The HNW-Q No.8: Romain Perrot (Vomir)

 

Anish Kapoor - ‘descent into limbo’ (Kassel, 1992 )

Dear Readers,

I am very proud to present the HNW-Q No.8 featuring Romain Perrot also known as Vomir. I discovered his HNW in 2010 during a lengthy period of research for more recent and more radical forms of free form minimalism than those I have already encountered in the works of Giacinto Scelsi, Luigi Nono, Morton Feldman, Pauline Oliveros, Eliane Radigue, Helmut Lachenmann, James Tenney, John Cage, Walter Marchetti, John Cage and LaMonte Young. My desire for reasearch found further support in my deep interest in ascetic and anti-capitalist forms of thinking that I found at least methodologically embodied in the works of Martin Heidegger, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Meister Eckhart, Lao Tse, Dôgen Kigen and the Desert Fathers (from Ancient Egypt to Edmond Jabès) and also in certain forms of Modern Art represented in the works of Ad Reinhardt, Robert Ryman, Donald Judd and Barnett Newman.

Consequently it was only a question of time for me to discover the works of Romain Perrot (in my case "Renonce" and "Proanomie") that should be read and inscribed in these lines of tradition. Let's say - for the sake of simplicity: his works are post-Cage, post-Noise and post-Duchamp. Sadly, this background of HNW was not seen. The result: the HNW-brand was captured, ruined and nearly destroyed almost over night by brainless nerds with UKW-radios and tape-recorders and equally ill-informed self-proclaimed fanboynerds. Or by the countless others that wanted to pump in more content into HNW. How ridiculous, annoying, pointless and totally pathetic ! Nevertheless Vomir's HNW will remain as an immense and ultra-smart entry in the logbook of essential experimental music and noise (comparable maybe to the inventions of Hijokaidan, Incapacitants or Masami Akita). His HNW is not a petitesse. It is a mature and adult invention: nothing that could have been invented by a teenager. So please keep this in mind, that you have to grow up if you are into negations and negativity, because negations are worthless without (an in depth) knowledge of the negated and affirmations are equally worthless, if they remain unrelated to a well conceived set of negations.(I postpone the writing about Perrot's immense (also still unnoticed) scope of literary allusions that reaches from Hölderlin, Corneille, Céline to Ribemont-Dessaignes and perhaps secretly to Artaud, Bataille, Blanchot and Deleuze).

Yes. Perrot's HNW is radical, but not in the way it was usually perceived. His sounds are radically anti-capitalist, radically anti-communitarian and radically de-capitated. There is no HNW-movement and there will be never one: only disconnected bands of outsiders. His sounds are directed violently against the unconscious mantra of capitalism to dwell, own, consume and destroy. Perrot is consequently enough to fold this mantra repeatedly back against his own invention until there is nothing left to consume or to assume but absolute nothingness. Épater le bourgeois is no longer his point ! He is turning the usual idea of production and consumption upside down. Perrot produces like an anti-productive and anti-expressive factory or demonic force totally cut-off the market desiring to produce a commodity factor of zero and below. He is producing anti-matter (in all senses of this compositum). He is the non-master of anti-matter, of course, but he is very polite and generous as if he is whispering silently in the direction of the sounds: après vous ! The "listeners" are deliberately consumed and virtually destroyed by the sounds. And the sounds remain absolutely indigestible. This makes them look and sound under the capitalist optic at the same time totally useless and absolutely dangerous, because they interrupt und subvert all reasonable ideas of labour and connected ideas of shareholder value and material surplus value and consumption. (Maybe one could relate this to Georges Bataille's idea of an unrestricted economy and expenditure developed in "La notion de depense"(1933) and later in "La part maudite" (1949))

Perrot's HNW is outrageous - it atomizes everything - leaving behind only ashes and scars. His sounds are in a very radical sense non-directional, inaudible, indifferent, self-consuming and inexistent. They annihilate the subject of perception. These sounds are neither related to aesthetics nor to aesthetic judgements or systems. They are rather an excess for, or a collapse for the aesthetical apparatus or the senses themselves. Consequently it is (and should be) equally impossible to be a-part or to be no-part of the HNW-sound (cf. Bataille's idea of the proletariat as a part of no part). If you are still able to discern between sound and self you still have an aesthetic approach to HNW and you are still "listening" ! So even the formulation "I" listen to HNW is a ridiculous contradiction. Experiencing HNW is impossible and has to be a massive counter-experience. Counter-experiences are keeping the asymmetry alive between my conditions for reception and the anhuman or inhuman nothingness or abyssal otherness that appears to me (here !) as "sound".  

