Impenetrable

[hippypants]

Do you find any music impenetrable? Some might think Frank Zappa & the Mothers that way or Beefhearts, not that I do. The last thing I found that was that way Steve Reich, Pat Metheny, Kronos Quartet- Different Trains piece, but I don't have that reaction now. I think I felt that way on my initial listening because I was expecting something else entirely than what they performed. The closest music I can come up with might be Throbbing Gristle's music (it's dense bordering on noise), though if one spends some time with it, it too can be digested. Is there music though that still causes that reaction with you or that you felt that way initially?

[Sputnik]

There is definitely stuff that just sounds to me (and I stress, to me) like noise, and I find that stuff largely impenetrable. Some of Throbbing Gristle's stuff I have that reaction to, though some of there stuff has elements that I can at least identify as music, and thus can get my head around to some extent.

When I was a reviewer for Progression, I got some pretty out there stuff, assembled sound collages, or stuff that was improvised that featured a lot of making noises on instruments or other items that didn't really have traditional melody, harmony or arrangement. As a reviewer, I forced myself to listen to this stuff multiple times, to find the "music" in this, to find something that I could connect with a musical or emotional level. I utterly failed. I don't, and probably never will, understand why a bunch of noises constitutes "music." It simply doesn't resonate with me at that level, and thus, for me, it is basically impenetrable as "music." It was having to slog through stuff like this that partly made me turn away from reviewing, it just isn't worth it.

There are cases where stuff like this can be used to create a "mood." I've been in modern art museums where they have videos with soundtracks of sound collages or odd ambient noises. You can't deny that it creates a certain mood that often compliments what is being displayed, but I'm not still not certain that I consider that "music," or a musical soundtrack. It is sound used to create a mood, but for me music is something a little different. I think in tandem with some visual, stuff like this can be effective. It can also seem hopelessly dated, as many of these pieces do, but at least there is an entree point to the sounds you are hearing in that they compliment what you are seeing.

Some modern dance pieces are similar. Forsythe's In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated is an extraordinary piece, but I would never listen to Willems music without the dance aspect, though that stuff is not really just "noise" and has many musical elements. Perhaps that, like a lot of minimalist stuff, is simply music that I don't like, but that isn't "impenetrable" to me as music.

Bill

[JJ88]

Potentially a very interesting thread, this, if there's tolerance of people's views. It's a very individual topic.

I like quite a bit of 'difficult' music myself but I have limits. Some of the arty post-punk fringe I find more or less totally unlistenable. (Some I also find really rather good such as PiL, Magazine, Wire...) Pere Ubu's 'The Modern Dance' springs to mind for me as an example of an album certain rock critics fawn all over but I can't imagine has much audience outside of a chin-stroking fringe. Some of the 2nd half in particular struck me as utter garbage, if I'm being honest. I became very suspicious of this kind of music after a few more albums like that. How come these groups don't get dubbed 'pretentious'? I don't get it.

Sometimes things definitely grow on you. When I was young I found 'The Velvet Underground And Nico' a struggle at first. But it only took a few listens to get used to it. I loved it after that, the tunes became obvious.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Several artists that I respect but have a hard time truly enjoying; Einstürzende Neubauten, Cave & the Bad Seeds, Lydia Lunch and most of the initial nowave-bands except for Swans, Glenn Branca (I really dislike what I've heard of his stuff), and interestingly (to me), most of the 4AD projects, which I by all account SHOULD like but somehow can't. In jazz; no particular fan of Cecil Taylor, Eberhard Weber, Garbarek or the Brötzmanns - and Lord, I've tried.

[JJ88]

^The Birthday Party are another of those post-punk acts I failed to 'get', based on my exposure to them. Hard work with no real reward.

Cecil Taylor is that sort of more intellectual free jazz that again I find rather beyond me.

One that I did play recently and didn't find half as bad as I remembered was Scott Walker's 'The Drift'. Most of his stuff does actually repay the effort in the end, I find.

