May 8, 2013

FRENCH MONTANA - AINT WORRIED ABOUT NOTHIN 2013’S ANTHEM? Is this song the summertime bbq/car-stereo jam of summer 2013? The last big French Montana single, ‘Pop That’, seemed like the biggest anthem from last August through now, but it got held in rotation more for its guest spots than for French himself. Can French Montana hold his own in 2013? Is French Montana still wavy? More importantly— What would Soren Kirkegaard say about this song’s absurdly repetitive hook?? Although I had convinced myself that there is no repetition, it nevertheless is always certain and that by being inflexible and also by dulling one’s powers of observation a person can achieve a sameness that has a far more anesthetic power than the most whimsical amusements and that, like a magical formulary, in the course of time also become more and more powerful.” -Soren Kirkegaard, Repetition (1843) “I ain’t worried bout nothing”. Repeat it enough and it starts to seem true. Deleuze might say that you’re carving out a territory in which your refrain becomes true. But every act of carving-out is a giving-up of something else. Maybe French Montana’s incessant refrain of self-assuredness is drawing a border which keeps his true waviness repressed. Maybe, today, nobody’s wavy.

FRENCH MONTANA - AINT WORRIED ABOUT NOTHIN

2013’S ANTHEM?


Is this song the summertime bbq/car-stereo jam of summer 2013?


The last big French Montana single, ‘Pop That’, seemed like the biggest anthem from last August through now, but it got held in rotation more for its guest spots than for French himself. Can French Montana hold his own in 2013?

Is French Montana still wavy?

More importantly— What would Soren Kirkegaard say about this song’s absurdly repetitive hook??

Although I had convinced myself that there is no repetition, it nevertheless is always certain and that by being inflexible and also by dulling one’s powers of observation a person can achieve a sameness that has a far more anesthetic power than the most whimsical amusements and that, like a magical formulary, in the course of time also become more and more powerful.”

-Soren Kirkegaard, Repetition (1843)

“I ain’t worried bout nothing”. Repeat it enough and it starts to seem true. Deleuze might say that you’re carving out a territory in which your refrain becomes true. But every act of carving-out is a giving-up of something else. Maybe French Montana’s incessant refrain of self-assuredness is drawing a border which keeps his true waviness repressed.


Maybe, today, nobody’s wavy.

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See Post tags #free max b #french montana #wavy #drake #ymcmb #max b #owwww #summerjam #hip hop #kirkegaard #deleuze #repetition

ITS OVER THE BLACK METAL / WITCH HOUSE / ASAP naming convention narrative has run its course from ‘elite’ to ‘plebeian’. upside down crosses, triangles, etc are no longer the signs of distinction they once were. expect new age occult cyber goth t-shirts to appear in your local wal-mart shortly READ: SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

ITS OVER


THE BLACK METAL / WITCH HOUSE / ASAP naming convention narrative has run its course from ‘elite’ to ‘plebeian’. upside down crosses, triangles, etc are no longer the signs of distinction they once were.

expect new age occult cyber goth t-shirts to appear in your local wal-mart shortly

READ: SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

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See Post tags #spaceghostpurrp #ASAP #a$ap rocky #black metal #witch house #goth #hot topic #wal-mart #trends #distinction #michele de certeau

May 7, 2013

A PLURALITY OF PUNKS, A PLURALITY OF DEATHS AND AFTERLIVES Institutional recognition for ‘punk’ subcultures have spiked. Punk fashion has been selected as the theme for an exhibition in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Simultaneously, hardcore fests have been reported on as a ‘growing trend’ in the New York Times. These examples demonstrate the diversity of contemporary practices operating within ‘punk’ designation— punk-as-signifier on one pole, punk-as-praxis on the other. display of subcultural fashions in a museum seems to connote the death of a living culture which once produced them. compare with mummification, taxidermy, cryogenic preservation. reportage on a living productive community, conversely, connotes vitality (cue exploration of a ‘can the subaltern speak’ critique) neither hardcore festivals, nor institutional recognition of ‘oppositional’ fashion, are new or unique to 2013. both phenomena have been occurring for decades, and eliciting similar simultaneous disapproval/celebration.  Is this life-death-rebirth cycle of subcultural practice simply the re-articulation of religious/mythological (possibly christian) resurrection archetypes? Both living and dead at once, punk is a synecdoche for oppositional culture at large and a surrogate religion for youth; it affords a secular opportunity to act through faith in the simultaneously redeeming and futile truths of everyday life.

