no

it's just one of the worst albums in the history of music

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

def right up GiaN's ass

I actually don't hate this anymore since I've gotten more in to structionless experimentation. It's pure impulse and completely in the moment.

I remember looking for this before 2012's end, I couldn't find it then tho.

GiaN

ughhh free improvisation, not a good thing

Album Rating: 2.5

a GREAT thing *who wants to high-five me* *pls*

*high-five*

i mean ok let's do it i guess ok

Album Rating: 2.5

thanks chums!

not as bad as the garb on the front page tbh

Album Rating: 4.0

I find it funny that for some reason, out of all the difficult/weird albums lurking in the shadows of Sputnik, this is the one that draws out banal, inane, "worst ever" comments.



I wonder how many people who would have said "worst ever", "it's all random noise" etc about grindcore or something but did not dismiss it because Sputnik endorses it, and therefore gave it a chance. With something like this however, people are much less likely to see it as something that they might come around to, and immediately seize upon it as something that, regardless of their listening habits, just sticks out as a purely bad.

Album Rating: 2.5

I don't think this and grindcore are analogous at all because so much of music in this vein is represented as an intellectual exercise and i can see why that's off-putting tbh



also some people might genuinely find that this doesn't resonate with them for whatever reason and that's o.k too

Album Rating: 4.0

Represented as an intellectual exercise by the artists? or by others?



Just to riff on this for a bit: I feel like there is a particularly poor misconception about weird art necessarily being overly intellectual in some way. Bach and Mozart certainly composed a host of pieces as if they were exercises, though they speak to many "hearts", whereas this, a freely improvised recording, not adhering to traditional theoretical norms, can be dismissed as pompous, heady, intellectual, pretentious, etc.



The antinomy of head vs heart, intellectual vs emotional is a poor one, and one that does not have much practical use. I think that many who would bluntly state "no my music is emotional, it's not some intellectual game" are only afforded that position because somebody else has done the thinking for them. They may claim to be all about emotion, but if they express it through a rigid theoretical format that they have inherited rather than created, it only makes them uncritical of the "intellectual" materials they use.



I think mainly the charge of being overly intellectual (or something similar) usually is a defensive move on the behalf of many listeners. It makes it easy to dismiss something if you can disagree with its premise, rather than pay attention to the sounds. There are definitely fans of different "weird" music who are complicit in this though, using it is a platform to shout down at pop or whatever else, but that kind of role seems to have been internalised by others instead.

alright i hereby upgrade my rating from a 1 to a 3 i suppose i was being an asshole when i first rated it

Album Rating: 2.5

that's a really great response and I mostly concur. to answer some of your points tho



I do think that we can't absolve avant-garde artists entirely from criticism but mostly the surrounding discourse, and how that shapes what the album is and how it functions well beyond what the creators may or may not have intended (which is, let's be real, a very academic approach, even the words chosen to describe it; not adhering to a particular genre becomes 'non-idiomatic' in the words of Derek Bailey, and even the discussion of 'traditional theoretical norms' intellectualizes the music, no?). The album is no longer an album but an artifact and a symbol with undeniable connotations, most of confrontational and elitist



so even if writing it off is a defensive move, as you note it's one based on 'internalization'; it's a reaction against feeling like they're substandard listeners or are somehow lacking a framework to judge it, so i understand that hostility. whereas with grindcore a lot of listeners presume there'll be a worthwhile pay-off that will reward repeated, devoted listens, what's the payoff proffered here - especially to those who haven't delved into Free Improv etc. at all previously?

Album Rating: 2.5

also u live in Melbourne eh where in the cbd does the best coffee asking for myself

also u live in Melbourne eh where in the cbd does the best coffee asking for myself

Album Rating: 4.0

I think that this is where most of the problem stems from: nobody encounters art in a vacuum, much less makes art within one, but the fact is all too readily glossed over or ignored. An album/artist can become a punching bag for both the surrounding critical discourse and the listeners own internal situation. I still find it interesting that uprooting oneself from a tradition is the intellectual move, when so many claim to be somehow outside of influence, just creating freely, while all the more rigidly conforming.



The question of pay-off is important. If somebody feels no pressure from their surrounds to seek that pay-off, then dismissal is a simple response. If the person somehow found themselves in a new group where they were pressured to accept free-improv and atonal music, maybe they would be more patient. In the end, I think that the pay-off is much like it is for coming to grips with any style/genre that seems difficult or opaque at first. As I was trying to get at earlier, I think many of us tend to ignore how far our tastes have changed and evolved in order to criticise something else that may be beyond us. What we love now we could have equally criticised before in the same way. Perhaps it's just complacency: "now I know enough!" – even if the same revelation has been had many times over.



As for coffee(!), I really like Sensory Lab, but my two favourite are just out of the cbd: Auction Rooms in North Melbourne (I'm a biased local), and Vincent the Dog in Carlton. There are so many options though, we are pretty spoiled. Do you live in/around the cbd?

Album Rating: 2.5

Nahh i'm a Wellington man! Popping over the ditch for a brief visit in a week and really really looking forward to it, gonna jot down your recs )), thank you! Apparently i have to go to Literature Lane as well, god i'm so excited



also what a coincidence dimsim haha