Pitchfork: Klee: "Gold" [Track Review]

in this pitchfork review of this german band klee (who's track is pretty good) they have included the youtube video to the song. what impressed me about the video is that it outlines the destruction of music.

the video begins with a really tepid band performance and shots of people at the show, a boy and a girl single each other out, make eye contact and decide they were destined to be, and leave. it shows their travels to a gas station, a cafe, and finally the ocean where they make out and walk into the sunset.

why does the video show this young couple leaving the club that the band is playing at? are they trying to defeat themselves? granted music brings people together, but i thought it was a little disturbing that this video outlines the ideal so realistically. the show is a bunch of people separated and all _sort_of_ enjoying themselves collectively. no one is touching. then these two hit it off and boom they are out of there. shouldn't we make music that facillitates bringing people together? as in the beatles song? is the ideal really to just make music that makes people fall in love with each other and cease to interact with the rest of the world? is that what love is? granted my standing with the idea of a relationship is in deep flux currently. who knows.

http://flatflat.org/ao/tellme.mp3

Tell me when to go is a song about "going dumb", a behavior that's a part of E40 and other Oakland rapper's self proclaimed Hyphy movement. Going dumb often consists of ghost riding (the process of dancing next to your moving car while no one is driving, very slowly). And turning tight ones (doing donuts.) along spastic dancing and other activities. I like the video and this song because of the wierd mixture of pop senselessness (literally "go dumb") and an attempt to ratify and commodify a local culture. E40 uses the term "movement" specifically in the song.

It's funny that we are media aware enough that rappers are consciously crafting their own movements as another form of branding and personality cult. Maybe to counter act the near instant commodification that would happen in the media otherwise.

"Bohemias. Alternative subcultures. They were a crucial aspect of industrial civilization in the two previous centuries. They were where industrial civilization went to dream. A sort of unconscious r&d, exploring alternate societal strategies. Each one would have a dress code, characteristic forms of artistic expression, a substance or substances of choice, and a set of sexual values at odds with those of the culture at large. And they did, frequently, have locales with which they became associated. But they became extinct." ... "we started picking them before they could ripen. A certain crucial growing period was lost, as marketing evolved and the mechanisms of recommodification became quicker, more rapacious. Authentic subcultures required backwaters, and time, and there are no more backwaters. They went the way of geography in general.

All tomorrow's parties, William Gibson pg 173.

electronic instrument design that emulates traditional instrument design must be wary of the fact that traditional instruments have been created through a mixture of psychoacoustic analysis of the most aesthetic shape of a phsyical object, performer usability, and happenstance. the third being in some cases playing a very significant role in how the performer relates to the instrument. the violin is a very good example. if you put it on a stick and stuck it the ground, it would be an entirely different playing experience with different gestures and different companion gestures. in fact the design of the instrument over time would have evolved differently. obviously in many cases the design of traditional instruments is the result of a great history of research and development but in some cases, it is very feasible to see where things could have gone differently. i don't want to do the research.

that being said. bahn and hahn and trueman give a very clear and compelling argument for the design of "composed" instruments that mimic the designs of tradition. however should we not be looking further (which they do to a degree) into the shapes of our bodies and our minds to create new instruments that fit us like the proverbial glove?

this brings up the point that is tantamount to my personal research, that being. when we can choose to design instruments that fit us perfectly where to we DECIDE the line is drawn between ease of use and a standard of proficiency?

do we create things that allow children to express whatever comes to mind with the utmost "ease of use" or do we traipse off into uncharted waters of redefining a level of difficulty for a new expressive tool?

the continuum:

easy as breathing -------------------------------> hard as doing timed calculus problems in your head?

what is culturally common knowledge that is difficult. subjectivity aside. translation is hard. speaking different languages. seeing things from a multifarce of perspectives. what else...

endurance... physically sustaining situations. such as 5 hour classes. or 3 hour classes with people that don't know how to teach. ok. gottago.