Whitechapel - The Hauntological Congress 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/ Lussumo Vanilla & Feed Publisher The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53419#Comment_53419 2008-05-26T16:20:14-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 Have any of you been following this whole hauntology thing over the last 18 months or so? I went to a seminar about it a couple of weeks ago that felt a bit like people putting a capstone over it. ... Wikipedia's stub:

The idea suggests that the present exists only with respect to the past, and that society after the end of history will begin to orient itself towards ideas and aesthetics that are thought of as rustic, bizarre or "old-timey"; that is, towards the "ghost" of the past.


As applied to musics, hauntology is an attempt to define that particular sonic which is the sound of the present being audibly haunted by the past. Songs heard as if from three rooms away, in the middle of the night. The ghostly music-boxes heard in Philip Jeck pieces. Crackle. There's a connection with Electronic Voice Phenomenon in there, and a tenuous connection is at least passively inferred with Paul Devereux's experiments in archaeoacoustics. (he's got his tongue in his cheek when he calls it "deep hauntology" -- but he does say it.)

So, before I get any further into this -- am I talking to myself here?

-- W]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53429#Comment_53429 2008-05-26T16:44:01-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Spiraltwist http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=426 I'm listening. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53435#Comment_53435 2008-05-26T17:10:30-07:00 2008-05-26T17:12:03-07:00 jzellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=575 It's interesting to note that, from a music maker's standpoint, there are a lot of digital plugins popping up that are designed specifically to "distress" audio -- to add crackles and pops, ...
A lot of Burial's stuff sounds like that (I have no idea whether it's intentional or not): that vibe that you're listening to music made of ancient sounds. Or maybe I'm just a wanker.

(Edit) That reminds me, obscurely, of the film Angel Heart: the scene at the end with Rourke and DeNiro where they use the old Johnny Favorite song as a sort of creepy counterpoint to the action. Which proves that you can take any music made before, say, 1967, add a lot of reverb to it, and scare the shit out of people.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53436#Comment_53436 2008-05-26T17:16:31-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 hank http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=79 Warren, I'm interested but still not up to speed. Sounds interesting though. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53437#Comment_53437 2008-05-26T17:17:40-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 jzellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=575 Also, weren't a lot of the late 70s / early 80s industrial people into this sort of thing? The SPK people; and I think Brian Lustmord was (probably still is)...and wasn't there a band called Dead ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53438#Comment_53438 2008-05-26T17:19:15-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 A lot of Burial's stuff sounds like that (I have no idea whether it's intentional or not): In some cases, it definitely is -- "Raver" is clearly intended to be heard as the ghost of the ... A lot of Burial's stuff sounds like that (I have no idea whether it's intentional or not):

In some cases, it definitely is -- "Raver" is clearly intended to be heard as the ghost of the rave scene, standing in an Essex field and hearing it bleed back from twenty years ago.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53439#Comment_53439 2008-05-26T17:23:28-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 Also, weren't a lot of the late 70s / early 80s industrial people into this sort of thing? The SPK people; and I think Brian Lustmord was (probably still is)...and wasn't there a band called Dead ... Also, weren't a lot of the late 70s / early 80s industrial people into this sort of thing? The SPK people; and I think Brian Lustmord was (probably still is)...and wasn't there a band called Dead Voices on Air?

I don't remember SPK specifically invoking historicity, which Burial, Jeck and the likes of the Mordant Music and Ghost Box labels absolutely do.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53440#Comment_53440 2008-05-26T17:25:19-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 bschory http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=516 I've been fascinated recently by Paul Horn's "Inside the Great Pyramid", where he goes into various rooms of said pyramid and allows the acoustics of each room to play into the recording of ...
For consideration, this site has some of "Inside the Great Pyramid": http://www.emusic.com/album/10852/10852007.html]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53441#Comment_53441 2008-05-26T17:28:54-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 burket http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3177 Pretty much what Hank said. it sounds interesting, just this is the first I'm hearing of it.
it sounds interesting, just this is the first I'm hearing of it.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53446#Comment_53446 2008-05-26T17:45:15-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 orwellseyes http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2119 First thing I thought of upon reading this was "The Stone Tape' which is an eerie as fuck BBC movie from back in 72 or so. A bit from my field. We had a client a couple years back who wanted ... "The Stone Tape' which is an eerie as fuck BBC movie from back in 72 or so.

A bit from my field. We had a client a couple years back who wanted to create seasonal audio presence for an exhibition. Over the course of a year we had a sound engineer go out to the site and make long form recordings, usually 2-4 hours in length. Mostly just wind, insects and bird. At the end she had nearly 60 hours of tape of this site from every month of the year. Again, mostly just background noise that we cut into the exhibition as presence and there was an interactive panel where you could "hear the sounds of summer" that was kind of fun.

