A Musician For The Age Of Streaming

I ended my last blog with a bit of an odd metaphor. Something about giant ears. It was all very strange. However, there was actually a point I was trying to make. You see in the pre-internet age, the adventures up the Zambezi of musical discovery comprised very physical, tactile activities. Rifling through racks of CDs, digging through crates of vinyl, sharing mix-tapes, being educated by the slightly odd-smelling guy behind the counter of your local record store. In my last blog I was bemoaning the loss of these journeys of discovery due to the emergence of online music streaming services and my preference for them due to their being cheaper and easier to access. The whole point of the "giant ear" remark was that I think I've discovered a way for the discovery of new music in the digital realm to be just as mysterious and exciting as it was in the physical world. Rather than spend our efforts hitting the pavements of our town centres and hoovering up cult recommendations looking for that one lost gem, we instead immerse ourselves completely down a endless labyrinth of music. With access to so many sounds at our fingertips we can cover the kind of ground it would take months to physically accumulate in just an afternoon. The adventure becomes not "What exciting treasures will you see" but "What exciting treasures will you hear". Listen more and listen to more, to put it concisely. In a way this ties up with my early musings on the various technological advances that help us trawl through the vast media ocean, but I'd like to take this approach on a micro-scale and apply it to just a single artist. What happens if we take one musician and attempt to hear pretty much everything of their's we can find?

Well, for me one artist presents the most exciting prospect of providing almost endless avenues of discovery to keep your ear burrowing into the strange, dark undergrowth of sound. A body of work where it becomes not about some over-produced, singular epoch-defining release but the accumulation of many disparate strands over time and genre to get a complete and multi-faceted picture of one artist and their fractured vision. Not only that but some of his most interesting music has been released this year (because guess what all those Best Of The Year lists are right around the corner!). One of the most prolific musicians of the last year (or pretty much any year for that matter) is Hospital Productions boss Dominick Fernow.

For those who have yet to be acquainted with the man's work, Fernow's early material fit squarely within the US noise and power electronics community, for whom speaker-shredding, tinnitus inducing anti-music accompanied by aggressive yells and screams was the order of the day. In more recent years, an infatuation with techno has seeped into Fernow's work. This, along with his time spent playing icy synths in Cold Cave, has resulted in many side-projects exploring various shades of bleak beat-driven music. Industrial and dark ambient are also key touchstones in Fernow's music but throughout it all from piercing noise blast to pulsing techno workout there is a mysterious emptiness that is possibly summed up best by the tag-line from one of his many releases, "Listen on headphones at night while driving through tunnels in Europe".

Each of Fernow's many side-projects pursues a strong central theme such as Religious iconography (Christian Cosmos), pornography (Torturing Hooker) or the Iraq War (Vatican Shadow). The production and distribution of these projects is very punk in spirit with the vast majority of releases on cheap CD-Rs or cassettes produced in limited editions runs of often less than 50. The physical releases are often more tied with the aesthetic of a particular project than the music itself with carefully designed artwork and extra insets aiming to either enhance an emotional resonance or just for pure shock value. While in a bygone age this DIY prolificacy would engender a very cliquey and insular fan-base, the dawn of the mass internet era allows this tiny world to expand far beyond it's expected boundaries. While for many artists of a similar type, the music blog / file-sharing scene would probably maintain an in-the-know status quo, the fact Fernow has uploaded so much of this "limited-edition" music to online streaming services means he has a more accessible and potentially wider reaching platform to present his art. We know too that this must have been a concious decision on his own part as he owns the label through which he distributes his music.The overload of music now present on Spotify alone grants the perfect opportunity for an eager listener to completely explore Fernow's work and its many guises. And we really are talking overload here, a quick glance at Fernow's entry in Discogs tells us he is involved with 28 different named projects. With so much work under his belt, the task of being a Dominick Fernow "fan" is quite a daunting one. Here's a playlist with my own attempt at plucking out the bits I think you need to hear. After you've tucked into that, continue on below where I'll talk about some of the key projects and releases from this year that have ensured double clicking on a link is just as thrilling and potentially nerve-racking as sifting through a box of old 45's in a probable serial killer's basement.