[Scrotum Scissor]

One that I did play recently and didn't find half as bad as I remembered was Scott Walker's 'The Drift'. Most of his stuff does actually repay the effort in the end, I find.

I'm one of those who actually started out with The Drift and then worked my way backwards. Essential modern day avant-garde musical artist, one should think.

[davis]

I like 'noise' music or industrial or whatever it's called now. Throbbing Gristle, Illusion of Safety, Hollydrift, Coil, and especially Nurse With Wound. and then there's a one-off release called Emergency Hand Puppet. e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kzqtyE1B-Q and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IuGMp9D6aM

[walt]

The few Xenakis works i've heard over the years just do not cohere for me.Same for the small number of Luigi Nono pieces i've heard.I've also listened to a few of John Cage's post 1950's compositions and can't make heads or tails of them.Some 20th century electronic music just flies over my head.

Guitarist Keith Rowe(former AMM)has a body of work(post AMM) that i've tried and failed to dig.Same with some of Tim Hodgkinson's cds.

All of these musics seem so dense and clotted to my ears.No doubt there are other works by Xenakis,Nono, Rowe etc(i enjoy many works by Cage written by Cage in the 1930s and 40s-notably his works for percussion and piano and prepared piano)that i might like.Perhaps i just heard the most difficult compositions by these composers.

I've listened to lots of British free improv over the years and found relatively few cds that have been keepers.One of the few i still own and dig is Free Jazz Quartet-Memories For The Future-led by drummer Eddie Prevost.Outstanding.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Guitarist Keith Rowe(former AMM)has a body of work(post AMM) that i've tried and failed to dig.Same with some of Tim Hodgkinson's cds.

I've listened to lots of British free improv over the years and found relatively few cds that have been keepers.One of the few i still own and dig is Free Jazz Quartet-Memories For The Future-led by drummer Eddie Prevost.Outstanding.

Walt, I'd be interested in hearing which Hodgkinson works you struggle with. And for UK free improv, did you ever hear the legendary Bailey/Bennink/Evans Topography of the Lungs album, or any of the other releases on the Incus label?

[mogrooves]

Steve Reich

Interesting. What I dig about him and that minimalist cohort is the utter transparency of the music; you can hear everything.

On the other hand, what I find "impenetrable" is the whole Yale-Columbia-Princeton and/or "Uptown" post-war academic music (mostly serial) crowd (i.e., Boulez, Babbitt, Martino, Carter, Wuorinen, Dallapiccola, and on and on....). A musical glass bead game.

[Jay.Dee]

Lots of usual suspects, even though most are actually quite "penetrable" if one knows where to navigate:

- Luigi Nono - "Prometeo" is a stunning and fairly accessible work IMO (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq2FeEeNZgs),
- Peter Brötzmann - I would recommend his Die Like A Dog quartet above anything else, both volumes of "Little Birds Have Fast Hearts" are keepers,
- Einstürzende Neubauten - their double live "9-15-2000, Brussels" is pretty enjoyable,
- European free-improv - "When the Sun is Out You Don't See Stars" by Kowald/Lüdi/Morris/Namtchylak should easily enchant anyone,
- Scott Walker - how not to love a track like "Farmer in the City" on the allegedly difficult "Tilt"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIJzTWk6bSw

My hard nut to crack? Etron Fou Leloublan - maybe not impenetrable, but quite annoying. I guess I just do not dig angry shouting in French.

[walt]

Walt, I'd be interested in hearing which Hodgkinson works you struggle with. And for UK free improv, did you ever hear the legendary Bailey/Bennink/Evans Topography of the Lungs album, or any of the other releases on the Incus label?

I've bought several cds of Hodgkinson's "classical experimental" works(including his most recent one) and just could not get into them.