The sound engineer also made layered recordings of the presence set to beats. It was a lot like Burial, a haunted audio landscape. You'd catch the odd car horn or human noises bubbling up. Straining to hear things that had occured at a very specific place at a very specific time. I wish it was online but the client is governmental and twitchy.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53452#Comment_53452 2008-05-26T17:55:35-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Fauxhammer http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=27 I'm fascinated, but to be honest, my australopithecine brain starts shrieking and throwing rocks. I'm far too goddamn superstitious. Does that "To Repel Ghosts" outfit belong in this ...
Does that "To Repel Ghosts" outfit belong in this movement? Their "Partisan Songs" disc reminded me to listening to echoes from another time, a weird time.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53455#Comment_53455 2008-05-26T18:06:50-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Rootfireember http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1551 I'm really interested in this kind of stuff; I used to be interested in victorian mediums & how their hoaxes were put together, ghost stories, etc. Older, distressed sounds intrigue me. EVP ...
In anycase, I'm interested in hearing a bit more about this- I don't know enough to shake a stick at, but I'm up to learning more.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53476#Comment_53476 2008-05-26T18:49:37-07:00 2008-05-26T18:50:24-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 It's been 'redefined' in my opinion to suit a certain artistic pattern in a kind of chic way--my interpretation of that 'What is ideology?' text by Derrida was that it says clearly the opposite of ...
This quote sums it up for me! "But if the commodity-form is not, presently, use-value, and even if it is not actually present, it affects in advance the use-value of the wooden table. It affects and bereaves it in advance, like the ghost it will become, but this is precisely where haunting begins. And its time, and the untimeliness of its present, of its being “out of joint.” To haunt does not mean to be present, and it is necessary to introduce haunting into the very construction of a concept. Of every concept, beginning with the concepts of being and time. That is what we would be calling here a hauntology. Ontology opposes it only in a movement of exorcism. Ontology is a conjuration." (via: spectres of marx)]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53486#Comment_53486 2008-05-26T19:27:29-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 jzellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=575 I was so jealous when I saw that band To Repel Ghosts. I was gonna name my album that. (It's a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting title.) I see a lot of this hauntology idea in William Gibson's work, ...
I see a lot of this hauntology idea in William Gibson's work, once you get past the future-forward flash stuff.

Also, see Gavin Bryars' "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet". A field recording of an English tramp singing a sort of folk hymn, set to orchestral music, with Tom Waits singing along.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53520#Comment_53520 2008-05-26T21:43:49-07:00 2008-05-26T21:53:14-07:00 roque http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=482 fascinating. it's the first I've heard this term, but haunting is a subject close to my heart. as far as the music side of it goes... I immediately think of the scene in the movie Legion (retitled ... Legion (retitled Exorcist III by the studio). there's a dream of murdered ghosts playing cards with the angels in Heaven's waystation, while an old recording of Song of India plays somewhere. Akira Yamaoka's fond of that same kind of thing in the Silent Hill video games. a lot of his music goes for an old-timey, big-band sound, but with melancholy minor tones that achieve a haunting effect. he also uses "skip and crackle" effects, either in his songs, or by themselves in the background of a scene for the sake of creepiness. along a similar line, I started listening to Climax Golden Twins after hearing the Session 9 soundtrack.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53521#Comment_53521 2008-05-26T21:44:45-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 bramclark http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1605 I'm all ears and elbows for this stuff. I've been looking to combine that with the idea of infrasound for the past couple of weeks. Interesting applications I would think. First I heard of it was ... applications I would think.

First I heard of it was your blog entry about a gig in London you took in and i've been into Philip Jeck ever since and devouring all the Paul Devereux I can find. I've been into the Ghost Box stuff (how could someone not want to listen to an artist named Eric Zann?) but just now looked up Mordant Music. Cheers for that.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53524#Comment_53524 2008-05-26T21:54:20-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Personman http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2829 I have no idea if this is anything like what you are talking about, but the TMBG song I Can Hear You, recorded on a wax cylinder at the Edison lab, was the first thing that sprung to mind. It's ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53575#Comment_53575 2008-05-27T02:19:56-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 idlemachine http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3603 This is fascinating, I'd never heard of the term before now, but I would definitely describe Poe's album 'Haunted' as hauntological. The album also featured samples of audio recordings made by Poe's ... Poe's album 'Haunted' as hauntological.
The album also featured samples of audio recordings made by Poe's late father, film director Tad Danielewski. The cassettes were found by Poe and Mark after their father had died and were literally audio-letters to the two of them that spanned back as far as their birth. Thus, the album is usually interpreted as a real woman (Poe) singing tributes to her deceased father (who sings back) even while telling the story of a group of fictional characters (from House of Leaves).
A very creepy album in places...]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53581#Comment_53581 2008-05-27T03:35:30-07:00 2008-05-27T03:36:58-07:00 drug opera http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3604 Hi folks, this is my first post here - been lurking long enough I think. I remember seeing the hauntology tag coined by k-punk a couple of years back (if that) during his championing of the Ghost ...
I remember seeing the hauntology tag coined by k-punk a couple of years back (if that) during his championing of the Ghost Box label. It did seem to be a bit of a artificial genre, in the sense that it didn't come out of any real scene that existed at the time, but as term to unify a certain musical approach or atmosphere I'm a big fan. I think I'm in agreement with k-punk in that my favourite hauntological artist of recent years is The Caretaker. Everyone should go and download at least one of his albums right now (they're free), it's beautiful stuff
http://www.brainwashed.com/vvm/releases/vvmtest/offal07b.htm
http://www.brainwashed.com/vvm/releases/vvmother/weme_caretaker_deletedscenes_12.html
http://www.brainwashed.com/vvm/micro/caretaker/vvmtcd25_b1.htm

Other than that - yeah Philip Jeck is the man. Anything on the Touch label in general is pretty essential - Chris Watson's field recordings, Rosie Parlane, Mika Vanio....
Also great is a guy called Chris Herbert who released an album called Mezzotint on the Kranky label a couple of years ago and I still throw it on every week or so. He made alot of it with field recordings of Birminghams waterways and disused bathhouses and so on - I've never been to Birmingham, but this does evoke a real sense of industrial decay and overgrown canals etc. Fantastic.

I'll have to go and think of some more...]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53583#Comment_53583 2008-05-27T03:57:41-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 radian http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1965 Listening at full force! First heard the term "hauntology" via your blog though, had no idea what you were on abut to be honest. Still catching up... Burial told the Wire he added the ... First heard the term "hauntology" via your blog though, had no idea what you were on abut to be honest. Still catching up...

