Stockhausen score...

Collage / Do Anything You Wanna Do / Lemmy's Dead

They Said It Couldn't Be Done, R.Tomens 2015

................................................................................................................................they say anything can be done if you put your mind to it - bah! - we know that's rubbish..........but you've got to try.........
                                                                                                                                        anything
anything you really want to do, that is..............trying to do anything you don't want to do is really hard....like shopping for food which, when you think about it, should be something you want to do but I find today's supermarket climate difficult to face...........the feeling that I'm being ripped off impossible to avoid......'Only £1' Yes? Is that a bargain? I don't think so............

blah, blah, blah

listening to Stockhausen, that's something I wanted to do half an hour ago

so I am

this...

                                          inspired by his forthcoming appearance as Composer Of The Week on Radio 3

starting Mon Jan 4 & tomorrow, New Year's Day, they're broadcasting Hymnen at 20.30 so that'll be a fun way to celebrate the start of 2016, won't it? well, not everyone's idea of fun, true.............

............................some of my old school friends are dead & so is Lemmy................you may have heard..........his mush has been all over the social network as everyone mourns...............including the mainstream press, who have to get in on the act as if they spend the rest of their time celebrating the wayward, hedonistic, individualistic FUCK YOU lifestyle rather than constantly telling us what we should & should not eat, smoke, drink whilst generally promoting the bourgeois values & material things that chain half the nation to working more than is good for them & making the other half feel inferior because they don't own perfect teeth, houses, nice cars etc or go on fancy holidays........................but Lemmy's dead! Oh no! what a rascal he was! we abhor his lifestyle in reality & would hate to be stuck in a bar with him because he actually stands for everything we hate as a lifestyle but.................Lemmy's dead......(sniff, sob).......................arseholes.............

TTFN

Karlheinz Stockhausen/Stuckhausen Bargain Vinyl Finds

Ah, don't you hate it when record-buyers brag about finding super rare albums at a bargain price - the bastards! That never happens to me, until yesterday. I've spent decades getting my fingers grubby in second-hand shops, enduring the sight of so much crap in the hope of finding something good, but no. OK, a long time ago, before Jazz vinyl became sought after once the Jazz Revival started you could pick up original albums at good prices. Other than that, over the years sellers have become more knowing - damn the internet! How dare charity shops get more money for rare records thus depriving me of a bargain!

So yesterday I was in Crouch End's Oxfam, checking the books first, as usual, then finally the Classical racks for 20th century avant-garde stuff that never materialises when...hold on...Stockhausen? A pound? And another! And another! AND ANOTHER! I nearly passed out. Upon pulling out the inner sleeves to check the condition I realised they were all ex-library records complete with stamp cards. This is the record of withdrawals from Stoke Newington District Library for Prozession. Not much demand over nearly five years, as you can see...what a surprise....

...these library cards add even more pleasure to the finds, for me, a historical record, the kind you rarely see. I try to imagine the types that would have opted for Stockhausen. The dates on the percussion album go right back to 1971...perhaps some hippies borrowed it...or tweedy intellectuals...the only types I can think of who might be interested in Stockhausen back then. Nowadays his name is dropped more often; the old barriers of high culture and elite inaccessibility having been smashed by the internet. In theory. No, let's not be negative. It's obvious that those who would never have heard him in the 70s or even 80s...proles like me, perhaps, can now enjoy the democratic easy access online sound world possibilities. Remembering, of course, that you can lead a horse to water etc.

I love the back sleeve to opus 70 with photos of some electronic gear...

...I also love the crackles and pops of the vinyl (yes, that old record junky fix!), which is not to say I wouldn't have preferred them all to be in VG condition. But having checked the first and seen the library stamps I knew they'd all be well-worn. Such is the way of borrowers; no need to respect the vinyl. I've managed to scrape off a few bits that obstruct the needle in its progress through the grooves. There haven't been many so far. Well, would you like to hear some Stuckhausen? Of course you would. Here's the sticking point on Prozession...