Vatican Shadow

Right now Vatican Shadow is perhaps the most well-known of Fernow's guises and it's easy to see why given the amount of questions the project raises. Cassette tapes featuring the images of infamous figures from current conflicts in the Middle East, track titles like "Tonight Saddam Walks Amidst Ruins". The thematic direction of Vatican Shadow clearly originates from the War on Terror and its continued fall-out after the Iraq War. There is surely some dark part of ourselves that Vatican Shadow is trying to tap into here. I mean there is somewhat of a perverse thrill of clicking on something that's so intentionally controversial as on a cassette cover an image of an army major who murdered his own soldiers . "Washington Buries Al-Qaeda Leader At Sea" being quite a name for an album too! Perhaps a commentary on the strange entertainment value we now get from movies like Zero Dark Thirty? Live performances with Fernow wearing army fatigues also make the true intention of the project unclear. But, as always, its the music we're interested in hear (unintentional spelling error pun :P) and this is probably the biggest criticism of the project, that all the imagery around it seems to overshadow the music. No matter what the artist's political (or perhaps apolitical?) stand-point is, the music clearly asserts that we are in the midst of a conflict with no winners. Taking driving, masculine techno as its starting point but still never afraid to attempt quieter reveries, the music always aims towards the dancefloor but perhaps one under 10 feet of rubble. It's never sincerely bombastic or jingoistic and at times seems to be mocking its own extreme imagery. While often not as varied or as experimental with pure sound as other projects, that disconnect between outward appearance and the actual music is an incredibly powerful draw.

This year has seen the release of the first "official" Vatican Shadow album, Remember Your Black Day. Dubbed an official debut mainly because it was released on CD rather than a limited run of cassettes. But the intrepid streamer will really obtain no sense of this as it sits nicely in amongst the rest of the Vatican Shadow back catalogue. Perhaps the controversy level has been dialled down a wee bit but the project's core theme is still very much in place. For example, stand-out track Enter Paradise's strident guitar blasts seem to scream out suggestions to the infamous use of heavy metal music by American soldiers as a method of torturing and breaking down prisoners. Remember Your Black Day suffers from some of the same issues as other Vatican Shadow material, tracks establish strong musical themes but rarely develop them and tracks seem to just end with no real sense of conclusion. Is that the entire pont though? Still questions are being raised.  However, it is a great listen even without trying to unpack all of the thematic baggage.


Prurient

Fernow's longest running and most prolific alias is also his most varied and surprising. With no less than 45 different releases available for streaming (not to mention hundreds that exist in limited edition physical media only) there is a lot of jungle to explore. Prurient's early sound was primarily based in the "sheer walls of blistering noise" mould, with Fernow's screeched and distorted vocals depicting violent outpourings of emotion. About what is really hard to tell and like other noise artists sometimes it's difficult to draw the line between artistic commentary and whether Prurient is really just glorifying in the violent themes it raises... but that's always been part of the thrill. What is one to really make of a lyric such as "If I could / I would take a tree branch / And ram it inside you / But it's already been done". It's chilling and yet ridiculous and that's what makes it so intriguing.

This year however, we've only seen two actual releases from Prurient. One a side of a split release and a three track mini-album, Through The Window. Again the influence of techno is clear, as it is on a lot of Fernow's work in the last few years, and this is certainly the most dancefloor-oriented the project has ever been. Pulsing, repetitive rhythms and insistent synth melodies are a far cry from sheer walls of obliterating noise. Unusual for a Prurient album there is no real violence or sense of anger, except for a few trademark noise bursts in the second track. Lyrics are mumbled rather than screamed, although they still have that disturbingly surreal edge. Taken as part of Prurient's vast discography, Through The Window feels more like a sigh. The fading light of a once potent, raging beast that has calmed with age. It's almost as if this particular project is singing its swansong. As depicted on the album's cover, a solitary point of light surrounded by encroaching darkness. The album even seems to end on an uncharacteristically optimistic note, "You show great spirit".

Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement

As far as I'm aware (and it's bloody hard without Discogs to keep you in line) Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement is the most recent of Fernow's many faces and sits within the same spectrum of other recent releases. However, this might just be his greatest statement as an artist yet. Again we are walking through haunted, post-techno lands. Repetitive drum loops initially recall the dancefloor but there is something a little bit off. The project name is perhaps most telling, if there were such a thing as "Rainforest Techno" this would be it. An odd mix of environmental sounds and subterranean bass rhythms. There's all the suggestion of shamanistic, tribal rituals but with no sense of exotica or glib notions of the primitive savage. Instead it's as if the very trees and boulders were hearkening back to life in the gloom before the dawn of mankind. The track titles themselves tell stories of nature fighting back against the oppression of man, "They Dropped The Stone In The Harbour But Overnight It Returned". It's claustrophobic, humid and truly mysterious. This alias has also never seen what one would describe as an "official" album release (In fact I'm not even sure Fernow has been announced as the man behind it all but one listen confirms its clearly him). Looking through the Discogs entries again I keep seeing limited cassette here, limited vinyl there. But guess, what it's all there to stream online! Like he's done with Vatican Shadow and a number of his other side projects, Dominick Fernow has created the best combination of collectible consumables of exciting physical value (I really want to get my hands on one of these limited editions one day) but also putting the music first, allowing access to all online. This gives listeners the opportunity to construct their own continuity, their own sense of narrative between all these releases, without ever knowing that one of albums was the widely distributed official album and the other was a series of extras that were made into only 35 cassettes. These are the kind of adventures I strive for as we advance further into the digital age.

Internet Posterity

Hi everyone,

This is isn't a "proper" blog I just wanted to let everyone know that I've got a SoundCloud account which I will occasionally be uploading little bits and pieces to when I get time to work on them. This includes a few experiments I have in the pipe-line like a review of the awesome Bit Reactor FX pedal.

I've started off the account by uploading my student work from my undergraduate electroacoustic composition course. Mainly for posterity's sake as the last place I put my music was on MySpace and... well we all know what happened there don't we.

Anyway, enjoy mocking my efforts at being a "serious" composer.

Oh To Be A Giant Floating Ear!

During the past few months I've been struggling with a particular quandary. A completely self-inflicted quandary. A fairly inconsequential first-world problem which I often inflate to gigantic proportions. It's importance is directly proportional to the volume of Thom Yorke's whining. Yes, we're talking Spotify and the blockbuster issue of 2013. The Music Consumption Wars: Streaming Vs. One-Off Purchases. So much has been written recently from the artist's side of the argument maybe it's time we got the opinion of a consumer...that's me.

First thing's first, as we're talking about the various options for the personal imbibing of music, I'm going to eliminate some of those options right from the off. I'm going to ignore digital purchases through sites such as iTunes and Amazon. For me this is worst of both worlds, the ephemerality of a digital file with the cost impact of a physical object. No thanks, not for me sir. I'm also ruling out the whole notion of illegal file-sharing, partially because that's like so last decade but mainly because it's actually easier to get obscure gems like Rashad Becker's Traditional Music Of Notional Species Vol.1 through legal streaming software than illegally through Russian data dumps found around page 20 of a Google. This then leaves me with two options for listening to a piece of music, buy the physical object (be it CD, vinyl or cute box of loops) or stream it online. Thus we reach the quandary.

This is the time of year that a lot of music gets released, the high-point for me being some weeks ago when 3 albums I was absolutely desperate to hear by three radically different musicians were all released on the same day. I was so excited that at the first opportunity I jumped onto my chosen online retailer of choice (All hail Boomkat!). But just I was about to give these fine independent retailers my money, I paused. Took a step back and said to myself, "Why not just wait one more day and see if they get released to Spotify on Monday morning?". Lo and behold, one full rotation of the Earth later, Spotify produced a little red circle of joy claiming 3 new albums were available to stream. I never bought those albums but I felt very guilty for not supporting an independent music supplier and a few fringe musicians .

Ending my guilt-trip early, the economic machinations of the music industry should not really be my concern. Sure it's nice to be informed of the various arguments for and against streaming but, despite many delusions of grandeur, the future of music distribution does not rest squarely on my shoulders. I'm sure one day I'll look back on these arguments with the same "Ha, those were the days!" attitude to which we now view the whole Napster saga. So when it comes to how I spend my money I have one golden rule: If you can't stream, Buy. As may well be expected the easiest and cheapest option pretty much always prevails. That doesn't exactly mean I'm happy about it though.