Burial told the Wire he added the hiss, clicks and noise at first because he was shy about the beats and wanted to drown them out a little. Dunno how much I buy that though.

Anyway, that "Inside the Great Pyramid" sounds interesting. I've started using a similar thing in my own music, without the travel though... using impulse responses to capture how the reverb behaves in a room and then applying that reverb to recordings. It lets you play around with the sense of space by using IR recordings of spaces the instrument couldn't fit or using two places signature sound in combination, or trying any recording in place of an IR to give a weird effect. Not sure if I'm wondering of topic here?

Has anyone thrown up a muxtape in another thread with the kind of music we are talking about here? I'd be interested to hear more examples.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53584#Comment_53584 2008-05-27T04:14:41-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Kernowdrunk http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1769 There seems to be few different strands to the whole hauntological thing ( Ghostbox/Moon Wiring Club's hermetically-sealed English sickly nostalgia , Jeck and co's more universal themes of loss and ... hauntology with a capital H ?, and Burial's specific reimagining/lament for specific music and youth culture )...what's extraordinary is that the music itself hasn't yet descended into parody. The srtike rate for great stuff is very high , despite the obvious possibility of pretension , repetition and formula. I suspect soon that we may see the Roobarb and Custard version.....

Also , as my ramblings above show , it's an area of music that allows a lot of faded thirty and forty somethings to feel they are both culturally relevant ( We were here for rave / 1970s safety campaigns the first time ! ) and
very intelligent indeed. We get to talk about Derrida and electro ? Marvellous.

Don't get me wrong , I love the stuff on Ghostbox in particular , and Burial's stuff is fantastic. I just don't like the idea of where it might go next . It feels too good to be true.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53595#Comment_53595 2008-05-27T05:25:52-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 bramclark http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1605 @radian, you can get a some free downloads from Ghost Box here by signing up for the mailing list. here by signing up for the mailing list.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53597#Comment_53597 2008-05-27T06:33:08-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 I suspect soon that we may see the Roobarb and Custard version..... For me, that was the new Advisory Circle album, OTHER CHANNELS. I suspect soon that we may see the Roobarb and Custard version.....

For me, that was the new Advisory Circle album, OTHER CHANNELS.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53622#Comment_53622 2008-05-27T08:25:08-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 treylane http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2622 very interested in this topic, as i'm starting to hear more and more "hauntological" and faux-ethnomusicological artifacts in pop music. faux-ethnomusicological artifacts in pop music.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53626#Comment_53626 2008-05-27T08:48:04-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 the whole ghost box label stuff is great, as is mordant music (a former member of Portion Control) - also seek his contribution to the bootleg "scene" from a few years ago - dark side of ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53698#Comment_53698 2008-05-27T13:20:39-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 MusiM http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1297 Wouldn't all music be like that? Any artist out there uses past styles and mashes them together to create something familiar but new. I figure there's a lot of music out there already that does a ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53703#Comment_53703 2008-05-27T13:24:20-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 MusiM, have you listened to any of the stuff under discussion? There's a radically different energy to (for example) Burial and Jeck than there is to Sigur Ros or GY!BE. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53706#Comment_53706 2008-05-27T13:26:37-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 MusiM http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1297 Oh hey I almost forgot. There's a Russian classical piece by Bedrich Smetana (I think) called Vltava which is about the Moldau River (according to this article I just found). The idea behind the ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53707#Comment_53707 2008-05-27T13:27:14-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 MusiM http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1297 Sorry I wasn't trying to be mean. I intend on doing a bit of research tonight. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53713#Comment_53713 2008-05-27T13:46:26-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 Oh, you didn't sound mean, just slightly off-beam to me. Tell me what you think once you've played some of this stuff, whether you change your mind or not... I'm going to have that YouTube link, ...
I'm going to have that YouTube link, though. Field recordings aren't quite hauntology (to me), but I do enjoy them...]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53727#Comment_53727 2008-05-27T14:25:15-07:00 2008-05-27T14:26:06-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 last.fm hauntology player last.fm hauntology player]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53735#Comment_53735 2008-05-27T14:50:24-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 Also , as my ramblings above show , it's an area of music that allows a lot of faded thirty and forty somethings to feel they are both culturally relevant OI! Also , as my ramblings above show , it's an area of music that allows a lot of faded thirty and forty somethings to feel they are both culturally relevant

OI!]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53737#Comment_53737 2008-05-27T14:58:51-07:00 2008-05-27T15:02:06-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 It's been 'redefined' in my opinion to suit a certain artistic pattern in a kind of chic way I think there's certainly an introduced disconnect between "classical" Marxist hauntology and ... It's been 'redefined' in my opinion to suit a certain artistic pattern in a kind of chic way

I think there's certainly an introduced disconnect between "classical" Marxist hauntology and the current "cultural" hauntology that's missing a useful name but may have an "end of postmodernism" presence to it,


--my interpretation of that 'What is ideology?' text by Derrida was that it says clearly the opposite of this past haunting the present stuff:

...It affects and bereaves it in advance, like the ghost it will become, but this is precisely where haunting begins. And its time, and the untimeliness of its present, of its being “out of joint.” To haunt does not mean to be present, and it is necessary to introduce haunting into the very construction of a concept...

The part of the quote I've clipped is that which I think does partly define the cultural hauntology. "Time out of joint" is essential to a hauntological enterprise. UNTRUE is undoubtedly a modern music, but it does also clearly introduce the concept of haunting into the core of the build.