A PLURALITY OF PUNKS, A PLURALITY OF DEATHS AND AFTERLIVES

Institutional recognition for ‘punk’ subcultures have spiked. Punk fashion has been selected as the theme for an exhibition in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Simultaneously, hardcore fests have been reported on as a ‘growing trend’ in the New York Times. These examples demonstrate the diversity of contemporary practices operating within ‘punk’ designation— punk-as-signifier on one pole, punk-as-praxis on the other.

Is this life-death-rebirth cycle of subcultural practice simply the re-articulation of religious/mythological (possibly christian) resurrection archetypes?


Both living and dead at once, punk is a synecdoche for oppositional culture at large and a surrogate religion for youth; it affords a secular opportunity to act through faith in the simultaneously redeeming and futile truths of everyday life.

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See Post tags #punk #lil wayne #dystopia #hardcore #christianity #subculture #dick hebdige #anti-cimex #religion #resurrection #salvation

May 5, 2013

VIDEO-CHRONO-SPORT TIMEPLAY AND SKATEBOARDING  TIMEPLAY/TIME SHIFTING: a prominent aesthetic characteristic among 2010-decade skateboard videos. EXAMPLES: The Philadephia Experiment (2013); BRONZE 56K (2012), FAUX ONE ONE (2013) Characteristics include VHS effects, time-travel narratives, direct homage to past videos, direct homage to past media formats. Expanding on current work that’s theorized skateboarding as play that engages space and the body, to think about skateboarding on video introduces questions of TIME and MEDIATION the advancing sophistication of skate techniques and cohesion of skateboard culture have been sustained across sometimes isolated geographical contexts due in large part to video circulation skateboarding video restructures the sport’s relation with time following Josh Greenberg, the history of home video in general is a history of TIME-SHIFTING thus skateboarding as a video activity re-inscribes TIME in the same fashion that  Zarka and Borden have theorized the sport more generally as re-inscribing SPACE. Possible ramifications: Skateboarding produces a shadow-chronology of space. the timeflow of public space is re-inscribed as un-scheduled, un-regulated the timeflow of transit spaces (sidewalks, streets, etc) are re-inscribed at a playful stasis READ ALSO: Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space Giedeon, Siegfried. Space, Time and Architecture

VIDEO-CHRONO-SPORT

TIMEPLAY AND SKATEBOARDING 


TIMEPLAY/TIME SHIFTING: a prominent aesthetic characteristic among 2010-decade skateboard videos.

EXAMPLES: The Philadephia Experiment (2013); BRONZE 56K (2012), FAUX ONE ONE (2013)

Characteristics include VHS effects, time-travel narratives, direct homage to past videos, direct homage to past media formats.

Expanding on current work that’s theorized skateboarding as play that engages space and the body, to think about skateboarding on video introduces questions of TIME and MEDIATION

Possible ramifications:

READ ALSO:

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space

Giedeon, Siegfried. Space, Time and Architecture

7 notes
See Post tags #skateboarding #411 #411vm #90s #nostalgia #vhs #video #skate video #nyc #philadelphia #love park #gonz #mark gonzales #krooked #real skateboards #kasper #casper #time #lefebvre #henri lefebvre #situationism #si #bronze #56k #bronze hardware #iron claw #suciu #spacetime

May 1, 2013

TIME 2 SHINE AND THE E-TOWN MORALITY From E-Town Concrete’s “Time 2 Shine” (1998): Now I’m getting mine by taking yours. Time to shine. All my life I hated those who had more. But now I’m getting mine by taking yours, time to shine. Please excuse my fucked up attitude, but I don’t give a fuck about you. Notes: the distinction between two types of ownership (mine, yours) hinges on an act of theft. the speaker’s distaste for more prosperous individuals is complicated by his desire to become those individuals. property gains achieved through coercive means (‘taking’) reconstitute the subject as that which he ‘always hated’ the speaker proceeds to requests forgiveness for his ethical position with regards to ‘taking’, while simultaneously communicating a lack of remorse. ‘Time 2 Shine’ thus conveys an alienated subject for whom status ambition and guilt coexist while attempting achieve a state of ‘shining’. Listen here:

TIME 2 SHINE AND THE E-TOWN MORALITY


From E-Town Concrete’s “Time 2 Shine” (1998):

Now I’m getting mine by taking yours. Time to shine.

All my life I hated those who had more.

But now I’m getting mine by taking yours, time to shine. 

Please excuse my fucked up attitude, but I don’t give a fuck about you.


