Cold, sterile, inhuman music

i was all set to agree about arpanet because everything i'd heard by them fits what you*'re saying, but the track posted in this thread is musical as fuck, how can you not hear it? it's practically pop. and i liked it! i was not in the mood to start liking arpanet right now. this thread needs pxp but they're too cold sterile and inhuman to appear on youtube so you have to listen to samples at raster noton but it's pointless because you'd hate it

*for the purposes of this post, 'you' = 'whoever you are'

Actually I kinda like that one polymer, some of those tracks sound very musical to me, there's something cute and fun about those data/lo-bit sounds. I like the melodic aspects too - they're subtle but they have quite a joyous feeling that I appreciate

For me it's mostly about aesthetics. Cold, "emotionless" music is beautiful in the same way a glacier, desert or abandoned city is beautiful. It also says something about the subjectivity of the sense of beauty. And good abstract and noise-like non-music has this very "zen"-like meditative and calming effect on me in a way it distances me from the everyday thoughts and I can focus on the textures of the sound.

Saying that music is "inhuman" is a bit silly for me because I see music as an inherently human thing. Inhuman music is more like music that evokes a feeling of something inhuman instead of being inhuman in itself.

Emptyset is maybe music I would consider as cold or evoking an inhuman feel. I dig it a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8LKgDNkK7o

  On 12/6/2013 at 2:34 AM, Polymershapes said:

i was all set to agree about arpanet because everything i'd heard by them fits what you*'re saying, but the track posted in this thread is musical as fuck, how can you not hear it? it's practically pop. and i liked it! i was not in the mood to start liking arpanet right now. this thread needs pxp but they're too cold sterile and inhuman to appear on youtube so you have to listen to samples at raster noton but it's pointless because you'd hate it

 

*for the purposes of this post, 'you' = 'whoever you are'

 

 

http://www.raster-noton.net/main.php?action=products&dat=91

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the department for penetration and perversion (pxp), an fm subunit located at [http://wrzk.web.fm/], manages to transmit across viscous to impermeable dimensions a piece of raw waveform, strong DC offsets and polyrythmic acrobatics aligned between, along and on the peripheries of diverse areas such as

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and WHY ZIGZAG?

and who is juan chanson or even x75?

 

 

 

 

yeah i posted that arpanet track because it sounds pretty "inhuman" and cold (to me anyway), and it feels slightly random in terms of melody and structure. it's one of my absolute favourite tracks by the way.

I'm loving all the music posted in this thread!

This might fit the thread's criteria.

I figured Anne-James Chaton did the number reading thing just for Alva Noto. I didn't realise it was his entire schtick. lol

  On 12/6/2013 at 6:24 PM, Obel said:

I figured Anne-James Chaton did the number reading thing just for Alva Noto. I didn't realise it was his entire schtick. lol

Yup, pretty much.

Mem1 is also pretty cold, internal and microscopic in their approach.

http://youtu.be/xETAqkGhLYU

I really like when an emotionally empty musical phrase somehow earworms into my brain for days

makes me feel like a woebegone robocop

mokz - I like that emptyet one - probably wouldn't enjoy it in a club - it might give the place a pretentious 'too cool to feel anything' vibe but it's not bad to listen to at home - it has a certain atmosphere to it I like, especially with the nice video

something about things that minimal, they are a lot like trance music - repetition making you space out - I sort of feel uncomfortable when I do that - it makes me feel like I'm being lazy

paranerd - totally don't get the numbers one... for my outsider ears I just think it sounds ascetic/anti-feeling/anti-meaning to make some sort of point - it's weird how your assumptions about intention affect the way you hear things, but I can't see another way to hear it - I can't believe he really loves making it, it feels more like he thinks it's clever or important (braces self)

the mem1 one... it's not bad, but repeating the same chord after a while, the chord becomes meaningless and boring for me - I think in music you have to move around a bit to stay in the same place if that makes sense - like in SAW2. also the granular stuff doesn't really evoke anything for me (it doesn't seem to have characteristic texture/timbre that gives it a physical feeling)

please don't hit me

Brian Tregaskin - I know you don't want to analyse it but could you just talk a bit more about the Arpanet track in some way - it's a perfect example

  On 12/10/2013 at 11:48 AM, hoggy said:

mokz - I like that emptyet one - probably wouldn't enjoy it in a club - it might give the place a pretentious 'too cool to feel anything' vibe but it's not bad to listen to at home - it has a certain atmosphere to it I like, especially with the nice video

 

something about things that minimal, they are a lot like trance music - repetition making you space out - I sort of feel uncomfortable when I do that - it makes me feel like I'm being lazy

 

paranerd - totally don't get the numbers one... for my outsider ears I just think it sounds ascetic/anti-feeling/anti-meaning to make some sort of point - it's weird how your assumptions about intention affect the way you hear things, but I can't see another way to hear it - I can't believe he really loves making it, it feels more like he thinks it's clever or important (braces self)

 

the mem1 one... it's not bad, but repeating the same chord after a while, the chord becomes meaningless and boring for me - I think in music you have to move around a bit to stay in the same place if that makes sense - like in SAW2. also the granular stuff doesn't really evoke anything for me (it doesn't seem to have characteristic texture/timbre that gives it a physical feeling)

 

 

 

please don't hit me

Haha, I won't hit you. ;) I don't disagree. Anne-James Chaton's work is puzzling. I'm not sure what his intentions are, but I get a dadaist anti-poetry impression.

  On 12/4/2013 at 4:38 PM, Brian Tregaskin said:

can't be bothered analysing the hows and whys (sorry :p)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDMV34jWH30

But that's not cold and sterile, it's fucking funky. Does go on a bit though as they were just playing around with the one sample fuck, but whatever, when i think cold and sterile i think of things that are devoid of funk, or angelic melody. Pretty much most things in the top of the pops for starters. Then there's all that scenester found sound bullshit, found object bullcrap, and other assorted non-musical wank. Which i suppose you could call sterile given the fact that they've created a soundscape where no music could thrive. I don't know about using cold in a derogatory way given how much the heat here depresses me, fucking summer.

  On 12/10/2013 at 2:28 PM, delet... said:

 

  On 12/4/2013 at 4:38 PM, Brian Tregaskin said:

can't be bothered analysing the hows and whys (sorry :p)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDMV34jWH30

 

But that's not cold and sterile, it's fucking funky. Does go on a bit though as they were just playing around with the one sample fuck, but whatever, when i think cold and sterile i think of things that are devoid of funk, or angelic melody. Pretty much most things in the top of the pops for starters. Then there's all that scenester found sound bullshit, found object bullcrap, and other assorted non-musical wank. Which i suppose you could call sterile given the fact that they've created a soundscape where no music could thrive. I don't know about using cold in a derogatory way given how much the heat here depresses me, fucking summer.

 

Haha, ...erboy! ;) I like some non-musical wank once in a while. I've been playing AtomTM's Liedgut in the car and loving it.

Yeah, that Arpanet track isn't really what I had in mind in the cold and sterile category either. It's got some funk and it's kind of amusing.

Wanna trade seasons? It snowed here last night and I had to drive 70km/h on the highway. Almost went off the road it was so hard to see.

Sounds like a magical wonderland.

how about i don't know any sterile, inhuman, etc. music because my cultural background is limited, and that arpanet track is the closest thing to the topic i could think of?

personally, i love music that is lush, warm, funky, emotional, playful etc. in one word, music that has a human feel. how could one want to listen to music that literally sounds like it was randomly generated by some angry fart machine? lel, i would not.

the funkyness of that arpanet track only makes it colder, and more inhuman, imo. DEFEATING A SANDWICH ONLY MAKES IT TASTIER

  On 12/10/2013 at 5:07 PM, Brian Tregaskin said:

personally, i love music that is lush, warm, funky, emotional, playful etc. in one word, music that has a human feel. how could one want to listen to music that literally sounds like it was randomly generated by some angry fart machine? lel, i would not.

Amen.

Because emptiness and depression not a human emotions, of course. Only happy funky things.

  On 12/10/2013 at 5:07 PM, Brian Tregaskin said:

like it was randomly generated by some angry fart machine

hahahah, that is quite funnily put, well done. ;-]

Because sometimes you're tired of fucking your main squeeze to the sexy sounds of Otis Redding and instead you wanna fuck him/her to the head cracking sounds of Einstürzende Neubauten.

There really isn't a single clear answer to 'Why do you like this music while I don't?' and 'Why are you different than me?'

  On 12/10/2013 at 3:01 PM, delet... said:

Sounds like a magical wonderland.

It is. I'll trade you during xmas vacation. I'll buy you beers.

I don't get this thread at all. People being mad naive. To start, all sound/music organized by a human mind is inherently human because it possess intent. Furthermore, the act of hearing is human, intercepting rarefracted air via the ear, processing, interpreting, experiencing sonorities, textures, rhythms; these things are all informed by your organic brain and its biases accumulated through maturation and acculturation and therefore all music, and all sound, is human.

belongs in the Ae thread.

  On 12/10/2013 at 7:21 PM, Salvatorin said:

I don't get this thread at all. People being mad naive. To start, all sound/music organized by a human mind is inherently human because it possess intent. Furthermore, the act of hearing is human, intercepting rarefracted air via the ear, processing, interpreting, experiencing sonorities, textures, rhythms; these things are all informed by your organic brain and its biases accumulated through maturation and acculturation and therefore all music, and all sound, is human.

  On 12/10/2013 at 7:37 PM, hello spiral said:

 

  On 12/10/2013 at 7:21 PM, Salvatorin said:

I don't get this thread at all. People being mad naive. To start, all sound/music organized by a human mind is inherently human because it possess intent. Furthermore, the act of hearing is human, intercepting rarefracted air via the ear, processing, interpreting, experiencing sonorities, textures, rhythms; these things are all informed by your organic brain and its biases accumulated through maturation and acculturation and therefore all music, and all sound, is human.

 

*joins*

sup guys

  On 12/10/2013 at 6:45 PM, gmanyo said:

Because emptiness and depression not a human emotions, of course. Only happy funky things.

i said emotional music, which means music that conveys emotions. unless my english is broken to the point i misunderstand the word "emotional" (in which case i apologize for misunderstanding), that doesn't mean it's necessarily "happy" music.

i'll give you an example:

i love this track and personally find it incredibly depressing.

i was more responding to deion's response to you than to you