It's all semantics, wordplay, ghosts and mirrors, of course. But I think hauntology has more value as a set of cultural metaphors than as a Marxist theoretical tool -- not least because the latter leads people down the slippery slope of trying to define UNTRUE as a piece of critical theory on the "late-capitalist" condition, which I don't think is especially solid ground.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53740#Comment_53740 2008-05-27T15:08:00-07:00 2008-05-27T15:09:05-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 Have you heard this? dntel - live alone in a studio (http://www.dublab.com/audio/podcast/Dntel%20-%20live%20alone%20in%20a%20studio.mp3) - Fits the sound you describe very well, especially a few ... dntel - live alone in a studio (http://www.dublab.com/audio/podcast/Dntel%20-%20live%20alone%20in%20a%20studio.mp3) - Fits the sound you describe very well, especially a few minutes in with the vocal transmissions floating in slow motion from a gloomy parlour.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53741#Comment_53741 2008-05-27T15:12:56-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 See, I don't want to talk about this because I'm not a 40 year old that was paying attention the whole time, but hauntology strikes me as a logical progression from, god help me, the short-lived and ...
But when you hit just between two transmission zones, or you're scanning for channels in the middle of two cities, in the middle of the night, you'll sometimes hit on a mashup that's just absolutely perfect -- you'll picket fence between two stations or a station and dead air, and suddenly you've got Funky Town and some revival music playing in tandem for a few miles. And sometimes it's hilarious, it's one of those unexpected surprises you only get once in a lifetime. And sometimes of course, it's crap, and the mash-up scene started forcing it and they were 700 shit songs to one gem. I don't think you can force delight.

The hauntology scene is DXing on a controlled scale (I am a NERD you just lemme natter for a second) I really think it is. It's a signal that's _maybe_ coming from three rooms away, but who knows? Maybe it's four hundred miles. Maybe it's twenty years. Maybe it's a radio show some kid in texas recorded in his basement and the people moving into the house accidentally hit play while they were clearing shit out for a rumpus room. It doesn't always make sense, and it's always the middle of the night, because AM transmissions travel longer distances when the sun goes down. It's also a lot easier to hear when the world goes quiet. It also, by its very nature, has to come over on what's otherwise a hiss channel. i think that's why it's spooky, when it's done right. Because we always kinda want to hear something, but it's always a surprise when a signal breaks through.

(There's something to be said for the nerd DXing on the SETI project, but that's when I start sounding lame. Lamer.) I know it's a bit of a stretch to apply listening for voices to recorded and dj'ed music -- there's a control on one that's not on the other -- but the end result, if every time the _listener_ gets a new album or hits a show they hear something they weren't expecting from somewhere/when that's familiar but they can't immediately place, hm?]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53743#Comment_53743 2008-05-27T15:17:35-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 Yes, I'm just thinking that limiting 'hauntology' to 'the past haunting the present' deprives this clever little concept of its nuance and overarching 'spectrality' as applied to culture/history/et ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53744#Comment_53744 2008-05-27T15:22:44-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 I read it as describing the present haunted by future ghosts till the boundaries dissolve and are redefined with the hauntological lens. Interesting, that. I read it as describing the present haunted by future ghosts till the boundaries dissolve and are redefined with the hauntological lens.

Interesting, that.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53753#Comment_53753 2008-05-27T16:16:07-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 MusiM http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1297 Wow, so after reading and listening a bit I've discovered this is going to take me a lot longer than an evening to form an opinion on (or even get an understanding of what it is). A lot of the ...
In the meantime, I'm having a hunch this band called Beefcake may qualify (not the punk band). Opinions on that? If you're not familiar with them here's a link to the only thing I could find by them online (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2g6uUpPBxU). That's actually not one of the tracks I was thinking of either on the suggestion of hauntology so I may have just shot myself in the foot. Their albums are more like entire pieces so the ones I'm talking about are drei and coincidentia oppositorum. Pretty much all their stuff is good except for maybe the Hote EP. Personally I feel if you haven't heard them you should grab the nearest blunt object and start attacking people until you can find one of their albums.

I'm also wondering if John Cage could qualify?]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53757#Comment_53757 2008-05-27T16:34:42-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 I'm also wondering if John Cage could qualify? I think you might be spinning too broad a net. But I'm going to check that band. I'm also wondering if John Cage could qualify?

I think you might be spinning too broad a net. But I'm going to check that band.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53782#Comment_53782 2008-05-27T19:20:24-07:00 2008-05-27T19:21:11-07:00 williac http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1294 Unless I'm totally off the mark, The KLF nailed it on Chill Out. This isn't the best example, but it'll give you an idea: (http://youtube.com/watch?v=XWEIqU-ycao)
This isn't the best example, but it'll give you an idea: (http://youtube.com/watch?v=XWEIqU-ycao)]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53801#Comment_53801 2008-05-27T21:55:10-07:00 2008-05-27T21:59:05-07:00 roque http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=482 Ariana, I know exactly what you mean. Route 15 around Gettysburg one night produced a perfect mashup between some kind of industrial techno beat and a religious choir. I couldn't reproduce that ... roomful of DJ equipment.

walking around Fukuoka City a couple of Saturday nights, I ran into this band called Tsuji Techno playing on the street in front of a donut shop. they take old Nintendo Game Boys and turn the little blip-bleep music into a different creature. sometimes it goes off-course, but when it works, it works. I didn't know the word "hauntology" at that point, but I did have a strong sense of the past haunting and infuencing the present.

[edit: crap, thought I had a YouTube clip of them, but I posted the wrong one and the one I wanted isn't working.]]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53806#Comment_53806 2008-05-27T23:18:35-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 kahavi http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2713 @ Ariana: Taking a car and driving up to Lapland on either the coast road from Oulu to Kemi or the inland routes from Oulu to Kuusamo and Posio produced the same effect. I remember trips where me ... @ Ariana:

Taking a car and driving up to Lapland on either the coast road from Oulu to Kemi or the inland routes from Oulu to Kuusamo and Posio produced the same effect. I remember trips where me and my father stumbled upon a mix of two stations that resulted in David Bowie singing Starman alongside an old Finnish schlager. It sounded wonderfully strange and otherworldly. Another mix that I remember well is listening to a hockey game that had echoes of nature radio - birds chirping while the sports commentator spewed nonsense.

