this episode has been a work in progress for me. the end result is a clanging, grinding barrage of scrap metal and churning synths. it's intended as a vehicle for anger and fear and pride and release and maybe some things a listener might feel.
part of the reason this took me a while is most of the music i listen to lately -- say, old school industrial -- doesn't express itself within a political context in the same way punk usually does. i like that. it's more relatable to my own disaffection. at the same time, though, the process of selecting tracks for this week led me to explore some uneasy feelings about the music i listen to. it'd be simpler if i knew of, i dunno, nurse with wound songs that were explicitly anti-cop or something. (do you?) a lot of experimental, old-school industrial, and noise artists have sentiments that are hard to pinpoint, through their music or otherwise. some are ironists; some profess shitty ideas and seem to believe them (i'll talk about that more in a future episode); some choose to engage with socially unaccepted things as a form of critique, or because to not engage is to submit and to deny, or because they want to. and others, like throbbing gristle, disrupt in a way that i see as at least partly motivated by empathy. this isn't to say that all industrial or noise music is fundamentally socially conflictual: after all, a lot of it develops in scenes, and music scenes tend to have norms and power structures. but because of the conflictuality and emotional depths it does provide, i think the music here offers something unexpected and appropriate all the same for the riots cracking through this moment.
among the artists included, there are anarchists who held down a squat repeatedly attacked by nazis (though so far it's hard for me to tell when bourbonese qualk have simplistic leftist beliefs and when that's an affect; either way, the former members have uploaded all their albums for free); people who assisted a miner's strike and are usually described as socialist (i have trouble imagining how a song like "total state machine" isn't actually critical of world collectivism, though); and various artists whose anger or discontent or disaffected mirth resists easy definition. with the exception of the explicitly political atari teenage riot song, i've opted for songs that evoke rather than explain, and that feel personal at least as much as they feel external. it's a different kind of immediacy.
after i uploaded this to hollow earth early yesterday morning, i discovered LA was on fire.
oh. yeah. there's a 20-minute noise track in the middle. i cried while listening to it recently. it wasn't about something directly related to ferguson. but it felt like a sign.
mixcloud
tracklist
Abfackeln!
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Einstürzende Neubauten
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00:00
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Total State Machine
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Test Dept.
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03:24
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Ruin Radio Voice Break (Music For Burning Cities)
backing track: Atrocity Exhibition (Live, 20 February 1980) |
The Hamburglar Lady
Joy Division |
09:23
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Hate Is Such A Strong Word
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British Murder Boys
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09:41
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Start The Riot
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Atari Teenage Riot
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11:57
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Cover Their Faces
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LFY
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15:34
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Backlash
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Bourbonese Qualk
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19:42
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Burning Torches Of Despair
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The Haxan Cloak
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21:48
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Ruin Radio Voice Break (Music For Burning Cities)
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The Hamburglar Lady
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25:22
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Hitting The Pavement
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Kevin Drumm
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25:42
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Ruin Radio Voice Break (Music For Burning Cities)
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The Hamburglar Lady
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45:39
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City In Flames [Parts 1-3]
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Tim Hecker
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45:59
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The World Fell
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Vår
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52:40
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Semi-Sorted
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No Age
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56:06
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