That was fun, wasn't it? TTFN

Music Becomes A Whore

'Using music like a drug is stupid. One shouldn't do that: music is the product of the highest human intelligence, and one of the best senses, the listening senses and of imagination and intuition. And as soon as it becomes just a means for ambiance, as we say, environment, or for being used for certain purposes, then music becomes a whore, and one should not allow that really; one should not serve any existing demands or in particular not commercial values. That would be terrible: that is selling out the music.' - Karlheinz Stockhausen

Twenty years ago Radio 3 reporter Dick Witts sent Stockhausen music by Aphex Twin, Scanner, Plastikman and Daniel Pemberton to see what he made of it. The quote above is part of his general response to what he heard. The use of repetition particularly annoyed him: 'I know that he (Plastikman) wants to have a special effect in dancing bars, or wherever it is, on the public who like to dream away with such repetitions, but he should be very careful, because the public will sell him out immediately for something else, if a new kind of musical drug is on the market.' 

'Dancing bars' - ah, bless the old master. Taking the high ground (where he naturally lived, of course, in a tower), Stocky having none of the kid's beat music is, on the one hand, hardly surprising, although it could have gone another way. He may have been the type who understood that Youth loves repetition, the Rock beat being an old invention by then, and accepted it for what it is. Yet something about his total disdain for contemporary electronica/techno pleases me. It's an almighty slap down from a God rather than an attempt to understand.

In a way, trying to understand is unbecoming in the same way that middle-aged folk try to understand what their kids are listening to, not because they really want to but because they feel they should. Why? Because they want to bridge the generation gap in order not to be like their parents and unlike the older generation they had Youth Music of their own, so they feel they should be able to relate. Parents today dread appearing 'old', whereas parents before them had no problem with it.

Whilst Stockhausen understood the principal aim of Plastikman's Techno (which by current sell-out DJ dance music standards may appear somehow intellectually rigorous) he failed to grasp that it and the other examples came from another universe to his. Perhaps it was obvious to him, yet he makes comparisons with his own music and even recommends examples that the young ones should hear. The cheek! As for being sold out by the public, yes, unless any music-maker stays on top of their game people will move on. That said, Richie Hawtin still seems popular as a DJ. Perhaps that's where the real money is, a week's residency in Ibiza and one-off appearances at super clubs. I know Scanner still has a career in music. 'He has a good sense of atmosphere' according to Stockhausen. 'But he is too repetitive again'.

From another angle we can look at Electronica circa 1995 and see that whilst some of it really was avant-garde compared to cheesy 4/4, the urge to repeat had such an unshakable hold on most of it. Detroit Techno was, after all, a sacred reference point. When shown Stockhausen's response to his music, Scanner said 'What I like about repetition is that it can draw the listener and lull you into a false sense of security.' We've heard this idea expressed many times, of course; the listener is seduced by the ancient lure of the beat and once trapped is treated to mind-blowingly advanced ideas.

Mmm, I'm not convinced it works like that. Or rather, I believe it's a dangerous game for artists to play. If the trick works, they're trapped behind bars (to the beat) of their own making, knowing that people are buying because of the beat and feeling unable, or afraid, to jettison it for free music. I suspect Scanner is one of the more adventurous with regard to this. He does play the more 'intellectual' circuit and get interesting commissions rather than playing beats on a beach.

To state the obvious, that generation didn't come from a tradition of conservatory study in neo-classicism or need to know about complex musical theory. Moving on, all that seems even more old hat today, when High Classicism is redundant in all art forms. What music today does prove is that without having studied in the classic sense, music-makers can be as avant-garde as anything that went before. The noises you can hear in abundance on Bandcamp may not have the rigid structure or finely-honed compositional skills of the neo-classical/electronic tradition, but it is free from the need for repetition, the desire to lull anyone into a sense of security.

The downside of this free-for-all is that some folk are making very long tracks without the faintest idea of how to hold a listener's attention. It might fall into the 'ambient' category, but much of it is little more than music that's 'like a drug', to use Stockhausen's phrase. The drug it's like is Temazepam and some people love to take it. Ambient in its worst sense is just a silence filler for those who hate not to have music on. That and perhaps they fool themselves (or genuinely believe) that because it refuses Stockhausen's dreaded repetition it must therefore be 'deep'.

