Caroliner...
Experimental music can be difficult to classify. I don't mean the music itself, i mean the adjective "experimental." See, already off to a bad start.
It boils down to rejecting some fundamental aspects of what makes music music. You might reject any or all of the notions of melody/harmony/rhythm/meter, you might reject the act of composing or predetermined logic, you might eliminate the concept of beginning or ending, or goal completion, or instruments themselves, or you get the idea.
On my lunch break today i learned about California art collective Caroliner.... The ellipses are necessary because every finished project uses a different appendix for unspecified reasons (though it's pretty safe to assume that they correspond to the personnel in some way). General consensus is that their output is Industrial Experimental Psychedelic Bluegrass, and that clearly deserves some unpacking.
You're going to listen to some of it and call it nonsensical gibbering garbage, and you are of course correct. But, that does nothing to distinguish it from any other music you might consider nonsensical gibbering garbage (The Incredible String Band, Glass Ox, Conlon Nancarrow, Throbbing Gristle, Merzbow, Tiger Lillies, Neutral Milk Hotel, or dare i say it Talking Heads). Remember, we aren't talking about good/bad, like/hate, or serious/parody. We're just trying to come to terms with it's existence.
Experimental Bluegrass is simply the obvious context of Banjo forward music, and you aren't gonna confuse this for Bela Fleck or Steve Martin. Psychedelic really just means that whatever you think reality is, this doesn't inhabit it. Industrial, the same way i've been describing it all along, is that ultra modern concept that humanity is now defined by the machinery that enslaves us, the noise, the unfeeling mechanical violence, the anonymity.
The gut reaction is to laugh, like you laugh at horror movies, or extreme metal, or Blood Sweat & Tears. Yet, that shouldn't be the end of engagement. 3 decades of putting records out at their own expense says it isn't a novelty (Fred Firth and Yoko Ono come to mind). Whether or not it's a joke, it's very much an intentional labor; creating it and extravagantly performing it internationally was and continues to be a serious endeavor for those involved, regardless of listener perception (see the story of Richard Benson).
Below is a link to their full albumography. That will be too much for you to handle, so if you just want to hear their most accessible song (stretching the word accessible beyond all healthy physical limits), take a listen to Burdensome Blood:
https://youtu.be/4Ms7NeWzRK0
Sweet nightmares, kiddos.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkyz3_m3zeWEcWPfejhN2v3ZyxDYFijbz
Next
It boils down to rejecting some fundamental aspects of what makes music music. You might reject any or all of the notions of melody/harmony/rhythm/meter, you might reject the act of composing or predetermined logic, you might eliminate the concept of beginning or ending, or goal completion, or instruments themselves, or you get the idea.
On my lunch break today i learned about California art collective Caroliner.... The ellipses are necessary because every finished project uses a different appendix for unspecified reasons (though it's pretty safe to assume that they correspond to the personnel in some way). General consensus is that their output is Industrial Experimental Psychedelic Bluegrass, and that clearly deserves some unpacking.
You're going to listen to some of it and call it nonsensical gibbering garbage, and you are of course correct. But, that does nothing to distinguish it from any other music you might consider nonsensical gibbering garbage (The Incredible String Band, Glass Ox, Conlon Nancarrow, Throbbing Gristle, Merzbow, Tiger Lillies, Neutral Milk Hotel, or dare i say it Talking Heads). Remember, we aren't talking about good/bad, like/hate, or serious/parody. We're just trying to come to terms with it's existence.
Experimental Bluegrass is simply the obvious context of Banjo forward music, and you aren't gonna confuse this for Bela Fleck or Steve Martin. Psychedelic really just means that whatever you think reality is, this doesn't inhabit it. Industrial, the same way i've been describing it all along, is that ultra modern concept that humanity is now defined by the machinery that enslaves us, the noise, the unfeeling mechanical violence, the anonymity.
The gut reaction is to laugh, like you laugh at horror movies, or extreme metal, or Blood Sweat & Tears. Yet, that shouldn't be the end of engagement. 3 decades of putting records out at their own expense says it isn't a novelty (Fred Firth and Yoko Ono come to mind). Whether or not it's a joke, it's very much an intentional labor; creating it and extravagantly performing it internationally was and continues to be a serious endeavor for those involved, regardless of listener perception (see the story of Richard Benson).
Below is a link to their full albumography. That will be too much for you to handle, so if you just want to hear their most accessible song (stretching the word accessible beyond all healthy physical limits), take a listen to Burdensome Blood:
https://youtu.be/4Ms7NeWzRK0
Sweet nightmares, kiddos.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkyz3_m3zeWEcWPfejhN2v3ZyxDYFijbz
Next
Comments
Post a Comment