Lord Bassington-Bassington appreciates many forms of music, from Oi! to opera, that seem noisy to people who are not used to them. But he has always had an ambivalent relationship towards pure noise.
While admitting to a certain interest in the noise of acts such as Whitehouse, NON, Genocide Organ (and Merzbow), all of which have led him to purchase recordings or concert tickets (or both), he usually finds pure noise not just annoying to listen to, but ultimately tedious. What’s wrong with a nice chorus?
The pleasure of knowing intelligent people is that they often find better ways of expressing your thoughts than you are able to do yourself. And Lord Bassington-Bassington is privileged to know two fine humans who are not only aficionados of noise, but have dabbled in the genre themselves, and are able
The Lord Bassington-Bassington Chronicles are therefore pleased to present The Final Notes on Noise.
One quote is by underground archivist/activist Jan R. Bruun, who once commented:
“You know, I don’t listen much to noise records now that I have two small sons”.
The other is by musician, DJ and all-round fine fellow Anders Moe, who remarked:
“If you’ve heard a million noise records, you’ve heard them all”.
These two quotes say it all, don’t they?
So while pondering whether to attend the Merzbow performance, Lord Bassington-Bassington would like to take the opportunity to plug not only his favourite noise record, but one of his favourite records of the last decade, Children of the Black Sun, recorded by Boyd Rice under the name NON. This record might very well be the crowning achievement of the entire genre. And as Mr. Rice was one of the original pioneers of noise music, it’s very fitting that he should deliver the final word.
Buy the CD/DVD package – the sound on the DVD is absolutely fantastic.
I've still never listened to the surround sound version properly. I've got an amplifier/tuner that can DO 5.1, but I've got two giant vintage speakers attached. My home stereo tension has always been the fact that "upgrading" means loosing the incredible sounding speakers that my father owned as a bachelor.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I've never listened to it on a surround system either. But it sounds amazing enough on my Mac hooked onto my quite humble, but quite okay stereo.
ReplyDeleteI've never really understood people who are into the whole "sound" thing. It's usually just another form of boring snobbery (in contrast to entertaining snobbery, like snappy socks etc.)
I'm more interested in the music I listen to than the equipment it's played on, but I really understand the thing about your father's speakers. After all, I really caught the vinyl bug when I inherited a huge amount of vinyl from the elder Bassington-Bassington, who quite possibly has the best taste in music on the Western hemisphere.