When he's very old and regarded as a master musician (what, you mean he already is?) perhaps Aphex Twin will be handed music by youngsters and asked what he thinks. He too may warn them about music becoming 'a whore'. One thing's for sure, he won't be condemning them for using too much repetition.

Magazine For Sale: Welcome To...The Nice Age

Here it is...Welcome To The Nice Age...packed with Nice fluffy pictures and perfectly bound...it is not. Instead, it contains, amongst other things, stark black and white images created by me, along with a joke or two (see the little girl and her pussy cat about to go up in flames - hilarious!). Whilst the content is mostly pictorial there are some pasted texts involved.

The details: 

Size: A4. 

30 pages (stapled in the tradition of early small magazines).

Cost: £7.95 plus p&p ('Free to all who pay', as Bill Burroughs once said). Ships worldwide.

Your copy will contain two original printed pages, making each magazine unique.

Plus a CD. See below. 

Details from some pages...

Here's an example with a unique printed page visible...

Also included, a cut up called Solar System Brain Landscape...

The CD, Stalkhausen, is a 35minute-long sonic reshaping of music by a composer whose name you can probably guess...it's a de-arrangement...possibly deranged too...you won't believe your ears! 

Welcome To The Nice Age will be limited in number so if you want a copy I suggest not waiting too long. 

Get Ready For Old Age With One Direction

The Ready for Ageing Alliance has set out an 11 point prescription to help individuals prepare for ageing. Point number 9 in the prescription is:

Keep up to date with the kids: The world is changing around us. Keep your mind active and engaged, from new digital technology through to new attitudes. Make sure you aren’t missing out and take every opportunity to talk to younger people. Try to get yourself online. Listen to One Direction (at least once).

Yes, be a groovy grandparent and impress the kids with your knowledge of One Direction! You know it makes sense. You're over 50, getting longer in rotten tooth and grey-haired, cut adrift from what is cool...and the kids aren't impressed by your insistence that The Beach Boys or The Clash constitute great music. Don't let your brain rot from over-indulging in all that saccharine nostalgia for the music of yesteryear, you old fart.

So what if the kids laugh behind your back at your pathetic attempt to be modern, at least you try, eh? And don't come out with that Classic Rock nonsense because there's no such thing any more. Astral Weeks means nothing. Neither does Kind Of Blue or Pet Sounds. They are the musical equivalents of home-made jam and basket-weaving.

As for that wild music of your youth, it's already antiquated - turning rebellion into sounds for the old folk's home. "Put on some NWA, they like that", says the nurse. But sadly, they won't even have retirement home sing-along sessions in the future because every old person will be locked into their own musical world with personal players. This is a shame because they won't be sat 'round singing 'White riot!' or 'Fuck the police comin' straight from the underground!'.

All old (over 50) people need to keep their minds 'active and engaged' and One Direction will do just that. Put Sinatra or Aretha Franklin aside, just for a while. They might be good, but listen to these boys...the harmonies, melody and rich tonal variation of those voices! You see? If you don't see, you'll remain on the road to cerebral ruin.

As for the few of you who prefer obscure nonsense like Stockhausen, Bach or Sun Ra, that's all well and good but it doesn't mean a thing to the kids and no-one else in the old folk's home will understand it either. So you lose on both counts. Isolation in old age is a real problem. Listening to that kind of music will only isolate you further. Whilst your peers are extolling the virtues of Paul Weller you will be left trembling (even more) with indignation at their failure to recognise the brilliance of Gesang der Jünglinge. Is that what you want? To be alienated from other old people as well as the music of the times? No, you don't.

Reading is a good way to keep the brain nimble. JK Rowling is recommended, as are other popular authors. If you don't read books, try one. They're very good for you. Except James Joyce...or Thomas Pynchon. They'll only make you more confused than you already are.

The Liberation Of Sound - Herbert Russcol (Prentice-Hall Ltd, 1972)

Great book. Contains a discography, reviews of selected recordings and sections on the main composers as well as the photos below.

Xenakis (right) and Le Corbusier  when they created the
now legendary Philips pavilion at the Brussels World Fair.

