Hauntology

So, as a great lover of music described as "hauntology," and as someone who has noted a distinct reluctance in fans of said genre to utter its name (which is frankly a helluva lot better than "nostaligica," if you must know), I would like to ask those who are fans of said musics to please define them. What is it that is similar between my love of Ghost Box and Demdike Stare? Why is it that releases by folks like Svarte Greiner or Oneohtrix Point Never seem to skirt the frontiers of the hauntological universe? And why is it that there is this self-conscious impulse by folks to not use "the H-word"?

Your thoughts.

edit due to pur spulleng

the term hauntology in the musical sense was coined out of an article written by simon reynolds in the wire.

what it really means is kinda like the boc idea of nostalgia for an imagined former era. cold-war dread of a nuclear apocalypse. open university lectures that haven't changed for twenty years because the field in question has never advanced. hammer horror films from the 1970s (or samples from, think demdike stare). public information films about thin ice that are waaaayyyyy too scary to have been shown to kids back in the day (think the advisory circle). hp lovecraft, algernon blackwood, cs lewis' scarier stuff (think belbury poly). it's a difficult and nebulous concept to define, which is why people like ghost box aren't very fond of it. and that's why a lot of people tend to call it the h-word.

edit: i'm facebook mates with jim 'belbury' jupp. i used that word once on his wall. i won't be doing that again

never heard of it. reminds me of witch house.

why are all genre names so fucking these days?

the genre name hauntology is derived from a term in deconstructionist philosophy coined by jacques derrida in 1993

but yeah it's kinda - another reason that it's derided by people within the genre, much like IDM i guess

  On 7/16/2011 at 3:22 AM, fox said:

So, as a great lover of music described as "hauntology," and as someone who has noted a distinct reluctance in fans of said genre to utter its name (which is frankly a helluva lot better than "nostaligica," if you must know), I would like to ask those who are fans of said musics to please define them. What is it that is similar between my love of Ghost Box and Demdike Stare? Why is it that releases by folks like Svarte Greiner or Oneohtrix Point Never seem to skirt the frontiers of the hauntological universe? And why is it that there is this self-conscious impulse by folks to not use "the H-word"?

 

Your thoughts.

 

edit due to pur spulleng

i don't know any of those musicians. i'm guessing this stuff is like, spooky crackly harpsichord with reverb ?

pretty silly name, but "the h-word" is an even sillier way to go about referring to it

  On 7/16/2011 at 7:07 PM, luke viia said:

pretty silly name, but "the h-word" is an even sillier way to go about referring to it

HEROIN

  On 7/16/2011 at 4:05 AM, Boxus said:

never heard of it. reminds me of witch house.

 

why are all genre names so fucking these days?

Maybe we should be more systematic like Linnaeus perhaps?

It is more than just music, but the artists are right in refusing to be pigeonholed to such terms - which critics love - since that cripples them and once the movement is out of vogue so are they, like with IDM. And yes it has to do with bringing the past into the present, an irruption, a memory of something lost, a remnant of a future utopia that never came to place, use of outdated methods of production, it can be lots of stuff!

You can see how easily this can become sad and defeatist or subversive and even revolutionary depending on it's particular use.

This article is cool

Hauntology as the zeitgeist

does "hauntology" still exist ?? i thought it was all "hypnagogic" now...

anyway hauntology makes thing of Ghost Box, Toys & Techniques, The Wire and yes... Demdike Stare

hope miles + sean don't hate me for that...

I probably censor myself for the same reason that I'd be embarrassed to utter or type 'IDM'. The over-riding synonym that always comes to the fore when contemplating the big 'H' for me though is Quatermass (and not the band). Be it Andre Morrell or John Mills, that's almost always what comes to mind for me, along with countdowns to the beginnings of schools' programme's on a weekday morning.

  On 7/16/2011 at 7:04 PM, hahathhat said:

  On 7/16/2011 at 3:22 AM, fox said:

So, as a great lover of music described as "hauntology," and as someone who has noted a distinct reluctance in fans of said genre to utter its name (which is frankly a helluva lot better than "nostaligica," if you must know), I would like to ask those who are fans of said musics to please define them. What is it that is similar between my love of Ghost Box and Demdike Stare? Why is it that releases by folks like Svarte Greiner or Oneohtrix Point Never seem to skirt the frontiers of the hauntological universe? And why is it that there is this self-conscious impulse by folks to not use "the H-word"?

