Wednesday, February 18, 2009

the fires of dissension re. the hardcore continuum continue to rage!

quick recap of the last week and a half:

On the eve of the FACT talk K-punk gets in a quick preemptive strike at, erm FACT (no relation, the mag not the arts organisation)

A Man Like Dan (hancox) comes back swift with a counter-salvo

(call that armshouse?!?!)

Alex aka Gekopel at Splintering Bone Ashes (how anti-vitalist is that name eh?) chips in with some interesting thoughts

Which prompts expansionist elaboration from K-punk

(Now this idea of an ecological crisis for music, the exhaustion of resources, is one I've toyed with at various points, there is something to it, but I suppose the doubts I have with it is that it is ultimately metaphor--"culture" isn't really like global reserves of tin or fossil fuels or whatever. There might well be links between the state of culture and the state of the economy, or rather, there have been in the past, since I'm not sure they still operate in any simple and direct way anymore (and as it happens I have a FACT--magazine not arts org--essay going up soon exploring my doubts about this, cueing off that hoary chestnut you are hearing again at the moment about how the recession will lead to good music, yeah right, dream on...)

And, coming thick and fast,more thoughts from Alex here
and
here

Swiftly countered by K-punk! - at which point you'll be getting theory-whiplash...

(I have to agree with Man like Mark: "transversal rave" and Alexian characterisations such as its relative looseness and inclusiveness to a proper diversity of disparate aesthetics" ... it does all seem a bit like a poncy way of say "eclectronica". And this bit--"a transversal analysis in-itself operating beyond merely a postmodern genre-game... rather than a pick and mix approach to generic materials, wonky is strategically applied to pre-existent genres, not as an adhesive but as a liquefying agent" ... that sounds rather like what Mille Plateaux did vis-à-vis a series of established [and often nuum-y] genres [they even did a "response" to speed garage! at which point you realised that's all they did, wait for somebody to come up with a new genre and then do a "deconstructive twist" on it]. Right down to the Deleuzo-Guattarian rhetoric in the sleevenotes and press releases by label boss Achim!)(I enjoyed it all, the sounds and auto-theory, at the time, of course).

Hold tight for a proper post by me on Wonky. Thesis in a nutshell: wonky = illbient X internet