Otto Luening

Ussachevsky and Shostakovitch, the latter thinking 'What
a bloody racket' whilst pretending to understand the new music.

Milton Babbitt

Ussachevsky twiddling knobs whilst thinking 'Is Dmitri
hip, or was he just pretending?'

Nick Edwards (holding royalty cheque from Unfidelity), Bill Kouligas,
Russell Haswell, Luke Younger, Laurel Halo, Yves De Mey, Paul Snowdon,
Sean Canty, Miles Whittaker, Mika Vainio and others.

John Cage and Stockhausen in a plane! Wh-e-e-e-e-e! 'Do you know where
you're going, John?' 'No, I'm leaving it to chance!'

Jean Claude Rissett demonstrating his synthesised trumpet music which
20 listeners (out of how many, it doesn't say) could not distinguish from
a real trumpet. Miles Davis did not feel threatened.

Fascinating diagram of how computer music is generated, eh?

Nate Wooley/C. Spencer Yeh/Audrey Chen/Todd Carter - NCAT (Monotype)

From the Monotype website

Why has this LP not been reviewed?
This LP has not been reviewed because?
                                                            It's noisy. The wrong kind of noise.
                                                            It features vocals, screaming, not songs.
                                                            It's "avant-garde" (should that description be locked in quotation marks? If so, why? Perhaps because the author fears it will dissuade potential listeners from giving the album a chance. Also, because he questions the validity of the term in the same way musicians in the 60s questioned "Free Jazz". Yet labels are handy, and Avant-Garde signals a refusal by artists to submit to musical orthodoxy).
                                                            It's not easy to write about music which does not conform to the rules of common genres (although this author realises that someone, somewhere, who is more conversant with avant-garde music than him, could do so with reference to the history of electro-acoustic recordings in an intelligent manner as befits her/his education, which would probably be more impressive than his).

(break)

Fact:

Nate Wooley - trumpet
C. Spencer Yeh - violin
Audrey Chen - cello
Todd Carter - mixing

(break)

The first three artists being musicians, albeit avant-garde ones, which means that to many ears they are not real musicians at all, played concerts whilst in residency at STEIM (Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music) in Amsterdam. Recordings of these were sent to Todd Carter, who set about playing the role of Teo Macero working with Miles Davis, i.e., cutting and remixing the music...far more radically, even, than Teo cut Miles...

...here, Carter is more akin to Pierre Schaeffer, perhaps. A digital equivalent? Except that whereas Schaeffer reconfigured relatively conventional acoustic music (along with the sound of trains etc), Carter worked with improvised acoustic sound. This made his job:
                a) easier because there were no formal patterns in rhythm, or melody and harmony to disrupt: or
                b) harder because spontaneously improvised music is already like an aural cut-up.

(break)

Hey, Nate, C, Audrey, Todd, what are you like?

Like the best nightmare you ever had, one which stimulated you to the point of orgasm whilst simultaneously piercing your throbbing heart with icy terror.
Like high-voltage Edgard Varèse conducting sawmill machinery.
Like walking through a shock corridor packed with imprisoned insane patients playing instruments freely.
Like a soundtrack to a sci-fi film in which creatures more terrifying than the Alien stalk astronauts before disembowelling them with razor sharp tongues, then eating their brains, raw.

Lest the wrong impression is given, it must be stated that this is, above all else, a beautifully crafted arrangement of sound, as opposed to a continual Noise manifesto. It is meditative,
                                                                                                          cacophonous
                                                                                                          and musical.

Yeh's violin-playing, as with Ornette Coleman's use of the instrument, already expands the sonic possibilities before being transformed again by Carter's post-production. Whilst the altered acoustic sounds rattle your ears, the electro ocean of sound rises and falls, consumes, and creates a bedrock.

The sound clips below only give a taste. Consuming the whole product is necessary in order to gain full appreciation and highly recommended.

Monotype

Seth Nehil - Lair (Draft Records)

Enter the Lair, if you dare - it's not for the feint-hearted, nor is it bog standard dark horror ambient fare, the kind drooled over by electro-Goths flirting with Old Nick. I shouldn't even mention the genre, but with titles such as Filmy, Blade and Dense you might think Seth Nehil's in that realm. Bulk, for instance, has the feel of Morricone's best horror scores, complete with wordless female vocals, but Nehil creates much more than a simple homage.