Notes:

Listen here:

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See Post tags #e town concrete #e town #elizabeth nj #new jersey #njhc #hardcore #rap metal #nu metal #thugcore #mosh #nyhc #90s #time 2 shine #ant money #hip hop

April 29, 2013

NOTES TOWARD DEATH METAL THEORY In the wake of Eugene Thacker’s Horror of Philosophy and contemporaneous  developments in “Black Metal Theory”, parallel extreme metal subgenres demand their own parallel extreme theorizations.  Following Thacker, we might say that black metal connotes alterity, inversion, and cosmic nihilism, as well as: Omnipresent, Schopenhauerian will The horror of a cosmology indifferent to humans By way of comparison and contrast, a provisional set of death metal aesthetics might include: profane obsessions (the body, gore, phenomenology of violence) waste (war, destruction, pain).  see also: Georges Bataille on the glory of expenditure engagement with life in late capitalism using tactics of hypertrophy and exaggeration. compare with hip-hop. in contrast to black metal’s representation of spiritual, Schopenhaurian will, death metal mobilizes Nietzschean will-to-power i.e. individual subjects’ engagement with power. Death metal may represent a fixation on the horror of profane phenomenological experience, and subjects’ attempts to play with power on power’s terms. Much like hip-hop’s obsessive engagement to capitalism, death metal appropriates and exaggerates violence in order to gain power for its practitioners.  If black metal represents cosmic or spiritual horror, death metal may work within the horror of profane quotidian existence. If the tactics of inversion and disappearance find their expression in black metal, death metal may demonstrate tactics such as antiheroism and ethically ambivalent individualism. Other notes: 1. The speculative treatment of horror, being without life, death, etc is a quality which unites, rather than divides, the two subgenres. like Heidegger said, nobody experiences their own being-dead. 2. Other extreme rock music subgenres such as crust punk and grindcore sit elsewhere on what might provisionally be called the misanthropy spectrum, representing related treatments of ecological disaster, death, and a world that doesn’t need humanity. SEE ALSO: Mudrian, Albert.  Choosing Death

NOTES TOWARD DEATH METAL THEORY

In the wake of Eugene Thacker’s Horror of Philosophy and contemporaneous  developments in “Black Metal Theory”, parallel extreme metal subgenres demand their own parallel extreme theorizations. 

Following Thacker, we might say that black metal connotes alterity, inversion, and cosmic nihilism, as well as:

By way of comparison and contrast, a provisional set of death metal aesthetics might include:

Death metal may represent a fixation on the horror of profane phenomenological experience, and subjects’ attempts to play with power on power’s terms. Much like hip-hop’s obsessive engagement to capitalism, death metal appropriates and exaggerates violence in order to gain power for its practitioners. 

If black metal represents cosmic or spiritual horror, death metal may work within the horror of profane quotidian existence. If the tactics of inversion and disappearance find their expression in black metal, death metal may demonstrate tactics such as antiheroism and ethically ambivalent individualism.

Other notes:

1. The speculative treatment of horror, being without life, death, etc is a quality which unites, rather than divides, the two subgenres. like Heidegger said, nobody experiences their own being-dead.

2. Other extreme rock music subgenres such as crust punk and grindcore sit elsewhere on what might provisionally be called the misanthropy spectrum, representing related treatments of ecological disaster, death, and a world that doesn’t need humanity.

SEE ALSO:

Mudrian, Albert.  Choosing Death

16 notes
See Post tags #black metal #death metal #metal studies #black metal theory #death metal theory #nietzsche #thacker #bataille #capitalism #horror #will #will to power #heavy metal #speculative realism #nihilism

