High and Low

As a listener, I seem to be heading in trajectories that are completely contradictory. The older I get the more immature my interests seem to be but also I’m being led into worlds of high seriousness and pretension.

My current rotation would be a good place to demonstrate this. I have gotten myself involved with hardcore band Deep Wound, most famous for being Lou Barlow and J Mascis’ first band. There is something wonderfully juvenile about them. They sound like wild teenage ID running riot in a supermarket, grabbing products off the shelves and trying to eat them before removing the packaging. They perfectly embody punks most immediate urges and desires for unmediated experience and fulfillment. Few songs lasts more than a minute and nor could it: Deep Wound expunge every thought/feeling/spasm right there in front of you and that’s rarely ever coherent or sustainable.

My fascination with this may not last long but this certainly pushes certain buttons right now.

At the opposite end of my brain right now lies Pierre Schaeffer. He was one of the pioneers of Music Concrete, the construction of sound art from recorded sound sources rather than musical instruments/notes. Despite his quite academic intent, his music does have an attractive element to the listener thats unaware of Schaeffers project. His use of disembodied voice and old classical music lend his work an almost spectral intangibility constructing it from traces of recordings long forgotten but living on in new contexts.

His intent and approach would seem to be the opposite of anything resembling Deep Wound but they both seem to be satisfying completely uncomplimentary musical needs.