It's more like being stuck in a lift with Francois Bayle and Pierre Henry in a bad mood - yes, that good. But unlike Bayle's epic compositions, Nehil's are bite-sized, the longest being 4.20. He packs a lot into short spaces though, so perhaps it's best to mention Dense, in which hobgoblins chatter, the earth rumbles and beasts seem to prowl.

This is sound art psychodrama of the highest order, loaded with little details which ensure that repeat plays are rewarded. There are even brief bursts of sub-bass, but Nehil's never going to be mistaken for anything like a post-Dubstep or Dance avant-gardist.

Have a look at his Bandcamp page (Knives & Furl are recommended).

His site is here

Draft records

IPEM: Institute For Psychoacoustics And Electronic Music: 50 years of Electronic And Electroacoustic Music At The Ghent University (Metaphon)

Tape compositions, electronic sound layers, looped fragments and concrete sounds - Lucien Goethals described his first forays into electronic composition as 'journeys' and we too journey through 18 tracks on the two CDs accompanying this book. It's one hell of a trip. Mind-bending, you might say; a fantastic voyage into a body of work made at the Institute For Psychoacoustics And Electronic Music starting in 1962 and ending in 1999.

Record, filter, decelerate, reverse and distort; such treatments suggest both an anarchic and reverential approach to sound - the search for what sounds right in a sonic universe free from rules. When is a piece finished and where to start? Of the concrete elements, there's a mezzo-soprano messed up and fused with electronics on Boudewijn Buckinx's 'Simparolo', folk whistles and log drums married with a Synthi 100 on Stephen Montague's 'Slow dance on a burial ground', and a six-piece acoustic performance warped beyond recognition on Helmut Lachenmann's 'Scenario'. Excuse the cliché but the latter, from 1965, sounds like it could have been made yesterday by the best modern exponents of electronic music. 

If you want pre-Hauntology (oh, I'm sure you do), look no further than Louis de Meester's 'Incantations', an astounding piece previewed at the 1958 Brussels World Fair featuring a cut up reading of text by Isidore Isou. Isou wrote: 'Each poet will integrate everything into Everything', and this compilation demonstrates the art of musical integration superbly; disparate elements made whole by these 'poets' of the studio.

Available from Boomkat 

Metaphon 

Composer Louis De Meester at work in IPEM's Technicum
studio (circa 1963).

Generator bank with sine wave oscillator group,
developed by Walter Landrieu.

The mechanics lab at IPEM's Muinkkaai space (1965–1970).

Composer Robin Heifetz on the piano at IPEM's Muinkkaai studio.

The Exterminator - William Burroughs & Brion Gysin (Haselwood Books, 1967)

The Exterminator by Burroughs & Gysin has been on my wants list since late last year but it took this long to find one for a price I was willing to pay. It's the second printing...and if you want bibliographic details, history etc etc go here, the source of the cut-up below. Scanned a few randomly selected pages.

'Write your own message that is you..with scissors or switchblade as preferred..'

From Bach To The Future - Howard Goodall Falls At The Last Fence

In the final episode of his TV series Howard Goodall falls at the last fence - shock! - or not, since Classical buffs think they're being 'hip' (ha-ha) by mentioning The Beatles and Bob Dylan, as if proving that they really have kept up with developments in 20th century music.

Oh, Howard, with your jacket sleeves cut too long as if to look correct when playing your keyboard...even though you spent more time standing, thus demonstrating the sartorial error of your ways...

I had my doubts before watching, but was hoping he would summarise the last 100 years as authoritatively as he did the previous 300. Yet now I even doubt his wisdom on Classical music. That's the trouble with being ignorant on a subject; you tend to believe what supposed experts say. If a historian told me Richard III had a penchant for eating raw eggs off a bed of oak tree leaves, for instance, I'd believe them. Sadly, anyone taking Howard for his word would never know the crucial role electronic music played in the 20th century.