December 25, 2012

2012 IN REVIEW IN THE FORM OF A REVIEW OF BLACK MAN’S WEALTH (SELF RELEASE, DIGITAL, 2012) BY SPACEGHOSTPURRP (Streaming link) Spaceghostpurrp’s fifth full-length solo release continues his streak upending conventions of genre and form while delivering vaguely 5 percent nation inspired, houston- and/or memphis-styled, horror-flavored mixtape raps. It is his 3rd solo release of 2012, which included his 4AD debut, Mysterious Phonk. A lot of the message board/comment section chatter concerning Black Man’s Wealth (BMW) revolves around Purrp’s repetitive lyrics and simplistic delivery. Certainly, BMW displays Purrp at his most pared-down. The delivery has gotten progressively more whispery and chant-like.  2012 has seen two releases from Purrp proper, but it was more notable for SGP’s high profile falling-out with ASAP Rocky and his ASAP affiliates. This breakup sparked a bizarre social-media blitz from Purrp, whose constant venting on the topic became unnerving during spring and summer. ASAP Rocky publicly discredited Purrp as “crazy and bipolar”, “putting his foot in his mouth”. Purrp followed with a manic feat of networked production, the 40+ track “Raider Klan Greatest Hits Vol 1” mixtape produced in conjunction with the Raider Klan, a loose nationwide collective with at least 15 associates. Purrp’s progression from February 2012 (God of Black) through Greatest Hits and Black Man’s Wealth began with his most positive philosophical work, in which Purrp claimed “I’m not longer a black man. The black god. I got to have the world in my hand”. Intonations against petty crime (God Of Black’s title track) progressed into threats against George Zimmerman, before finally devolving into tracks like BMW’s “Rep FLA”, a one-note dirge on repping for one’s squad and putting on for one’s crew. It’s all veiled threats, pride sounding damaged and suspense movie soundtrack stabs. At a crawling pace that pushes the sounds of Three-6 Mafia or DJ Screw into seeming like droning doom metal or chopped and screwed industrial. If God of Black’s official/alternate spelling (SPVCXGXXZTPVRP - GXX OX BXXXX) seemed to suggest an engagement with the naming conventions of witch house or black metal, the increasing torpor displayed on BMW shows SGP touching on doom and sludge. BMW’s violence, paranoia, and ego damage mobilizes heavy metal’s pathos of pain and ethos of darkness-embracing. The year progressed toward a predicted world-catastrophe while the nation devolved into gun mania and culture wars. SpaceGhostPurrp progressed similarly: he started the year as an outsider artist whose dark posturing captivated post-punks, skateboarders, and hip-hop trendsetters. He is seeing the year out as more of an outsider than he began, despite a continuous growth in exposure. Even the artist’s detractors frequently agree that his production and atmospherics are timely and consistent. Things have simply gotten darker. And SpaceGhostPurrp is not the only American who has dug himself into an ever-growing hole, without planning an escape strategy.

2012 IN REVIEW IN THE FORM OF A REVIEW OF BLACK MAN’S WEALTH (SELF RELEASE, DIGITAL, 2012) BY SPACEGHOSTPURRP

(Streaming link)


Spaceghostpurrp’s fifth full-length solo release continues his streak upending conventions of genre and form while delivering vaguely 5 percent nation inspired, houston- and/or memphis-styled, horror-flavored mixtape raps. It is his 3rd solo release of 2012, which included his 4AD debut, Mysterious Phonk.

A lot of the message board/comment section chatter concerning Black Man’s Wealth (BMW) revolves around Purrp’s repetitive lyrics and simplistic delivery. Certainly, BMW displays Purrp at his most pared-down. The delivery has gotten progressively more whispery and chant-like. 

2012 has seen two releases from Purrp proper, but it was more notable for SGP’s high profile falling-out with ASAP Rocky and his ASAP affiliates. This breakup sparked a bizarre social-media blitz from Purrp, whose constant venting on the topic became unnerving during spring and summer. ASAP Rocky publicly discredited Purrp as “crazy and bipolar”, “putting his foot in his mouth”.

Purrp followed with a manic feat of networked production, the 40+ track “Raider Klan Greatest Hits Vol 1” mixtape produced in conjunction with the Raider Klan, a loose nationwide collective with at least 15 associates. Purrp’s progression from February 2012 (God of Black) through Greatest Hits and Black Man’s Wealth began with his most positive philosophical work, in which Purrp claimed “I’m not longer a black man. The black god. I got to have the world in my hand”. Intonations against petty crime (God Of Black’s title track) progressed into threats against George Zimmerman, before finally devolving into tracks like BMW’s “Rep FLA”, a one-note dirge on repping for one’s squad and putting on for one’s crew. It’s all veiled threats, pride sounding damaged and suspense movie soundtrack stabs. At a crawling pace that pushes the sounds of Three-6 Mafia or DJ Screw into seeming like droning doom metal or chopped and screwed industrial.

If God of Black’s official/alternate spelling (SPVCXGXXZTPVRP - GXX OX BXXXX) seemed to suggest an engagement with the naming conventions of witch house or black metal, the increasing torpor displayed on BMW shows SGP touching on doom and sludge.

BMW’s violence, paranoia, and ego damage mobilizes heavy metal’s pathos of pain and ethos of darkness-embracing. The year progressed toward a predicted world-catastrophe while the nation devolved into gun mania and culture wars. SpaceGhostPurrp progressed similarly: he started the year as an outsider artist whose dark posturing captivated post-punks, skateboarders, and hip-hop trendsetters. He is seeing the year out as more of an outsider than he began, despite a continuous growth in exposure. Even the artist’s detractors frequently agree that his production and atmospherics are timely and consistent. Things have simply gotten darker. And SpaceGhostPurrp is not the only American who has dug himself into an ever-growing hole, without planning an escape strategy.