I think Disparition has some great pieces that can be described as hauntologic. Jon Bernstein, the man behind the project, has some wonderful pieces, like Rijeka and Baikonur for example, that evoke moods from the past. Baikonur sounds like something from Germany in 1920s, and Rijeka is like a distant tribe drumming alongside a kaleidoscope soundtrack. The best thing about Disparition is that you can either download the albums for free, or buy them from CDBaby.com, or do both.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53814#Comment_53814 2008-05-28T00:26:09-07:00 2008-05-28T01:35:07-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 I'm just thinking that limiting 'hauntology' to 'the past haunting the present' deprives this clever little concept of its nuance and overarching 'spectrality' as applied to culture/history/et ... I'm just thinking that limiting 'hauntology' to 'the past haunting the present' deprives this clever little concept of its nuance and overarching 'spectrality' as applied to culture/history/et cetera.
It just hit quiet here, and there are a few foghorns outside (there will be more in the morning), and shuffle just spun up Tom Waits -- Tom, who has always been able to summon somewhere with effortless ease. His somewhere is often a yellow-lit place, with horns or railroads nearby, the wrong side of several tracks, a little rough and tumble, but they melt the snow with the salt of the earth. But that's not hauntology -- those places are still very much alive, still there, no dustier than they were 20 or fifty years ago, no risk of being forgotten just yet. Escaped, maybe, but not killed.

But places can die, of course. When I was a girl the west coast was a wonderland of nearly abandoned beach towns and used-to-be amusement parks, shards of boardwalks and dark circles where carousels used to sit being sandswept to grey as rust-rigor set in. Broken horses in closed shop windows with glass eyes glazing over as the magic shriveled in the cold sun. Places that were supposed to be Hope-On-The-Sea -- where money was pumped in earnest because everyone would flock to them forever. And before Disney bought a few of them and the rest were lost, you could drive a few hours anywhere and hit ghost-towns -- bleached, long-abandoned gold-dreams hardening to black iron and bone. Where pyrite and witch-loads tricked settlers into blood and starvation. There was a soundtrack to both desert and shore, the wind calling the beat of horses real or fantastic, the crying of metal against metal, the water or sand roaring a bass-line so loud you couldn't hear it anymore.

That informs my feelings for hauntology -- even though much of what's out there now summons city streets, rain, and dying music scenes I never met -- because I grew up in a country-state that's kept alive only by the water we imagine to be real, and as soon as place is neglected it shakes off all sign that humans ever touched it, leaving bleached alien artifacts, maybe a cowskull, maybe a seashell, or maybe nothing at all if you blink or look away. The world has always been full of ghosts, and just a moment off the beaten track would find them.

If I'd grown up somewhere else (and sometimes I did) I'd have swamp haints and weeping vines, alien abductions and crop circles, or crack houses and urban blight to recall (and sometimes I do). Sometimes places were supposed to be, but didn't. The world is full of ghosts.

What's beautiful about the sounds of else-maybe-dead-but-forget-me-not is, to me, that sometimes it is only three rooms away, even in the middle of the day, even in the middle of the city, even with the crush of people around to swear they hear it too. It's a mass-hallucination, a shared memory of something that never could have happened, a misheard lyric that always comes out the same, a paranormal event caught on tape, for once and forever. The world has always been full of ghosts, but now everyone sees them, always knew they were there, and rewrite old logs to lie the fact that they weren't there yesterday and we weren't expecting them tomorrow.

So many are in mourning for tomorrows we were promised and never found, as many as say "do you remember when?" with a sigh, as many as say "if only". I don't think ghosts need, by their nature, to be from the past or the future, particularly -- they need only not be expected here and now to be haunting.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53817#Comment_53817 2008-05-28T00:32:07-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Hero_Antagonist http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3611 My first post here, so apologises in advance if I do anything wrong. I agree with Williac, The KLF's Chill Out, to me at least, qualifies as an early example of this. Also I think Scanner (Robin ...
I agree with Williac, The KLF's Chill Out, to me at least, qualifies as an early example of this.
Also I think Scanner (Robin Rimbaud) was also very much into this. He was using a phone scanner to record mobile phone conversations and then would use them as the music. Conversations would ebb and flow through the piece, surfacing from the static (which was used as the music itself rather than employing conventional instruments).

Would some of Holga Czulay's work with shortwave radio also be classed as early examples?]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53819#Comment_53819 2008-05-28T00:40:01-07:00 2008-05-28T01:58:56-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 @Ariana - the shortwave music blog is a great place for some cross station interference broadcasts. sadly the , and I can barely bring myself to type the words, "mash-up" scene is still ... shortwave music blog is a great place for some cross station interference broadcasts. sadly the , and I can barely bring myself to type the words, "mash-up" scene is still very much alive, although you may wish it wasn't. someone said our albums fitted the genre, I can't agree apart from the uses of radio noise, evp recordings ('real' and generated by software), morse code, seance recordings, interviews with paranormal investigators and so on.

I do like the library music aspect of the ghost box stuff - from it's artwork looking like some penguin book from the 70's and the almost radiophonic workshop-ness / kpm of the music.

you may like to re-visit your youth, if you are in your almost 40's by going to see the old public information films of the 70's - lonely water anyone?]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53823#Comment_53823 2008-05-28T01:03:01-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 roque http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=482 I'm having this image now along the lines of "nostalgia for an age that never existed." except instead of the contempt the phrase usually implies, I imagine the past itself, not the ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=53842#Comment_53842 2008-05-28T04:12:59-07:00 2008-05-28T04:15:00-07:00 Kernowdrunk http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1769 Didn't mean to have a pop at fellow thirty/forty-somethings....or imply that they're the only group to "get" hauntology. Obviously not true, and it was just a slight worry that an art form ...
Warren..... is Other Channels that bad ? I thought Moon Wiring Club were going to be the Altern8 of hauntology , but they turned out to be rather fun...sprightly and elegant and almost groovy.

But its interesting to note whether the cultural signifiers in the music of Ghostbox , in particular , have more resonance for those children of the seventies and early eighties , particularly in the UK. The nostalgia is for a time and place that did exist.....Tomorrow's world themes , Open University physics lectures , terrifying safety adverts , queasy listening from a very English place. These were all very real for me...the mixture of comforting tweed with imminent nucleur holocaust.
Would their stuff say the same for an 18-year old from Kentucky ? What does it say instead ? Or is it all just pleasant and occasionally disturbing electronic music at the end of the day ?

Alawys thought Coil's stuff was a brand of specifically musical hauntology....old signals bleeding into new , echoes and resonances of their own materiel lingering and then bursting out. They haunted themselves.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54015#Comment_54015 2008-05-28T15:42:26-07:00 2008-05-28T15:45:17-07:00 Telecart http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=341 I like the discourse taking place on this subject. Former KLF member Jimmy Cauty has an industrial-noise sideproject under various names like Blacksmoke, Blackmoke Organisation, The Scourge of the ... Former KLF member Jimmy Cauty has an industrial-noise sideproject under various names like Blacksmoke, Blackmoke Organisation, The Scourge of the Earth, etc.
While mostly a remix project, he did release an EP or two there somewhere.

Anyway, what hit me the first time I gave it a listen is how End of History it is. Like the first time you read Pattern Recognition and it hits you that we live in a very different world. I think Fukuyama argues that on the 9th of November 1989, history ended. In retrospect we can say that the 1990s (interbellum?) was a liminal period, betwixt and between, neither here nor there; and on the 11th of September 2001 the 21st century was born.
Blacksmoke sees one of the originators of modern pop music (hell, he wrote the book about it), go back in time to industrial sonic roots and play a requiem for the 20th century, using pop hits as a backdrop to the sound of two towers falling and sirens shrieking.

I don't know if it constitutes as hauntology (it certainly doesn't sound like Burial) but I think it speaks to the same truth. We're not in Kansas anymore.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54122#Comment_54122 2008-05-29T06:30:10-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 laughingbandit http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3617 Afternoon everyone (I must say I have been enamored with this site recently) This is my first post, and have been finding this thread fascinating, and up above I saw one mention of Mr. Derrida, ...
(I must say I have been enamored with this site recently)

This is my first post, and have been finding this thread fascinating, and up above I saw one mention of Mr. Derrida, and while not knowing too much about hauntology when it comes to music, I saw a few threads throughout this discussion which after reading some of Derrida's work (large parts of Spectres of Marx) I wanted to try and contribute.

Within Derrida's conception of hauntology there are spectres which do the haunting, and it is these spectres that are the subject of investigation as they are the past 'itself', or the historical authors preferred meaning, whereas what we have in the present are interpretations and creations based upon memories and plurality of meaning, all aiming for 'the past'.

Now I see this having to do with the above discussion due to the, in some ways creation of a past, or incitement of memory by either the artist or those listening. It is not an invocation of the past as it was/is but rather that persons creation/interpretation, in which the past as 'itself' haunts the precedings, never being tangible and apprenhendable, but watching all the same.

* I hope the above made some sense*

Benjamin]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54133#Comment_54133 2008-05-29T08:39:56-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 No dude, it's about the future. You wanna fight? The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54141#Comment_54141 2008-05-29T09:21:25-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 I hope the above made some sense* None at all. Loved it. Please continue, and welcome. I hope the above made some sense*

None at all. Loved it. Please continue, and welcome.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54143#Comment_54143 2008-05-29T09:31:32-07:00 2008-05-29T10:46:25-07:00 laughingbandit http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3617 EDIT 2: (Somehow my manners disappeared earlier) Thank you for the welcome and I'll try to make more sense in future. Stream of consciounsness is sometimes the only way for me. evening ...

evening acacia

I wouldn't disagree with you in terms of Derrida's hauntology being about the future (although I would like more of an explication of what you specifically meant in terms of what I said) and really fighting isn't my thing.

Perhaps it is simply that my reading of (injunctions of Marx, the first chapter of spectres of Marx, of which the above post is majorly based) is read in terms of reading Heidegger before, and approaching Derrida and spectres in terms of a persons fusion of horizons with said spectres, which produces a new context/horizon.

That being said I think Heidegger and Derrida would both agree about that for something to have the ability to be accomplished then it has already been done so, all that is required is the unfolding of it. in this sense then the spectres themselves are not simply past or future, nor are they present-now, but rather a rupture, a transitioning.

at the same time there is something in, the future ghosts fuse, transitorially with entities on their flow towards history and the past. So that the past is spread out in front of you with the fututre pushing at your heels.

This is not something I particularly want to disagree about or carry on about. I simply thought the above might be of interest to those discussing the musical/audible connotations in which hauntology has flowed.