He dealt with Jazz but only as far as Be-Bop. More obviously, he should have mentioned Third Stream, which introduced Classical into Jazz in the late-50s. And if he'd really wanted to create some kind of unity, he could have referenced the Modern Jazz Quartet's Blues On Bach album from 1973. You see, Howard? That would have provided a nice, cyclical feel to your summary. You should have consulted me.

Worse still, he failed to mention another, more important Bach connection, Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach (1968), which sold half a million copies at the time. Whether you regard it as proper Classical music or merely a novelty version, it's impact cannot be denied. After all, it put Bach into all those homes. Come on, man! Perhaps he hates the record. He may even be oblivious to the amount of effort required to make it, thinking it was simply a matter of Carlos sitting at a Moog and playing.

No mention of Robert Moog, or the evolution of electronic music. Early pioneers were well acquainted (sometimes schooled in) modern Classical modes, so another connection was missed. Stockhausen? Kraftwerk? He could have dropped in Tangerine Dream since they referenced Classical music. I'm trying to help you here, Howard. I'm offering some much-needed continuity between the electronic and Classical, but it's too late now.

He mentioned Steve Reich's It's Gonna Rain (1965), which supposedly made him 'the godfather of sampling', but Richard Maxfield got there earlier when, in 1960, he looped and totally radicalised recordings of a preacher on Amazing Grace. Poor Howard, did he not have a research team? Perhaps not, due to cutbacks. Imagine him, desperately pestering youngish people in the office next door:
   'Hey, you look modern, what do you know about the evolution of music in the 20th century?'
   (Young Person looks up from their Twitter page) 'What, like Lady Gaga, you mean?'
   'Er, yes!'
   Of course, that Young Person could have found out about early tape looped sampling in ten seconds, if Howard had asked. I think he was fed up with the workload by the time he had to deal with the Modern. He thought, 'Oh, fuck it, I'll just dissect a bit of a Beatles tune on the ol' Joanna like I did in my Channel 4 programme and skip all that computer shit.'

Talking of The Beatles, they were dragged in to represent avant-garde tape experiments on the Sgt. Pepper's album, but where did they get that idea from? Any thoughts? Do you think, along with George Martin, they invented it?

You might say he couldn't cover everything. Yes, but there's a process called editing which, if used skilfully, would have created some time to cover electronic music. Precious seconds were wasted telling us Stevie Wonder incorporated Cuban music into his own, and that Paul Simon flirted with World Music. Since he mentioned sampling, how long would it take to mention Pierre Schaeffer's creation of Musique Concrète whilst playing a snippet accompanied by a photo?

Well, Howard, you proved long of sleeve, but ultimately, short on information about some of the most important aspects of 20th century music.

Uneasy Listening On TV

BBC TV brainiac music attack: The Sound and the Fury: A Century of Music and Howard Goodall's Story Of Music - ooh what an illicit thrill...when we could be watching Come Dine With Me, Skyfall on DVD, or even Sky Sports....

...but no, here's Howard, tinkling his keyboard in a tutorial fashion, showing us chords, diminished flats, cells and other things I've since forgotten...

...telling us all about the Story Of Music, no less - I eagerly anticipate his description of the musique concrete revolution and Stockhausen's electronic kick, assuming he'll include them. What will he say about Hip-Hop? Will he demonstrate the use of the Apache break on twin decks, or simply play a sample on that keyboard of his (does it have a 'breakbeat' setting?) - can't wait.

Meanwhile; Difficult Music. Atonality, no less. The sound the fury of Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg and Edgard Varèse upsetting the establishment by playing new things on old instruments - that is the shocking aspect. It's kind of Classical, but not as we know it. Had synthesizers been available in 1910 they may have written for them, and nobody would have cared because avant-garde electronic music isn't taken seriously. Not on TV, anyway - therefore, not anywhere - because to be on TV validates everything, from cooking to cats that can skateboard....

...skateboarding ducks became a symbolic joke on British TV back when everything was orange (or to be more precise, nicotine-coloured) and workers went on strike. Yes, that long ago. How could those who sniggered at animal antics being broadcast predict that three decades later the whole world would be addicted to animal antics via a thing called YouTube on computers (!) that weren't the size of a bungalow, but could be held in the palm of your hand?!

