Long ago, in May, I wrote an entry on Electronic Music of Jason Lescalleet [over here, in full glory] – Jason was so kind to get in touch and point out a couple of things that I clearly missed and that are necessary for a full understanding of the record (which btw already dates from some years ago, but RRR still has a stack of copies available). As his remarks were totally justified I promised him to post a follow-up entry, but tons of things kept coming in between. So here goes.
First of all “Electronic Music” is a homage to the music of Iannis Xenakis [website], “a Greek composer who was a major figure in the postwar development of musical modernism” (quote from Wikipedia). I admit missing the Xenakis-reference, but I was clearly right when I said that “Electronic Music” reminded me of some of the contemporary music I know from the previous century. Jason recommends listening to “La Legende d’Eer” sometime, “composed in 1977, it is a true mindblower” – I listened to Iannis Xenakis years ago, but am not that familiar with his work and certainly not as much as Jason Lescalleet – The couple of records that I did listen to didn’t impress me much, or at least not enough to get to know him better, nor did the work of Boulez or Varez (while Stockhausen sounded terribly outdated to me), unlike the work of Luigi Nono, Penderecki or Lutoslawski. In general I prefered violins over old style electronics (Alban Berg, anyone? Or Gorecki’s Third Symphony, aka “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” = pure doom). Except maybe for Dick Raaijmakers, a Dutch avantgarde musician, see the clip below [and the follow-up post to this entry]. It does explain why “Electronic Music” doesn’t blow me of my socks, given the fact that I don’t really dig the stuff that I heard so far of Xenakis. I guess I will have to dig deeper. In his mail Jason further points out that the title of the tracks are a wordplay on titles of compositions by Iannis Xenakis, i.e.: “Diamorphoses”, “Concret PH”, “Bohor”, and “Orient-Occident” – So they are not arbitrary, nor interchangeable, and have nothing to do with Jean-Michel Jarre, though interestingly enough Oxygene dates from 1977 as well. Jason Lescalleet doesn’t really explain in his mail what the original Xenakis’ titles refer to, but I don’t want to sound too incongruous (a word I still need to look up, but it sounds punk), especially when one looks at the titles of some of the records I like – To Jason, missing this wordplay was “more disappointing” than whether or not I liked the music, as most people he knows “got the reference…” This indeed illustrates how dangerous it is to put too much references in a record – In my circle of close friends there’s only one person I can think of that might have listened to a Xenakis recording as well, and if he did so, he never mentioned that to me. But he was more of the Reich/John Cage/La Monte Young-type of guy.
Intermezzo: It took me some time to discover that the only stuff I liked of Reich is his earlier work (especially the tape-experiments) – two performances of his work (of which one directed by Steve himself) during which I fell asleep to be precise – while an overdose of John Cage is no fun either (I used to like his prepared piano pieces a lot though). As they say. Kill you idols. Totally.
Bottomline: “Electronic Music” is not a noise-record, it’s homage to Iannis Xenakis, so if you like Iannis Xenakis, you will probably like this record too. Which also works the other way round.
As for those interested in noisier work Jason recommends checking out his cd-r on Celebrate Psi Phenomenon called “To the Teeth”. And you might also enjoy the vinyl releases on We Break More Records: “Jason Lescalleet’s Due Process”.
And the grandfather of noise – to me – is Charles Ives, rather than Xenakis, for Ives’ cheerful way of going against all musical conventions (that existed before World War I).
And now a bit of Raaijmakers, a guy that I also learned to know as a cheerful guy with a good sense of humour:
Dick Raaijmakers, Part 1
NP: Pretty Vacant. To get back to normal. Third single released by the Sex Pistols. In 1977.
Note: Geert points out it is Varèse, and not Varez. Which again illustrates that the net is full of errors. Never trust a website!