Benjamin

EDIT: As acacia said earlier about selectively reading Derrida, I think there are always multiple strands and ideas running through Derrida not always uniform or complimenatry (largely like Derrida says of Marx?) and sometimes that is the beauty.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54154#Comment_54154 2008-05-29T10:54:27-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 Ya read it how you will, I was merely joking. Your narratives are cool. ;p It's all smoke and mirrors, as Warren said. What is 'the present' in music, and how to auralize its 'haunted' nature? ...
It's all smoke and mirrors, as Warren said. What is 'the present' in music, and how to auralize its 'haunted' nature? It's a fascinating concept.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54158#Comment_54158 2008-05-29T11:23:34-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 there's the tales of musicians keeping one track free when recording anything in case of any other-worldy recording interventions. Psychic TV left track 23 open for the ghost of Brian Jones when ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54238#Comment_54238 2008-05-29T20:39:14-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 KPeff http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1538 Here's a nice juxtaposition to chew on while you're thinking about hauntology - the Robotic Marionette. I came across it while doing some work-related research today, and it's the coolest thing ... the Robotic Marionette.

I came across it while doing some work-related research today, and it's the coolest thing I've seen for a while.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54275#Comment_54275 2008-05-30T00:20:53-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Darthshatner http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3587 As roque was saying earlier about the recording of Song of India she posted, I heard that particular version for the first time years ago on one of those AM stations that played Big Band music at ...
Every night that was the last message sent out into the ether. I used to wonder what all of the phantom listeners made of that song. What are the living trying to tell us? On the odd occasion that they'd play that song again on the radio I entertained the notion that it wasn't being broadcast by the radio station but relayed back to us in response. That William Peter Blatty used Song of India in that scene in Exorcist III made me appreciate his work even more. Its a shame he's only directed two movies. "Mother India is calling you."]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54277#Comment_54277 2008-05-30T01:04:41-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 The PostEverything shop has the rather interesting album Konstantin Raudive - the Voices of the Dead. you get some of the raudive recordings on their own but mostly you get them with ... PostEverything shop has the rather interesting album Konstantin Raudive - the Voices of the Dead.
raudive

you get some of the raudive recordings on their own but mostly you get them with accompaniments from the Wire's who's who circa 1997.
It's an interesting listen]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54290#Comment_54290 2008-05-30T03:52:54-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 I've got the Raudive recordings on their own, somewhere in the house.... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54292#Comment_54292 2008-05-30T04:02:15-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 I have some evp recordings, a recording of a seance in an raf hangar and recordings of poltergheist activity somewhere. when I cleaned up the raf hangar recording, I listened to the noise I had ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54351#Comment_54351 2008-05-30T08:04:52-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 unrelated but makes for good backround listening are the live air traffic control feeds from here here]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54374#Comment_54374 2008-05-30T09:08:15-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 LiamH http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2969 This has proven very interesting so far. I think that mark has spread pretty wide at points so far so I'm not too worried about hitting it but it's amusing to me that the Konstantin Raudive album was ... download from here

@frenchbloke thanks for the atc feeds link, inspired some random thoughts.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54408#Comment_54408 2008-05-30T10:38:32-07:00 2008-05-30T10:39:25-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 Ha, nice, DJ Spooky and Africa. Let's use Derrida's hauntology-oriented line: "Like those of the blood, nationalisms of native soil not only sow hatred, not only commit crimes, they have no ... the pitfalls of national consciousness)]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54418#Comment_54418 2008-05-30T11:01:42-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 paulmcenery http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2290 There's Jacob Kierkegaard's 4 Rooms, and I'm just going to bang in here the Allmusic text from emusic, because what can you add?: The back story to 4 Rooms isn't needed for an appreciation of the ...
The back story to 4 Rooms isn't needed for an appreciation of the cold drone meditation of the album, but it does provide some unnerving context -- the rooms in question, indicated by the track titles, are locations in the radiation zone still in place around the destroyed reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine. The technical notes indicate that Jacob Kirkegaard's approach, openly citing Alvin Lucier's own work with tape overdubs, consisted of literally recording silence in each particular room -- all chosen due to being popular meeting places before the accident -- and broadcasting the results back into the room, many times over. Those familiar with the work of such sound artists like Thomas Köner will find immediate sonic affinities with 4 Rooms -- the opening "Church" in particular sounds like a piece from Köner's mid-'90s works, with an air of metallic chill. It's not a tone maintained throughout 4 Rooms, but all have the same general air -- if "Auditorium" feels a bit warmer in comparison, it's no less darkly meditative. Though not spelled out, presumably Kirkegaard further treated the recordings with understated arrangements, as the pieces shift to include undulating rhythms (without percussion) and shifts in volume, as well as fading out in some cases. "Swimming Pool," of the four pieces all told, might be the most gripping -- while possessing similarities to "Church," there's an almost stuttering, nervous edge to the main drones, allowing one to not entirely relax. In contrast, the concluding "Gymnasium" is the most hollow-sounding and eerie, with a higher pitch lending to the distanced feeling throughout. In the end, the larger background of the album is somehow present in a wordless fashion throughout 4 Rooms, suggestive of sudden abandonment and a still-looming, potent threat.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54466#Comment_54466 2008-05-30T12:45:25-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 I have that 4 Rooms work, it's quite affecting on a visceral level, more so once the 'concept' is absorbed. 4 Rooms work, it's quite affecting on a visceral level, more so once the 'concept' is absorbed.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54674#Comment_54674 2008-05-31T01:42:51-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Oddcult http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=214 Okay, well, I gave some Burial a go, as I'm interested in what I'm reading here, but I'm just not enjoying the music all that much. I understand all the stuff about it 'coming from the past', but it ...
I don't think that's a very useful thing to say about it, but I really wanted to like it a lot more than I did. 'Raver' is really the only track that I can get into, and that does seem a lot like the B side of KLF's White Room.