 

Your thoughts.

 

edit due to pur spulleng

i don't know any of those musicians. i'm guessing this stuff is like, spooky crackly harpsichord with reverb ?

nope

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RCAXOsCm2s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6qlZ3Bu7b0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFVBeRH1fio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hck89wOfil8

i would argue that Zoviet France were already refining the genre on their 1987 album Loh Land,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiVbsrmJ4sg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A4VZvggNS4&feature=related

BOC and some of the 'earliest' bands given this description seem to be heavily inspired by these techniques, or perhaps the next generation just found it organically easier to make something sound ultra gritty and reminiscent of older sounds

this song doesnt so much sound like BOC directly but evokes a lot of the same emotions for me, also one of the most beautiful ambient songs that i know of

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgCrgyVYKrg&feature=related

  On 7/17/2011 at 1:17 AM, kaini said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hck89wOfil8

Even amongst the GB back catalogue, this is a moment of 'WTF?' brilliance.

  On 7/17/2011 at 1:47 PM, Caretstik said:

  On 7/17/2011 at 1:17 AM, kaini said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hck89wOfil8

 

Even amongst the GB back catalogue, this is a moment of 'WTF?' brilliance.

it's my favourite BP track.

i asked jim, he said he played everything on it.

  On 7/16/2011 at 8:58 PM, m u st co n t r ol t h o 4 said:

It is more than just music, but the artists are right in refusing to be pigeonholed to such terms - which critics love - since that cripples them and once the movement is out of vogue so are they, like with IDM.[/url]

You're right but fuck you, Paul Klee, I despise you and your stupid pictures.

i will admit though that when the British are in control of the buzz word genre names they far exceed the coolness of our American buzz word genres like Witch-house, which is clearly the most inappropriate non descriptive genre name ever.

Kaini since you seem to be an expert in the Ghost box/hauntology world would what do you think of the zoviet france examples i posted? They definitely aren't pop in any way like a lot the other ghostbox stuff is, nor are they even structured like a BOC song but i feel like they were doing this faux old equipment/techniques sound before most other people. I know hauntology can't just be deduced to that, im probably not understanding it that well

what i like about this whole aesthetic is i feel it's a sign electronic music making as a paradigm has gone full circle. It took a while before we started hearing bands like Cinematic Orchestra where you literally can't tell if they are sampling themselves degrading it or sampling old jazz records.

  On 7/18/2011 at 12:33 AM, Awepittance said:

what i like about this whole aesthetic is i feel it's a sign electronic music making as a paradigm has gone full circle. It took a while before we started hearing bands like Cinematic Orchestra where you literally can't tell if they are sampling themselves degrading it or sampling old jazz records.

Part of my "understanding" of hauntology, beyond the Ghostbox label or other Brits like the Caretaker especially, has been assisted by the fact that James Ferraro and Ariel Pink have also been described as such.(They have also been credited as the "godfathers" of the chillwave/hypnagogic pop trend of the last couple of years.) It's the whole "memory of a memory" concept, with Ariel Pink's music I feel like I'm listening to rock music that's very familiar, but it strays away from imitating a certain artist or genre and invokes a more specific nostalgia I can't really pinpoint. It also seems to be a sound that people can find familiar for different reasons or without a set of similar reasons.

  On 7/18/2011 at 12:33 AM, Awepittance said:

Kaini since you seem to be an expert in the Ghost box/hauntology world would what do you think of the zoviet france examples i posted? They definitely aren't pop in any way like a lot the other ghostbox stuff is, nor are they even structured like a BOC song but i feel like they were doing this faux old equipment/techniques sound before most other people. I know hauntology can't just be deduced to that, im probably not understanding it that well

that last one is particularly lovely, and has that detuned, woozy sound that some of this stuff does. i suppose the key thing with hauntology is that it evokes that 'memories of a past that may not have been' kind of sound - i think it was coined in a wire magazine article called 'haunted audio' from a couple of years back, which i'll have to dig out.