Yes i've heard Topography of The Lungs but don't own it.I still have a few cds on Incus.Bigshots, with Tony Bevan-sax in trio with Paul Rodgers-bass,Steve Noble-drums,and a duo cd with sax/clarinet player Alex Ward and Steve Noble-Ya Boo Reel and Rumble.Maybe one or two more that i 've forgotten.These two get some spins once in a while.

I have a few cds on the Emanem label,Spontaneous Music Ensemble,Braxton/Derek Bailey,a couple of Steve Lacy titles,maybe a couple more......

[NogbadTheBad]

It took me a long time to get into Henry Cow, Beefheart & VDGG, they were pretty impenetrable for many years. Now it's pretty much just free jazz, I've tried & tried but it isn't taking any time soon.

[WytchCrypt]

Impenetrable? Hmmm...as far as prog goes I'd have to say Shub Niggurath & Univers Zero. I like to listen to them on occasion, but I never really get used to them to the point that I can expect what melody (or dissonance) is coming next. OTOH, Henry Cow's In Praise of Learning actually makes sense to me. Outside of prog it would have to be free jazz...I had a prog friend who tried to get me into this and to me it just sounded like 4 guys soloing without even listening to each other.

[miamiscot]

Henry Cow
Univers Zero
Magma

[hippypants]

Emergency Handpuppet live, holy cow, yeah, they'd qualify for me too. I don't think of these people as musicians, but more as conceptual artist as they don't play any sort of traditional instruments, but more or less manipulate sound. To each their own. I had a friend that sent me a DVD of a concert somewhere in Houston of a band he was trying to promote similar in vibe. For about the first ten minutes it was just a guy in cultish garb striking an anvil. That's it. Yeah, I don't call that music, some sort of art vibe. I can see where parts of Emergency Handpuppet may have a bit of Charles Ives there with the overlapping of sound or whatever, but not for me, at least initially. Granted when I think of music, I tend to think of using traditional instruments and being able to play them to some degree, and the better the musician, the more I can appreciate it, though some of the avant-guarde jazz types throw me off as well, and I can't get into it.

[Digital_Man]

Maybe some Frank Zappa, much of the RIO I have heard, the band Spaced Out, Tunnels and Oregon. I find some jazz to be that way also. The thing is some people like to be challenged when listening to music and others less so.

[JKL2000]

I found Shub-Niggurath's "Testament" pretty much unlistenable. It might be that the audio quality sucks.

[GuitarGeek]

Death metal, groove metal, black metal, "extreme" metal all leave me scratching my head, as does Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, smooooooth jazz, and "soft" rock.

[rcarlberg]

Some noise stuff is brilliant -- Hafler Trio, Einstürzende Neubauten, Rip Rig & Panic, Throbbing Gristle, Faust, This Heat.

Some -- a lot of it actually, to my ears -- is just mental masturbation. I'll only mention two, to avoid starting a flame war: Borbetomagus and Yoko Ono. Amateurish self-indulgent crap IMO. YMMV

There's a lot of really heinous music out there (Kenny G, you know who you are), but I wouldn't call it "impenetrable."

[Dave (in MA)]

Tunnels and Oregon.

??? I can't imagine.

[hippypants]

Throbbing Gristle's Gristleizer audio effect (there's a PDF article on there too); http://boingboing.net/2008/12/27/thr...l#previouspost

[Scrotum Scissor]

I found Shub-Niggurath's "Testament" pretty much unlistenable.

It is! And I friggin' love that band!

Seriously; er, cassette-deck or twomikes-recordings from the rehearsal room?

[Scrotum Scissor]

much of the RIO I have heard

That universe is really large and ridiculously disparate, so I certainly wouldn't give up just yet. I could name several dozen relatively easily accessible "RIO" artists right off the top of my head, which is NOT to say that their music is/was in any way less than intelligent, refined or challenging.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Henry Cow
Univers Zero
Magma

Keep at it! Profound rewards to be had if you do...