See Post tags #2012 #best of #bmw #review #spaceghostpurrp

December 24, 2012

“UNPACKING MY PILES OF OBSOLETE ELECTRONICS” ON HOARDING, AS OPPOSED TO COLLECTING “Thus there is in the life of the collector a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order” “Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious, becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the lock of his property.” “for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object.” -Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library”, 1931   If collecting represents the effort to harness and miniaturize the marketplace in one’s home, hoarding represents a more realistic goal: aimless fumbling through capitalist dystopia, stopping for faint relief here and there with a moment of consumption. The hoarder then stashes his acquisition somewhere to be left alone, not valuable enough for resale, not meaningful enough for careful curation.   If collecting corresponds with the urge to hunt, to track and exert mastery over an object, then hoarding corresponds with fishing. Patient and receptive, the hoarder traps what catches come his way, unable to be discerning due to the mechanics of his sport.

“UNPACKING MY PILES OF OBSOLETE ELECTRONICS”

ON HOARDING, AS OPPOSED TO COLLECTING


“Thus there is in the life of the collector a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order”

“Everything remembered and thought, everything conscious, becomes the pedestal, the frame, the base, the lock of his property.”

“for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object.”

-Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking My Library”, 1931

  If collecting represents the effort to harness and miniaturize the marketplace in one’s home, hoarding represents a more realistic goal: aimless fumbling through capitalist dystopia, stopping for faint relief here and there with a moment of consumption. The hoarder then stashes his acquisition somewhere to be left alone, not valuable enough for resale, not meaningful enough for careful curation.

  If collecting corresponds with the urge to hunt, to track and exert mastery over an object, then hoarding corresponds with fishing. Patient and receptive, the hoarder traps what catches come his way, unable to be discerning due to the mechanics of his sport.


See Post tags #collecting #walter benjamin #benjamin #consumption #hoarding #hoarders #junk

May 19, 2012

“…one thing that I find terrible nowadays is that people continue to imagine that the Internet is the means by which they themselves are linked to others world-wide. For the fact is that it is their computers that are globally linked to other computers. Hence the real connection is not between people but between machines.” “…it is one of my most deeply held beliefs that it is not the task of books to produce unnecessary hope. On the contrary, I think it is the job of books to make things even worse than they are”  -Friedrich Kittler, interview with John Armitage. 2006.

“…one thing that I find terrible nowadays is that people continue to imagine that the Internet is the means by which they themselves are linked to others world-wide. For the fact is that it is their computers that are globally linked to other computers. Hence the real connection is not between people but between machines.”

“…it is one of my most deeply held beliefs that it is not the task of books to produce unnecessary hope. On the contrary, I think it is the job of books to make things even worse than they are”

 -Friedrich Kittler, interview with John Armitage. 2006.


See Post tags #kittler #friedrich kittler #internet #machines #books #discourse networks

May 17, 2012

Assigned Stadium Seating as Material Precondition to Headbanging: Metaphorizing Socioeconomic Immobility  People got up and danced in such a restricted space. I think that’s why everybody started head banging, because there wasn’t enough room. It was just fucking unbelievable to watch. Everybody just rocked from their torsos upwards. It was nothing to do with the feet. It spread like wildfire all over England and Europe.  -Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward (Interview, ‘Sup Magazine, 2012) Headbanging is a performance of discontent conceived to take place within the spatial logistic of capitalist entertainment industry facilities. Related: Foucault, Michel. “Discipline and Punish” 1975/1977. Bey, Hakim. “T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism” 1991.

Assigned Stadium Seating as Material Precondition to Headbanging:

Metaphorizing Socioeconomic Immobility

 People got up and danced in such a restricted space. I think that’s why everybody started head banging, because there wasn’t enough room. It was just fucking unbelievable to watch. Everybody just rocked from their torsos upwards. It was nothing to do with the feet. It spread like wildfire all over England and Europe. 

-Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward (Interview, ‘Sup Magazine, 2012)


Headbanging is a performance of discontent conceived to take place within the spatial logistic of capitalist entertainment industry facilities.

Related:

Foucault, Michel. “Discipline and Punish” 1975/1977.

Bey, Hakim. “T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism” 1991.

7 notes
See Post tags #black sabbath #capitalism #discipline #foucault #headbanging #mosh #sabbath #the carnivalesque

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