From: dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu (Andrew C. Crowell)
Subject: Re: Skinny Puppy
Organization: University of Illinois School of Music
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 09:11:37 GMT

In article <1992Nov23.155302.4070@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au> u6066061@ucsvc.ucs.unimelb.edu.au writes:
>
>Also on Extreme, but in a different direction, is Paul Schutze.  His works are
>'film-soundtrack-like' but have some very interesting moments in them.  oh, and
>the first 'sounds' you hear on his new album "New Maps of Hell" is of a
>recording done in a car park underneath a bowling alley.(!) well worth a
>listen.  

And another that I personally recommend by Schutze is his "Deus ex Machina"
soundtrack, which is a continuous 60+ minute piece, also on Extreme. This
work really has quite a stylistic span in it, from very floating and spacy
ambient textures to NWW-like cutup techniques. Very varied, very fun.
	Also on Extreme is Jim O'Rourke, whose release, "Tamper", is another
work in the same vein, although more electronic/computer-generated sound
based -- not too dissimilar from folks like Bilting + Karkowski, and academic
folks like Carl Stone (in his more abrasive pieces) and some of the newer
computer composers based around Mills College in the Bay Area.

>
>I could mention other productions, but i am not sure in which direction to go
>without digressing too much from Last Rights. what an album. i've programed my
>CD player to skip tracks 1-4.  I am afraid that Skinny Puppy are treading new
>ground when it comes to electronic-noise-soundscape recordings of this quality
>and i think it will be some time before other groups emerge which will produce
>similar work.  
>
Actually, other such works _are_ being produced. The strange thing here is
that SP seems to be heading off in a direction not unlike the _academic_
composers_ who are currently working in computer-generated music and such.
I pointed out in an earlier post how similar the middle section of "Download"
(the CD-cutup section) is to a work of Carl Stone's, namely "Mom's". It's 
also similar to his "Hop Ken". And the last section of "Download" is very
securely in the same territory plumbed by composers like Alvin Lucier and
LaMonte Young, who've been major exponents of "drone technique" in New Music.
	I've been watching the development of "industrial music" since its
inception, way back in the mid-'70s with the original Cabaret Voltaire and
Throbbing Gristle, and have always thought that what was being done in "pop"
music by the industrialists very closely paralleled the similar developments
in academic and serious music during the 1940s and 50s. Industrial is really
_very_much_ the avant-garde, experimental direction in popular music, just
as the works of Stockhausen, Boulez, et al were the avant-garde in "serious"
music back in their day.
	And now, with pieces like "Download", NWW's "Cold" (on "Thunder
Perfect Mind"), the works of people like Schutze, O'Rourke, and so on, we've
got what you could call a "convergent evolution", in a very real sense and
in my opinion. Since most of the technological development in electronic
music _has_ been in the "pop" sector in the past 15 years or so, the people
who've originated in this have been the ones to benefit from the development
of cutting edge tech in sound generation and manipulation. They have had the
graces of the synth manufacturers, the recording equipment makers, and so
on, to bolster their efforts, and because of this, it now seems that the 
pop music avant-garde, the industrialists, have actually _caught_up_ with the
supposedly-superior academic and "serious" New Music composers. Not that
there's not been some cooperation, either; Carl Stone, for example, has 
collaborated with Z'ev, and Diamanda Galas _routinely_ performs a goodly
quantity of New Music by such composers as Iannis Xenakis and Gianscinto
Scelci.
	What next? Well, if the trend continues, and if the above writer is
right, such leading-edge industrialists as Skinny Puppy will actually move
_out_in_front_ of the current academic avant-garde in innovation and in
technological implementation. I have no reason to doubt this. The current
reigning generation of academicians are a tired lot, unwilling to diverge
in many cases from their courses to observe the track of some object of a 
more interesting nature.
	Fifty years from now, I won't be the least bit surprised to find
SP still in print, and quite hailed as "music of its epoch", along with a 
host of other industrialists...and the music of academia noted as an
"aberration", which failed to keep up with the course of human emotion and
action. It might sound a bit far-fetched, but consider...if Stockhausen hadn't
done his "Gesang der Junglinge" in 1956, would we have the synthesizer?
The modern recording studio? Sound processing techniques of extreme 
sophistication? Industrial music is an evolution _from_those_roots_, and
having brought emotion and visceral impact _back_ to benefit this music, it
may well be what's remembered.


>
>check ya
>
>drew.
>
D.A.C. Crowell
Computer Music Project/School of Music
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
(dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu)


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Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA