(Mur blanc - trou noir)
Dear Readers,
this is the sixth installment of the HNW-Q. I am very proud, that one of my favorite HNW-artists from France Grégory Henrion (the second one is of course Vomir) known for his awesome and always intriguing pure sounds embodied as Angström (or in short Å) one of the best HNW-projects on this planet agreed to complete it. He is also the head of the important label "Anarchofreaks Production" (click here - to see what's planned, what's available and here to listen) and the main organizer of the first two European HNW Fests. The next event organized partly by Henrion will be "Bruitisme" on 27.July 2013 in Maxeville, France "un journée autour de l' improvisation et de la liberté" (click here for informations). The Anarchofreaks label supported many interesting artists (to name a few): the absolutely fantastic poly-textured Gluttoness - Black Massive (2012), one giant-size Vomir- Tape-collection (I missed, sadly) (2012), one of the first Static Mantra releases, Bördel Noir - Hors (2012) and a lot more, but take a look yourself.
It is especially thrilling to read Henrion's version of the HNW-Q in comparison to the one completed by James Killick (click) a few days ago. It is a good depiction of the musical janushead of HNW or of the inner tensions the HNW-sound seems to contain, always already somewhere in-between: embodiment or disembodiment. [As a consequence of this originary split, fissure or bifurcation in HNW I have split my review section into "Remarkable HNW-Albums" and "Remarkable Sound-Art-Oddities" a few months ago to treat both tendencies as conceptual and reflected as possible with an appropriate hermeneutical grid.]
Since the beginning it was perfectly clear for me, that Henrion is the most important interpreter, translator and performer in the tradition of Vomir's now classical and unbeatable idea of european HNW as a "secular monestary"(cf. Perrot in: The Wire and my own text about this complex, click here). I can say without further restrictions, that I have discovered HNW in its original form through the lenses and musical prisms invented and provided by Grégory Henrion and Roman Perrot (maybe the inventors and katalysators of HNW). In a certain sense this is still HNW for me. Their sounds are in a certain sense unbeatable, untouchable -- a "counter-eternal" formulation of the HNW-sound: “monde noir, désert croissant: une machine solitaire ronfle sur la plage, une usine atomique installé dans le désert” (Deleuze/Guattari).
Grégory Henrion's HNW is HNW in nuce - in a nutshell, in a capsule, in an (en)closed chamber -- created necessarily in a serial form. Angström's works are physical excercises in pleasure and pain at once - serious lessons to learn to be oneself without being related to others - free singularities in a community without unity - maybe close to what Gilles Deleuze once called an "anarchie couronnée". A deliberate and resolute step towards seclusion and retreat - in this sense foremost made for himself and not directed to others. "Nothing, after all, might be nothing other than nothing. Perhaps transparency allows one to "see" the void, that is blinding and "hear" the silence that is defeaning. (...) The question that remains is how to build a void that is not a plenum but a trace of the void. To fashion such a void would be to construct nothing or beinahe nichts", like Mark C. Taylor wrote once.
In this sense Angström's HNW is strictly non-related to any form of interiority, of creativity and of "self-realization" in Art ! (cf. the german concept-artist Gerhard Merz Video posted yesterday, or click here). That's what I would call the strong and serious modernist orientation of this form of HNW - anything that could be a reminder or residue of playfulness or content is in brackets here. How it is related to the idea of the sublime - rests to be examined. Consequently it wouldn't be difficult to rhizomize Angström's sounds with the classics of modern art (from Mies van der Rohe, Mondrian, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Walter de Maria, Mark Rothko, Donald Judd to name a few).
If I had to write about Angström's HNW (what will happen here on my blog sooner or later) I would relate it to more ideas taken from Mille Plateaux by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. In Mille Plateaux D/G have conceptualized music as a war machine against the state apparatus and its binary political logic of inclusion and exclusion, majority and minority and so on. For them music is considered capable of a total deterritorialisation, which means music has the force to restructure and break the conceptual apparatus of the state, which mainly has to do with identity-politics. Art in general and music could and should restructure society according to the deleuzian concept of a "devenir-imperceptible". For this purpose, as they write in MP: "Il est évident qu'il faut un son très pur et simple, une émission ou une onde sans harmoniques, pour que le son voyage et qu'on voyage autour du son(réussite de LaMonte Young à cet égard).C'est seulement quand la matière est suffisamment déterritorialisée qu'elle fait surgir elle-même comme moleculaire, et fait surgir de pures forces." and furthermore: "un bloc sonore, qui n'a plus de point d'origine, puisqu'il est toujours déjà au milieu de la ligne, qui n'a plus de coordonnées horizontales et verticales, puisqu'il crée ses propres coordinées, qui ne forme plus de liaison localisable d'un point à un autre, puisqu'il est dans un temps non pulsé: un bloc rythmique déterritorialisé, abandonnant points coordonées et mesure, comme un bateau ivre qui se confond lui-même avec la ligne, ou qui trace un plan de consistance" (D/G, Mille Plateaux).