Without this radical asymmetry HNW would still be a part of the distractions of the global Kulturindustrie. Any attempt to re-fill HNW with aesthetic contents, intentions, or qualities is not HNW, but popmusic ! Real HNW is anti-aesthetic or better: anti-anti-aesthetic, because it is not related to aesthetical questions at all (e.g. is it loud enough ? is it ugly ? is it nice ? --- these are futile questions asked by idiots !). HNW is virtually in-finite, because it is "beyond" the perceptive horizons and cognitive possibilities of humans. HNW is beyond the programmable duality of expression-impression (cf. the title of his 2012 release Le Mur Bruitiste Est Non Programmable, Il A Une Fonction Heuristique: Il Révèle; Il Ne Représente Pas: Il Présente) This "beyond" could even open new channels for "perception" different to the industrialized programs that aim at a total "proletarianization of the sensibility" (Bernard Stiegler). Something of Perrot's deeply serious anti-anti-aesthetics embodies herself in the black plastic-bag Perrot wears over his head during his anti-performances with his back to the audience or simply lying on the floor. Perrot's "style of performance" as-if-already-dead could be deciphered with the help of Blanchot who once wrote: "Penser comme on meurt: sans but, sans pouvoir, sans unité (...) pensée de chaque côtée, en déséquilibre, en excès de sens et en excès sur le sens - sortie, dehors." And one last remark: only Perrot has the legitimate right to produce serially and almost automatically (maybe like On Kawara's daily paintings). This is his idea - he has invented it - and it will remain his idea.

In a way the photo (of an installation by Anish Kapoor) above visualizes Romain Perrot's initial idea: the desire to re-insert or fold-in a dangerous void in our homes and daily surroundings, that's desperately missing. This void is dangerous, because it is extimate (a neologism coined by Lacan) it is an intimate exteriority, an internal exclusion, or a foreign void at the heart of the familiar. If this void would not be something at the same time intimate and extimate - the void would have no interruptive force. The void has to interrupt "la société de contrôle" (a concept developped by Gilles Deleuze following a syntagma by William Burroughs and Michel Foucault's book "Surveiller et punir"). And in a way, Perrot desperately - but joyfully - seeks for nothing else but an absolute and resolute interruption of our daily, always already corrupted and exploited lifes. In a poem that accompanied his 2010 "master"piece "Renonce" we could or should have read: 

Quand je me retrouve
La solitude
Quand tout sont éloignés
La solitude pénétrante
Je me recroqueville dans le fini
Je me fige
Mon bruit interne me clarifie
Je suis pur

[written by SKG, 
21.2.-27.2.2015]

This is the HNW-Q No.8
brilliantly completed

by Romain Perrot:

The HNW-Q No. 8

[1] I discovered and invented HNW for myself, when I fully let built the sound I had in my head.

[2] The initial radicality of HNW would be preserved, if nothing happens.

[3] HNW is Harsh Noise Wall.

[4] HNW is not to have fun.

[5] I discovered the acronym H.N.W. on the releases from The Rita's label, Militant Walls.

[6] HNW is pure love, hate, magick, sex, witchcraft, giallo, nylon, reclusion.

[7] The sounds of machines are the streets, the futurist's music or from the industrial related culture.

[8] HNW helps the inner self to be revealed.

[9] Monolithic Walls are good experimental music.

[10] The Future of HNW would be no future.

[11] The Death of HNW would be in ecstasy.

[12] HNW should be related to harsh noise to understand it better.

[13] Singularity and Originality in HNW are none.

[14] HNW should be called Static Minimalism, because...

[15] HNW should not be called Static Minimalism, because static does not include necessarily harshness. HNW is no drone.

[16] The permanent repetition of the HNW-Mantra (No ideas, no change, no dynamics, no development etc.) leads to some rules I did put in my first manifesto. But that was not intended to become rules for the genre. I am no guide.

[17] Volume in HNW is of some effect.

[18] Distortion in HNW is a part of it.

[19] My Unconscious is comfortable in HNW.

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

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

[22] HNW is a possible way to absolute Nothingness.
 
[23] My HNW amplifies my mind.

[24] Minimal Music and Cosmic Drones are other genres of music, and Harsh Noise is the main genre of HNW.

[25] Conceptualism is the bad word of HNW.

[26] The main ingredients of brilliant HNW are static harsh noise.

[27] The purpose and the concept of my HNW are No ideas, no change, no dynamics, no development, in static harsh noise sounds.

[28] The distinction between ANW / HNW is in the harshness of the noise.

[29] The philosophy of HNW can change from one to one.

[30] My first words about HNW were 'static shit'. This is what I called my sounds before I embraced the HNW letters.

[31] My final words about HNW would be not now.

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

 Merci beaucoup, Romain !

Visit Romain's blog

HERE

The HNW-Q No.6: Grégory Henrion

(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:

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 !.

Contact here and listen here