So, if I've decided I don't really care who gets my money and how much of it (which, I've learned from speaking to a friend with music on Spotify, is shockingly little) why does this feeling of doing the wrong thing still persist when I opt to double click an album rather than hoof it to central London with tenner in hand.

Well, I miss the physical object. The joy of searching for and discovering something unexpected or long sought after. The effect of picking up one of those purchases from my shelf now is utterly Proustian. They are time-capsules, shards of memory depicting not just where I found the CD but who I was at the time of buying it. Each disc signifying a desire to own and explore an assorted collection of sounds, intimately tied with my personality, childish naïveté, teenage angst, student discovery. All I can say whenever I re-visit an influential artist I discovered through Spotify is "Oh that time I was sat in front of, or next to, a computer. Let's see, what was on my browser at that life-changing time...". Hardly the kind of story one would tell their grandkids. Actually no grandchild would want to hear about discovering a limited edition Yellow Swans CD in deepest, darkest, crate-digging-est Soho but what do they know.

Hunting for CDs was, and still can be, an adventure, albeit a very mild, Sunday afternoon strand of adventure. There is no excitement to be found in typing into a textbox, apart from that small glimmer of hope, "Hey I wonder if they have...Nope." It's not just the CDs that fill me with joy but the stores they came from. The best of these are ingrained in my mind. Spending hours browsing through promos in Manchester; the sheer warehouse size of Amoeba in San Francisco; lamenting the loss of Sound 323 a beacon of experimental music in North London sadly lost forever. I know the exact locations of every avant-garde/experimental section in every Soho music shop.

That pang of regret I occasionally feel when I deny myself the opportunity to venture forth and try and hunt down a rare gem in favour of the easy option of streaming it at home is the loss of that adventure. That sense of community of like-minded souls, frantically flipping through racks of the good stuff. Thankfully, the recent resurgence of vinyl (both second-hand and ludicrously expensive new release) seems to be keeping that spark alive...just...that...little...bit...longer.

This is all of course without considering the incredibly saddening state of an album's artwork in the digital environment. A low resolution JPEG is never going to cut it, nevermind the fact that you're unlikely to be even looking at your stream software while listening. Can there be any other future eventuality other than having no album artwork at all? Oh and say goodbye to being able to follow along with the lyrics or enjoy unusual design feats like including stereoscopic glasses to further augment the experience of album ownership.

It's not all rosy for physical media though. I believe the democratisation of the stream through subscription services is truly an amazing thing and a potential wonder of the 21st century (despite its potential flaws). Every tweenie-bopper and punk rocker should have access to the po-faced classical and the secret language of cosmic jazz. Tear all those elitist walls down, Comrades! The Beatles liked Stockhausen so why can't you?
And as for Mr Yorke's assurances that no-one will discover new bands through Spotify. Well various levels of fuck you, because the amount of music I've discovered is almost immeasurable. It's almost completely changed my current musical tastes, without it I wouldn't have discovered a whole swathe of genres such as noise, footwork, krautrock etc etc. I've also seen so much more incredible live music through bands I was given the chance to explore through Spotify... well the situation is by far more nuanced than his bare bones arguments seem to suggest.

Current trends in physical sales are also suggesting a somewhat unwelcome turn. With vinyl sales being higher than they ever were post-iTunes a few of our indies are still staying open but it is ever more likely that the vinyl trade will devolve into simple novelty or trendy consumerism. Collector's editions. Special editions. Limited editions. As much as I love a well designed box-set, it's about the music people!

I guess in some ways, I want digital to win (Oh, no Luddite me). In all fairness, it most certainly will. The grand irony being that I write this while listening to a stream, proudly contributing probably less than a penny to the hard-working artist's coffers. If I had the CD, I like to think that instead I would be contemplating the album art while mulling over the origins of the track names. Oh well. Maybe this is the start of the change. No longer shall we be required to walk for our music; to hold an album in our hands; to see carefully designed artwork with our eyes. Oh to be a giant floating ear and to let it all just come rushing in.