Alva Noto - Transform (2001) [SAA Album Club discussion Thread]

[OccultHawk]

In my defense I'm going to quote this again:

'Transall cycle' "approaches the problematics of speed, the vision of utopia and the dissolution of our ideas into fragments."

and Twinke Twinkle Little Star explains relativity.

[Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra]

So, you suggest we just be writing songs about weed, and tits? Give the guy a break, he's thinking outside the box. Whether he achieves or no, at least he's trying to do something more than normal.

[clutnuckle]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

In my defense I'm going to quote this again:



and Twinke Twinkle Little Star explains relativity.

Well, a) You're confusing pretentiousness for ambition and artistic drive.

b) A pretentious artist =/= pretentious music.

c) It's not as though he simply said it and did nothing to achieve it. The music is clearly fragmented, cautious and occasionally very serene, all of the things that he wanted to incorporate.

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

In my defense I'm going to quote this again:

and Twinke Twinkle Little Star explains relativity.

I'm honestly not sure why you keep quoting that. Do you even know for sure that he's the one who said it?

[OccultHawk]

Originally Posted by Janszoon

I'm honestly not sure why you keep quoting that. Do you even know for sure that he's the one who said it?

That's a good point. I don't. But still it seems to me that's what it's pretending to be. Plain and simple, it's not all that. He needs to stop pretending he's the next Stockhausen. Anyway, those are my opinions. I don't think I have anything else worthwhile to add. I think yall's take on this music and your reactions to my comments are all fair and have validity but how it strikes me is how it strikes me. I hope you can respect that I did listen to it carefully with headphones and I am long term lover of experimental music. Also, it's not like I'm tossing this music out. I put it on a cdr and I'll give it some time and try it again and if it strikes me any different or grows on me I'll bump this thread and let you know.

[OccultHawk]

So, you suggest we just be writing songs about weed, and tits?

No, but those are two subjects I can definitely relate to.

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

No, but those are two subjects I can definitely relate to.

Coincidentally, Alva Noto's next album explores the nexuses of tits and weed in the contemporary milieu.

[dankrsta]

Originally Posted by clutnuckle

That's not what pretentiousness is. That's just inaccuracy misleading you. Because the song in question NEVER told you it was going to be mind-blowing. Perhaps a pretentious artist did. That artist is likely pretentious in that context when discussing that particular song/album/whatever.

An artist can only tell me that through his song. I don't see the artist, I only 'see' his song. Therefore song tells me it's going to be mind-blowing or whatever. I can call the song pretentious if it doesn't achieve what it/he promises. The artist put the pretense in the song. I don't care about him or how he acts outside of what he shows in his art. The song is his creation, it becomes a little world of its own, separated from him after it's finished. Everything he put there is now a part of it and that includes pretense.

Terms like 'emotional' and 'sad' I can sort of see being applied to music - they're so utterly general. But it's like calling a song something incredibly specific like 'jealous', not based off of angsty lyrics, but just off some sort of arbitrary decision. Such specific, situational terms never work for musical analysis.

This is very interesting that you brought up 'situation'. Yes, you can't say the song is jealous, because the situation for that feeling to emerge is not in the song. Emotions like 'happy' and 'sad' are also related to situations, but those situations are more general, I agree. But, you see, the situation for 'pretense' can be found in a work of art, in the form. Big statements on the surface (I'm talking about formal, musical statements) that leads you to anticipate some great depths of inner levels, but nothing happens actually, there are no inner levels. It's the same thing like when someone gives a speech, talks a lot in big terms, but doesn't say anything. That would make a speech very pretentious, speaker too (in relation to it), but I'm interested in speech. Everything that has an aesthetic form also has a perfect environment, or situation for pretense to appear. You may call it misleading, inaccuracy or simply a lie, it's the same thing in aesthetic terms.

If people are complex, why are we applying such nit-picky, overindulgent terms like 'pretentious' to music and not the artist? Don't the artists need the extra description if they're so much deeper and complex than what they create?

I don't really know what to tell you for that last part - pretentious IS a character trait by definition. Yes, a person won't ALWAYS be pretentious, the same way they won't always be jealous about something, but they've still exhibited the trait.

Though I will admit I like the bolded point, just not in terms of how music gets to carry all of the artist's personal problems; the music is pretentious because the artist was an ******* for a week? Not very fair at all.

Precisely because people are complex, living, always changing, I can call someone pretentious only in relation to some act. Work of art, however, is a finished product, and if an artist put some pretense there, it remains pretentious forever and ever...It becomes its defining characteristic.

Speaking of which, what is a character trait by definition? Actually don't answer this, it's a rhetorical question that will lead us too far. I was deliberately nitpicking trying to show the other side of the coin, that it's not a given truth that people are pretentious outside of their acts. That, and I don't really believe in defining character traits. But that's beside the point.

I never said music gets to carry artist's personal problems. That's something that can maybe motivate him, but what he actually puts there is more universal, deeper and abstract. He has a longing to express something. He doesn't always know how to do it, so sometimes he will pretend to know. That doesn't make him an *******.

[Ska Lagos Jew Sun Ra]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

No, but those are two subjects I can definitely relate to.

The weed I buy, but I think you're just being pretentious with the tits .

[clutnuckle]

Originally Posted by dankrsta

An artist can only tell me that through his song. I don't see the artist, I only 'see' his song. Therefore song tells me it's going to be mind-blowing or whatever. I can call the song pretentious if it doesn't achieve what it/he promises. The artist put the pretense in the song. I don't care about him or how he acts outside of what he shows in his art. The song is his creation, it becomes a little world of its own, separated from him after it's finished. Everything he put there is now a part of it and that includes pretense.

How exactly is a song telling you how it thinks it's so great (which is generally the definition of pretentiousness)? It never does because it can't speak, and it can't communicate any pomposity with you. There is no song that will directly make you think "Wow this thinks it's SO GREAT. It's not even close!". If somebody actually listens to music and feels this way about a song because it used 'fancy instrument', then that's their their problem with pretentiousness, not the song's. Pretentiousness in music appears when the artist brags about something, and then their art can't back it up. The artist is pretentious, not the music.

Music can carry a lot of things, sure. A sad feeling or two he/she had when they recorded it. But pretentiousness is one of the most direct, one-dimensional descriptions for something that takes human examples to define. Not what the human made, but how the human discusses what they've made/will make. The terms 'inaccurate' and 'misleading' are much different and ultimately more satisfying because on the song's part, it really had no control over this supposed "I was expecting a lot more from this..." feeling that we sometimes get with music. The artist does, however, and therefore he is the pretentious one. The song is just a misleading work.