February 2009

Recommended CD of the organized sound variety: She Came From Money by RUEZ.

[RUEZ, aka Eric Laska] presents to us an idiosyncratic electronic music hyper-collage, three years worth of collected samples meticulously amalgamated into this 15 and a half minute offering: the oscillations of corrupted MP3 files, scrambling synthesizers, urban field recordings, chirping feedback electronics. [...]

Reference points include Gert-Jan Prins's Risk, Rowe/Lehn/Schmickler's Rabbit Run, early 90s Voice Crack, & the non-harsh noise work of John Wiese.

(3" CDr. Edition of 100)

Wasn't familiar with the references except through googling and discogs but it's always interesting to learn about the "noise underground" and think about the taxonomic relations among practitioners. For the non-specialist (e.g., me), RUEZ's music hews more to the classical, Stockhausen end of the yardstick as opposed to the rock, Wolf Eyes end (or even the techno German/Miami glitch middle).

The music is full-sounding (not minimal), highly detailed, organized, clean (despite the gritty sounds) and sure of what it's about. No obvious FX processing (as you hear with say, Oval) but rather keen attention to layering and pacing and the way in which the sounds are revealed (a burbling barely audible until a masking tone is suddenly or gradually peeled away, a series of drones playing just long enough to keep your attention before fading into related but dissimilar drones). Only the first tune of the five, "The Thunderclap" has an immediately recognizable song structure: an "allegro" section recalling a stuck CD, a "lento" section of doleful beeps and buzzes, and a return to the allegro.

You wouldn't guess that you were listening to a collection of anything, although the sound is heavily digital and steeped in sampling tech and errors. Laska is careful to keep obvious "real world" references out, other than the noises machines make, or the world as refracted through damaged gear. You listen to it for the sensuousness of the sound, and it's a notably consistent whole, as if made from scratch (so to speak).

The war crimes encouraged by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld are starting to leak out. We knew this was going on but the press in Washington kept assuring everyone that Bush was "good people." Will Obama really change this or has our society become completely decadent? From Scott Horton, Harper's Magazine:

[Army Private Brandon Neely] describes body searches undertaken for no legitimate security purpose, simply to sexually invade and humiliate the prisoners. This was a standardized Bush Administration tactic-–the importance of which became apparent to me when I participated in some Capitol Hill negotiations with White House representatives relating to legislation creating criminal law accountability for contractors. The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes. While these techniques have long been known, the role of health care professionals in implementing them is shocking.