ﬁnd that HNW puts me into an introverted (or rather a more introverted) and contemplative state; presenting a “safe” place where the full horror of our individual isolation becomes apparent and can be considered. The “enclosing” effect that a wall can have on me, reminds me of the fundamentally singular nature of human existence and relationships. Its nothing I take any pleasure from - quite the opposite - its just the incontrovertible fact of the matter: I am “inside”, and everything else is “outside” - to put it in its simplest terms. I ﬁnd that walls stimulate thought on this matter, without the overwhelming horror that can occur with these ideas. HNW as mirror.

[9] Monolithic Walls are presumably long, static walls. I have no idea. Ha.

[10] The Future of HNW would be something I donʼt think about much.

[11] The Death of HNW would be something I think about even less.

[12] HNW should be related to a mirror, a puddle or DPD to understand it better.

[13] Singularity and Originality in HNW are interesting ideas, because the “given” precepts and limitations would seem to conspire against them. But, of course, within these boundaries are a wealth of sounds; and different people follow different paths. Thereʼs much too much emphasis placed on novelty, in matters of “art”; and singularity and originality shouldnʼt be desirable targets for anyone. Just pursue what you ﬁnd interesting, for your interest. I have no desire to further, or add to, any tradition. Also, Art is bollocks.

[14] HNW should be called Static Minimalism, because it sounds slightly less silly than HNW, and gives it a serious edge.

[15] HNW should not be called Static Minimalism, because it still sounds silly. Only now it sounds serious too.

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

[17] Volume in HNW is important enough - ideally the sounds should assert their dominance over the space in which they are being listened to - though this may not require much volume. Regardless of the volume deployed, the static nature of HNW means that it transforms the listening environment; from smothering it at high volume, to delicately colouring it - like a perfume - at a low volume. No matter how loud its played, the silence that follows the end of a track is always more deafening.

[18] Distortion in HNW is the fundamental process occurring - for me at least. Funnily enough, I remember experimenting when I was much younger; piling distortion pedals on top of one another - the sound was always an increasingly weak, unattractive mush. (I can even remember an old “industrial” metal band called Optimum Wound Proﬁle, whose guitarist chained several distortions together to make something he called “barrier noise” - named after the sound that cars made when they scraped against the track sides in computer games.) I like the absurdity of chaining a ton of distortions together - its stupidly crude and crass, pleasingly low-tech. At the same time, the subtle tweaking of the knobs has a magical, “mad scientist” aspect, which is equally appealing. Whilst every part of me should object to the pedal fetishisation that goes on, it has a curious charm to it - something arcane and archaic.

[19] My Unconscious is as much of a mystery to me normally, as it is when Iʼm immersed in HNW. However, when so immersed, I often feel “quietened”; as if my conscious thought has slowed or even stopped - thus achieving an “empty” state. This is very much the same state that occurs when a black hole (as mentioned earlier) catches me, though achieving it via HNW removes the noticeable tinge of frustration and melancholy. Iʼve always wanted a mediative music, but I have yet to fully explore that side of things.

[20] Narratives, Analogies and Metaphors in HNW are quite doable, in sound terms. Obviously you can title your new release “Just as humans have a prior right to existence over dogs by virtue of being more highly evolved and having a superior consciousness, so women have a prior right to existence over men”, and then accompany it with a wall of static noise; but actually depicting that notion in terms of sound is a much more difﬁcult and interesting proposition. Samples of speech or other sounds are obvious tools to be used, but otherwise youʼre left with very little room to manoeuvre, given the limiting aspects of HNW. Iʼm often drawn to very formal gestures in my attempts: dynamic cuts, very gradual change or processing, “blocks” of sound - I often conceive my tracks in a visual sense, as much as in an aural sense.

[21] Time and Space in HNW are very important concepts, in that HNW locally redeﬁnes them around the listener. I ﬁnd that time can “stop”, as such; and space, well, thereʼs a sense of encroachment - both these have a “stilling” or isolating effect on me. People often seem to characterise wall-noise as harsh or brutal, but I rarely feel this. I donʼt think the sounds, as such, have this or any effect on me, but their deployment certainly does. The durational, overtly static nature of HNW, can envelop the listener and seclude them - temporally and spatially; so that they are left with just themselves and the sound. It promotes a sense of isolation; a sombre state which I sometimes ﬁnd studious, sometimes “blank”.

[22] HNW is absolute Nothingness. But itʼs also eternal delight.

[23] My HNW ampliﬁes my white noise generator, more often than not. Though I suppose you could make a case for it amplifying THE ETERNAL SILENCE THAT FEW DARE FACE.

[24]Minimal Music and Cosmic Drones are fairly obvious cousins of HNW. Thereʼs a clearer link there, in my opinion, than with HNWʼs supposed parent, “Noise”. “Minimal Music”, “Cosmic Drones” and HNW are all overtly contemplative, immersive musics; normally with a textural emphasis. I feel like these musics ask the listener for submission to the notion of an other greater than them.

[25] Conceptualism is the unspoken, shameful secret of HNW.

[26] The main ingredients of brilliant HNW are a possibly never-ending, collective work-in-progress, I imagine. But an attention to detail and a strong personal vision will serve you well - and obviously youʼll want to somehow get hold of “good ears”.

[27] The purpose and the concept of my HNW are the usual: distraction from the vanity of existence, pursuit of personal pleasure, pursuit of self-knowledge, attempts at meaningful communication of any knowledge gained…

[28] The distinction between ANW / HNW is more genre hair-splitting; but it does indicate a wonderfully grey area. For me personally, when I have been asked for ANW-angled tracks, I try to produce something using HNWʼs building blocks that is even more overtly meditative. Not necessary restful or pleasant, but something that might demand a different description than “HNW”.

[29] The philosophy of HNW can change - thereʼs a philosophy of HNW? I can see some ideas and thinkers that could be associated with HNW, but Iʼm unaware of any recognisable school of thought. However, those associated ideas and thinkers can change everything.

[30] My ﬁrst words about HNW were pretty damning as I remember. I had been aware of its emergence as a “genre” through talk of it on the Troniks forum. It seemed to be hip, new and often ridiculed. Anyway, I remember very clearly a HNW label posting its newest releases, and I found the wording to be pathetically laughable. My memory insists that the label spiels said “completely static!” and “totally unchanging!” - or words to that effect. I remember thinking that it sounded like a very unpromising waste of time - as if the level of itʼs stasis was any indicator of quality… It reminded me of a lot of metal advertising, which (echoing the genreʼs often “simplistic” notion of “progression”) would often revolve around a band being the “heaviest/fastest/slowest/etc” - as if, again, this was any indication of quality. Extremity is good for grabbing attention, but less good for maintaining it.

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

[32] The phrase I would like to add to this questionary is ”know thyself”.

Thanks a lot to Clive Henry - for his version of the HNW-Q

Cordial thanks for his immense aural inventions, and micro soundworlds !

Contact here

You can attend a Clive Henry performance - live on Halloween:

WITH LUMPS | CLIVE HENRY | ROBIN FOSTER | SETH COOKE & IAN WATSON

Café Kino | 108 Stokes Croft | Bristol | BS1 3RU

Thursday 31st October 2013 | £5