Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?

And forget all that noisy stuff that'll do nothing to convince you. Listen to this instead. It's just a guy and a tape recorder and the ambient sound in the room and it eventually transforms into melodies & basslines. It might help you understand what you're looking for when you listen to this stuff.
Don't just dismiss it after 5 mins saying it's boring, turn the lights off, lie down and listen to it the whole way through.



It's one of the most ingenious original albums I have ever heard and it's just one guy saying a sentence over & over.

Originally Posted by Black Francis

lol i was just giving you sh*t with the office space thing.

Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?

I would say the reason I can do it is because if I do that I'm only dismissing one song, not the entire genre.
If challenged on it I can give reasons as to why I don't like it and offer an alternative of that genre that I do like, which is something you're unable to do if it's something you're unfamiliar with.

I can dismiss a prog record in 17 seconds but I can also get excited about one in that time too.

Originally Posted by Bobbycob

There's 3 reason why the Rolling Stones are better. I'm going to list them here. 1. Jimi Hendrix from Rolling Stones was a better guitarist then Jimmy Page 2. The bassist from Rolling Stones isn't dead 3. Rolling Stobes wrote Stairway to Heaven and The Ocean so we all know they are superior here.

Originally Posted by EPOCH6

Here's a short example of experimental / noise music that's a bit easier to digest:



There's still a strong musical element here but the sounds and mood are still wildly abrasive. Let the music get under your skin, turn off your lights and use headphones if you're willing to. What's interesting about Pharmakon's music is that it's extremely empowering for her, but extremely confrontational and almost humiliating for her listeners, especially new listeners, even more apparent in her live performances where she often skulks off stage into the audience and literally screams in their faces, her eyes inches from yours. For her it's about injecting all of her visceral and primal emotions into the music (this album was written during her recovery from massive surgery), for the listener it's about confronting those emotions and letting them sink in, learning to appreciate intense experiences whether they're positive or negative, it's not about feeling good or bad necessarily, it's just about feeling a lot.

I don't want to throw albums at you, I know your queue is seemingly endless, but I think Pharmakon's Bestial Burden is a fantastic entry into this kind of music. It was even featured on Rolling Stone Magazine's website upon release, that's very rare for music like this.

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.

Originally Posted by Bobbycob

There's 3 reason why the Rolling Stones are better. I'm going to list them here. 1. Jimi Hendrix from Rolling Stones was a better guitarist then Jimmy Page 2. The bassist from Rolling Stones isn't dead 3. Rolling Stobes wrote Stairway to Heaven and The Ocean so we all know they are superior here.

Originally Posted by Trollheart

I certainly don't mean to be facetious, and I don't mean to denigrate this style of music, but I honestly don't get it. After listening to Merzbow I'm thinking, I could go out and record cars on the road, dogs barking, people laughing, mix it all together and record it, and would that then constitute noise rock? Experimental music? I'm not for one second suggesting that Merzbow has no talent --- he's released hundreds of albums and is very highly respected, so obviously he knows what he's doing --- but Venereology just sounded like noise to me, all the way through. Literally. If there had been someone digging up my garden like when the extension was getting built I could not have distinguished what I was listening to from that outside noise. It really was that bad.

So, what's the attraction? Do people really listen to hours of this for fun? Do people go to see artistes like this perform basically static in concert? If I wanted this kind of sound I could off-tune my radio and leave it between stations. I got nothing out of that album. Nothing. At all. It even made me appreciate Grindcore a little. At least those guys are playing, if not what I would recognise as music. Does Merzbow use instruments? Or so he just use all samples?

This is the kind of thing that, were I a parent and my kid played it, I'd clap my hands to my ears and shout "That's not music! That's just noise! How can you listen to that? How can you call it music?"

So, how can you?

And again, understand I am not sneering at this sort of music. I clearly don't have the ear to distinguish and pick out the nuances, and appreciate the artistry. But what is there in that? What do you hear that I don't? Is it just a musicians thing, that you play so you understand what he's doing? But not all his fans can be musicians.

Also, I don't mean just Merzbow, though this is the first real exposure I've had to this sort of music (and will likely be the last) so I'm using him as my only example. And please don't post loads of videos saying listen to this: I don't want to hear more if it's like that album. I really don't. You won't get me into it. But I am interested as to how other people can listen to it and call it music?

Be nice: I'm not putting down your music, I'm just genuinely baffled as to how anyone gets anything out of it. I'd really like to know.

Originally Posted by Janszoon

Do you ever enjoy sound simply on its own terms? I mean like the sound of crashing waves or a refrigerator humming or traffic in the rain or footsteps in a high-ceilinged space. I'd imagine to some degree or another you do. I really do. I love the texture of sound and I tend to appreciate experimental sound stuff in the same way that I enjoy sitting in a space with a lot of sonic texture, like a train station. That's really all there is to it, if it washes over me and takes me somewhere mentally, then I enjoy it. If it doesn't, I don't.

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.