GlitchSlapTko

[Disclaimer: I should say that before getting into any of this, that the question of FORMULAIC MUSIC is entirely another discussion. If you are interested, let's talk about it over beer next time you are in the neighborhood.] Recently, Roddy Schrock's weblog and the new Momus RADIO thing posted up on his website have got me thinking about a few things, since these two guys are working on the same problem from opposite ends...Why you say? Don't take it from me, take it straight from the horse's mouth. Roddy says here that recently, he's been "trying to calculate absurdity..." and we can contrast that with Momus who has, in his recent collaborations with various cerebrums (that is to say non-cerebellum types) since Oskar Tennis Champion simply been absurdly trying to calculate. Both approaches are beautiful, each having it's own merits, and I have the highest respect for both of these artists...Well, a few years ago, I was having coffee with Dr. Mark Applebaum, Roddy Schrock, and Tadashi Usami in a very quiet cafe in Kichijoji, Tokyo. Dr. Applebaum was talking about the different ways he divvies up his musical pesos, and one of these ways turned out to be "music that I like vs. music that I don't like." Needless to say, I think that was about the coolest thing that I'd heard in a long time, from his mouth, or from anyone else's, and it made a huge impression on me. (No, I wasn't even high at the time.) Of course, there are those of you out there who will balk at such a seemingly naive way of thinking. Well first of all, please keep in mind that Mark is a pretty much a genius, and that I'm no dupe myself (even if I do say so myself). Naturally I can't say enough good things about Roddy and Tadashi for that matter. Well, on top of all this, think about how Mark's statement really really opens things up for the composer. Things can become so much more fluid when you are working from "likes and dislikes" (let's put what Cage has to say about them on the back burner for the time being, shall we?), particularly in the era that knotty CODE (you know who you are) vs. NON-CODE ("no imputers" in Tokyo just to name one example) thing. But then we get into this paradox of some CODE-WARRIORS out there trying to escape the confines of their CODE by trying to write baffles into the systems (self-fucking Max/MSP patches, and a kid who I recently saw here in Tokyo who had written a really cool SuperCollider patch, generating all kinds of cool spectral stuff, but then he got all of the rhythm for his performance by jerking and ramming the frayed mini-pug that was connecting his PwrBkG4 to the mixer in and out of his headphone hole), and NON-CODERS folks trying to conjure CODE-LIKE structures out of thin air (or empty memory banks, or a 6-string, or by snorting that sound dust, or whatever). And I'm not saying that there isn't a lot of great work going on there in the midst of that paradox, but one thing kind of made me uneasy. Wanna' guess what that was? Well, it may be a pet peeve of mine, but I never was a big fan of antonyms of words that were formed just by adding a negative prefix. Of course, examples of this phenomenon are legion, but that never stopped me from trying to help out (at least in my own mind) that "underdog" in the pair who didn't get it's own proper "identity" (Roland Barthes, where are you when I need you baby?) So case in point: CODE vs. NON-CODE. This just won't work! So that's where the good Dr. Applebaum comes in. Oh Mark, you Gordian knot cleaver, you! Now we've got a kind of NON-NON-CODE thing going on, and that I can work with. Of course, at first glance it looks like the thing that perturbs me now appears to have been doubled, but somehow this flies in the face of that first "NON" with just the right amount of healthy disrespect to leave me feeling almost...satisfied. Almost, that is, until I consider that I can't escape from... [TO BE CONTINUED]