How could I have predicted, when starting my career as a DJ, that two decades later a Varese LP would always be in my record box (ask your dad) for one residency. The place was called Bartok, and therein lies a clue to the theme it promoted (but only if you know anything about the history of Classical music). Yes, Varèse would get a regular airing, although when they hired me perhaps they expected more Mozart. But it was a thrill to play Ionisation - call me crazy...

Why bother watching these programmes when there's so much Easy Viewing to tempt us? Wall-to-wall cooking, dining and cosy comedy beckons. I spoke to someone about this recently who suggested that many with demanding jobs (intellectually, presumably) wanted Easy TV. Oh the irony, since aren't those the very people this kind of programming is aimed at? And what is everyone else's excuse? They need a break from existence, to hit the mental snooze button. What else is High Definition TV for if not Lowbrow Culture? We have very Smart TVs for so many Stupid programmes.

'Why is the world full of so much shit?' LJ asked me not so long ago, meaning excrement of the cultural kind - and, staring out the window of the bus, I came up with the theory that the sheer volume of tripe on the telly acts as fertilizer for the forest of foolish nonsense today - music, film, whatever. The more there is the more they make and the outlets bloom like so many poisonous fungi, which people consume, and their brains die. - you see? Whereas when there were fewer channels the simpletons were more likely to come across something good and possibly think 'That's quite good, actually, despite the subtitles etc', and the world (UK, at least), would be a better place, filled with more creative energy dedicated to Art, Music, Film because people had been inspired by something they saw on TV. But was it better back then, in, say the 70s? Wasn't there as much crap as there is now? Percentage-wise...who has the figures,and who decides what it Crap? I don't know. The theory may be nonsense, but it passed the time. And anyway, Barry Norman's film programme (ask your granddad) was sure to feature many undisputed classics in the 70s. Today, there isn't even a good film programme on terrestrial TV - and if there was, it would be filled with formulaic garbage, mostly.

Radical music gets no time on TV. Not even on The Culture Show, which regards New Folk (?) and token black singers as the be-all and end-all of contemporary music. Yet it ventures across all terrain in the Arts. Is music not considered a valid art form in the UK today? Is Ekoplekz twiddling his knobs in vain? Demdike Stare? Café Kaput? Mordant Music? Perhaps I missed programmes featuring them...

...so I rejoice in the current 'glut' of programmes about music on TV. Yes. They may be historical by nature, but what The Sound and the Fury does cover makes a change from the usual BBC policy of providing TV for Mojo-readers...

Exai - Autechre (Warp)

Not another Autechre album...

...no-one in modern electronic music is supposed to make more than a handful (never mind 11)...and in doing so, prove themselves to be left standing at a post they may well have erected years ago, only to watch younger technicians leave them standing...

...well, Rob Brown and Sean Booth have the audacity to persist - because they've got nothing better to do?

What's it like, though? Like Autechre, and more so - like Autechre grown up and giving the young pretenders a good kicking. Every devious detonation of bass and percussion blasts the competition out of the water. What competition? Nobody has or can (sensibly) try to sound like Autechre. Such is the studious configuration of rhythms they concoct - they've got more time signatures than Dave Brubeck.

It's bass music for brainiacs - sophisticated manoeuvres in the dark such as 'Draun Quarter', which plays skittish percussion against a leisurely keyboard line, whilst 'Fleure' features trademark scrambled electro transmissions that brilliantly breakdown in an atomic blast of boosted bass dynamics before burning out. Tension between hi and low-end dynamics drive the album; whiplash beats and deformed drones, brutal mutations evolve, as on 'irlite (get 0)'. To paraphrase Derrick May, 'cloudline' is like George Clinton and Stockhausen are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company - a breathing space amid the intense arrangements which hardly constitutes peace, but to these ears is underpinned by the spirit of The One as rewritten for mechanized funkateers.

Here is Rubik cubism in sound which appreciative listeners can spend hours trying to lock together in their heads, only to fry their brains - but oh what a delicious mystery.

One Album of the Year, already - perhaps the Album of the Year - in February? Surely not. Yes.