well you have just made it sound interesting… probably not what you expected

So “I don’t like the art, therefore it isn’t worthy for anyone else” fuck off

who are you the neckbeard of indie?

lölö – since you said ‘non-ironical’ – these are some of my personal favourites. I’m not going to ‘recommend’ anything, because these just reflect my own tastes (oh, whatever – come on Brinkmann defenders and shoot me down if you must!)

;)

György Ligeti – Project vol. 3 (worth it for ‘Clocks and Clouds’ alone) and also Mechanical Music
Bernard Parmegiani – De Natura Sonorum
Annie Gosfield – Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery
Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin – Holon
Łoskot – Sun
Alamaailman Vasarat – Huuro Kolkko
Le Mystere de voix Bulgares (various groups of Bulgarian acapella folk singers)
Gérard Grisey – Les Espaces Acoustiques; Vortex Temporum; Tempus Ex Machina
Yugen – Iridule
Teatr Pieśń Kozła – Chronicles: A Lamentation
Ateleia – Formal Sleep
Pjusk – Sart
Arvo Pärt – Te Deum / Berliner Messe
David Torn – Prezenz
Sculpture – Membrane Pop
The Haxan Cloak – s/t
Erkki-Sven Tüür – Crystallisatio
Stephen Cornford – Binatone Galaxy
Solid Eye – Fruits of Automation
Badawi – Safe
Conlon Nancarrow – (worth dipping into if you like abstract music and complex rhythms – but too much player piano at one time can get a bit much).
Stephan Micus – The Garden of Mirrors
Petrels – Onkalo
Bobby Mcferrin – Medicine Music (yes, really)
Accordion Tribe – Lunghorn Twist
Jeremiah Cymerman – Fire Sign
Daniel Wohl – Corps Exquis
Alvin Curran – Endangered Species (album-length version)
The Archivist – The Wooden Laser
Andrew Pekler – Entanglements in the Orthopedic Sensorium
Sidsel Endresen & Stian Westerhus – Didymoi Dreams
Piętnastka – Dalia
Luc Ferrari – Interrupteur / Tautologos 3
The Element Choir – At Rosedale United

I disagree completely that a lot of work was put into this. The question about being able to play a musical instrument seems bizarre to me, in this context, since this album has nothing to do with instruments and everything to do with computer sound design. I’ve played drums for 21 years, guitar for 20, but I wouldn’t hold them up as giving me any kind of ‘authority’ to speak about music. Sound design has been done academically but with far more interesting results by all manner of folks; this is essentially just someone experimenting with emergent moire made by dissonance beats, but the sounds themselves are digitally ‘brittle’ and samey, with little depth or internal variation. I’m not bashing Brinkmann – to answer Yipster above, yes, I’ve heard, and danced to, Brinkmann’s more beat-oriented stuff before. It’s not the ‘minimal’ thing that bugs me; it’s how easily done the stuff on this album is, given today’s technology, and how little it actually offers that isn’t offered by, say, a fridge defrosting. That wasn’t a loose joke or metaphor – I really mean that there’s more interest in such a sound than I find in this album.

Sorry if I’ve inadvertently managed to ‘troll’ some Brinkmann fans here – I fully accept coach Dumfry’s point that I didn’t buy this, but I reject his suggestion that because I didn’t pay for the privilege of listening to it and finding it irredeemably dull disqualifies me from giving it a negative ‘review’. I usually don’t bother saying anything negative, but this, to me, is a sad sort of joke. I don’t pay to go to see Damien Hirst’s exhibitions, either, but that doesn’t prevent me from being of the opinion that what he ‘produces’ is meaningless and trite – and, again – it’s the fact that it’s nevertheless put up in galleries as ‘art’ that is what I find difficult to deal with. Same here: if this was music offered by the artist for free, then I’d not bat an eyelid. It’s the fact that Editions Mego will offer it in a package supported by the ridiculously pretentious blurb below that prompts me to react at all. It ‘places the listener simultaneously inside and outside objective parameters’? Please…

“…removing the individual or the notion of an author from the act of creation.”

Bollocks.

A more genuine way to do that would be to generate the sound algorithmically, mix it without listening to the results, and then release it anonymously.

Or maybe, as Sausage God said, just go listen to yer fridge.

I know! I love techno!

Ouch. Now you’re getting all ad hominem on me! Fair enough, BH – that’s your opinion of me – just as the above comments are my opinion of the music/packaging of this album. Nothing I say detracts from you enjoying it, and I can TOTALLY accept that you do enjoy it. But as to the amount of effort required to produce this: have you actually messed about with some of the software available these days? If Thomas Brinkmann really did put a lot of effort into these tracks, he’s doing something wrong, because it sure sounds like a few parameters being tweaked in a not-particularly-inspired-or-directional way to me. That’s based on comparisons with work by other sound artists whose output leaves me wondering how someone can even come up with these sounds or patterns.

Ho hum… All I’m really saying in the above is… there’s a lot of stuff out there, some of it as much as 50 years old, which took enormous inspiration and effort to make with relatively primitive electronic technology, and which just leaves this completely in the shade.

I agree that you can really enjoy listening to sound without putting value on its creation – I genuinely enjoy listening to my fridge defrosting – really, I’m not joking. But when something this uninspiring is packaged and presented in glowing terms, I’m going to be that kid in the crowd who shouts that the Kaiser’s in the buff. Maybe you do perceive something here that I don’t – but maybe you’re hearing something that isn’t there.

I’m actually on commission by Editions Mego to make their stuff seem more interesting – it’s all part of the massive overpackaging drive. No publicity is bad publicity, right ;)