If you are willing to accept the aforementioned as a backdrop - you can see, that Henrion's HNW is important for anyone really interested in the classic HNW-sound. I remember quite well - to put it in a more anecdotical manner - that my first four HNW-purchases were Angström's "unchanging insurrectional Harsh Noise Walls" (quote from the backcover of "Que crève") "Trépanation" (2010) and "Écartèlement" (2010) from the charmingly entitled 4-CD-Box "Pus" (AFP 2010) and his "Que crève la vieux monde"(Toxic Industries, Xi011, 2010) together with Romain Perrot's landmark pieces Renonce and Proanomie. I was intrigued and thrilled immediately (so I can only recommend to all you newbies in HNW to get a copy of these four recordings). Henrion's HNW-works are definitely always a good starting and ending point (if you are interested in ouroboric or self-reflexive images) - to memorize, incorporate and embody (almost like a "monk" from an anarchic order) the HNW-trias: purity - minimalism - seclusion over and over and over and over again ! HNW is HNW - and everything else is everything else (to modulate a famous sentence by Ad Reinhardt).
Later on I purchased everything from Angström: from "c'est toi le maître, c'est toi le criminel, et, ironie, c'est toi l'esclave, c'est toi la victime" (AFP 2010, on BAVE, the collection - that put France on the HNW-map), "Billot" (AFP 2011), "Untitled I,II " (Sweet Solitude 2011), "La chute des anges rebelles" (Slow Death 2011), "Toute une histoire" (Victimology Rec. 2011) , "Noire" (AFP2013, sadly sold out too fast for me), to "Néant hors du vide"(on the canadian B.C.R.-label 2012) and the impressive both sonically and conceptually "Enfermement" (AFP 2012 - part of the HNW-Swap 2012/13, download here).
If you risk a look at his blog, his bandcamp-site - you can get an impression of this great HNW-artist. So if you don't have Angström on your list or map yet - please give yourself a try and support this great HNW-artist from France - it is always a hit and never a miss !
P.S. If you are interested in the main ideas of the HNW-Q please consult all earlier versions or the main page - here you find a more general descrition of it. It should be clear how it works - now - so the general text is not reproduced here again! - click here for further informations [SKG]
This is the HNW-Q No.6 brilliantly completed
by Grégory Henrion:
by Grégory Henrion:
The HNW-Q No.6:
[1] I
discovered and invented HNW for myself, when I discovered Vomir and this mix
between noise and minimalism.
[2] The
initial radicality of HNW would be preserved, if there was an inquisition but
it may be too late.
[3] HNW is
noise purity and love of isolation.
[4] HNW is
not with variation.
[5]
I…………………….. the acronym H.N.W. ………………
[6] HNW is
pure isolation by noise.
[7] The
sounds of machines are repetitive.
[8] HNW
helps the nothingness to be revealed.
[9]
Monolithic Walls are submission to noise.
[10] The
Future of HNW would be the end of HNW.
[11] The
Death of HNW would be the democratization, the vulgarization,
the poularization of HNW and/or the end of Vomir.
[12] HNW
should be related to isolation to understand it better.
[13]
Singularity and Originality in HNW are ............................
[14] HNW
should be called Static Minimalism, because ..........
[15] HNW
should not be called Static Minimalism, because H means
Harsh.
[16] The
permanent repetition of the HNW-Mantra (No ideas, no change,
no dynamics, no development etc. ) leads to fullness, plenitude,
calm.
[17] Volume
in HNW is essential.
[18]
Distortion in HNW is essential.
[19] My
Unconscious is…………………………….. in HNW.
[20]
Narratives, Analogies and Metaphors in HNW are superflux.
[21] Time
and Space in HNW are nonexistent, outdated, obsolete.
[22] HNW
leads to absolute Nothingness.
[23] My HNW
amplifies my misanthropy, my individualism.
[24]
Minimal Music and Cosmic Drones are sweat and psychedelic versions of
HNW.
[25]
Conceptualism is the …………………………… of HNW.
[26] The
main ingredients of brilliant HNW are when you forget everything,
when you abandon.
[27] The
purpose and the concept of my HNW are oblivion, fall in nothingness,
to cut yourself off from the rest of the world, from the outside.
[28] The
distinction between ANW / HNW is simply the distinction between
A(mbiant) and H(arsh).
[29] The
philosophy of HNW can change nothing.
[30] My
first words about HNW were static, violence, minimalism and Vomir.
[31] My
final words about HNW would be nothingness, loneliness, forgetting.
[32] The
phrase I would like to add to this questionary is «Make noise for yourself.»
Thanks a lot to Grégory Henrion - for his version of the HNW-Q
Cordial thanks for keeping HNW pure, minimal, monolithic and non-anthropomorph !.