If I had the skills to do it, I'd like to make some tracks using EVP and stuff like the Stonehenge and Pyramid archaeo-acoustics, just to go really over the top with the weird paranormal noise stuff. I have a feeling that would freak out the right kind of people.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54677#Comment_54677 2008-05-31T01:48:59-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 Listen to Burial at low volume. It's remarkably different. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=54735#Comment_54735 2008-05-31T09:49:30-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 Okay, well, I gave some Burial a go, as I'm interested in what I'm reading here, but I'm just not enjoying the music all that much. I understand all the stuff about it 'coming from the past', but it ... Okay, well, I gave some Burial a go, as I'm interested in what I'm reading here, but I'm just not enjoying the music all that much. I understand all the stuff about it 'coming from the past', but it seems a tad more like 'being played too loud next door'.

Shouldn't you be yelling at some kids to get off your lawn or something?

That said, I do think GHOST HARDWARE was a better EP than UNTRUE was an album.

You might find Philip Jeck more interesting. Headphones essential, mind you.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55011#Comment_55011 2008-06-01T00:47:51-07:00 2008-06-01T00:49:11-07:00 Oddcult http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=214 Shouldn't you be yelling at some kids to get off your lawn or something? I would, but they have knives and are rapidly killing each other, so I just need to wait a while. You might find ... Shouldn't you be yelling at some kids to get off your lawn or something?


I would, but they have knives and are rapidly killing each other, so I just need to wait a while.

You might find Philip Jeck more interesting. Headphones essential, mind you.


Any recommendations for a good place to start?]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55016#Comment_55016 2008-06-01T02:36:28-07:00 2008-06-01T02:38:33-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 the moon wiring clubs' an audience with art deco eyes is rather good - see here for more details - the graphics are rather good. here for more details - the graphics are rather good.
radiowaves]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55108#Comment_55108 2008-06-01T15:09:41-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 What little I've heard by the Moon Wiring Club, I've liked quite a bit. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55177#Comment_55177 2008-06-01T22:07:40-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 jzellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=575 So this thread got me thinking, and that thinking has morphed into a previously-unconsidered title track for my forthcoming album. (Meaning I had a title, but hadn't considered a title track.) It's a ... Freesound mixed in -- sounds of a cab ride in Cape Town, a worker's demonstration, and a recording of a West African singing in some train station in Amsterdam.

My co-conspirator Thom suggested that, once the song is done, we dub it to a cassette tape, put it in the bathtub, mike the bathroom, and release the resulting as the final version.

My music is way too traditional, structure-wise, to really fit into this category. But the ideas are going in there.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55351#Comment_55351 2008-06-02T15:03:19-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 buzzorhowl http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3628 I'm not sure how closely related this will be to the main focus of the thread, but the discussion here has reminded me of an album I ran across a few years ago by a relatively obscure melodic indie ...
The Foundry Field Recordings - Untitled

As I said, it's a bit different than the other stuff discussed in here, but I think it has some similarities, and may interest some of you at least somewhat. Figured I'd put it out there, if nothing else.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55519#Comment_55519 2008-06-03T10:16:37-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 bjacques http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2157 Having spent an efternoon listening to the Hauntology channel on last.fm, I'm hard-pressed to say where ambient (or dark ambient) ends and hauntology begins. I get what they're saying, and it strikes ...
If Konstantin Raudive is a grandfather of hauntology, then DJ Spooky could be another.

Songs Of A Dead Dreamer (1996) was the first album of his I'd heard of, and I fell in love with the interpretations of radio noise from outer space mixed with banjo music, urban sounds and so on. It's meant to be (more or less) Afro-futurism with bits of William Burroughs and Phillip K. Dick thrown in. The album's title comes from a great book of horror stories by Thomas Ligotti. It's one of my favorites.

The Sabres of Paradise (Andrew Weatherall) - Haunted Dancehall (1994). I found this recently in a cut-out bin. Slow-tempo, spare dance music with a hollow sound as if, say, playing in a deserted dance hall. Planet D from that album was used by Anima Sound System and (I believe) Talvin Singh. Songs Of A Dead Dreamer has echoes of this album too. No sound samples, so may not strictly qualify as hauntology (if that's a requirement), but give it a spin.

Nostalgia - The House On The Borderland (2007?) - soundtrack to the novel of the same name, by William Hope Hodgson (d. 1918), whose stories are influenced by Swedish mystic Immanuel Swedenborg and who in turn influenced H. P. Lovecraft, especially his "Dream" stories. Might be closer to dark ambient; see what you think.

The first two, if they can be considered hauntology at all, sound haunted by history rather than ghosts or nature, if that makes any sense.

Speaking of field recordings, you might like this short video I shot of an installlation at a design school on Nantucket Island. It's in a converted farmhouse whose door was open though nobody was in (probably at lunch), and had that sort of deserted, Myst feel.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55646#Comment_55646 2008-06-03T16:40:02-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 iangil http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1112 @paulmcenery: I'll have to find that. I had Alvin Lucier as a professor when I went to Wesleyan. The man's a bit insane, but the class was wonderful (infer a connection if you like). We listened to ...
@bjacques: You just reminded me of what a lot of this evokes in the corners of my memory but which I couldn't pinpoint: the Myst series. Wandering around ruined islands, surrounded by infinite oceans and the slow creaks and groans of deteriorating machines, piecing together a mysterious world that no longer works...I loved those games. (Well, the first two. Lost my copy of 3 before I could beat it.)]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55661#Comment_55661 2008-06-03T17:17:26-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 Wandering around ruined islands, surrounded by infinite oceans and the slow creaks and groans of deteriorating machines, piecing together a mysterious world that no longer worksThis. It's odd, much ... Wandering around ruined islands, surrounded by infinite oceans and the slow creaks and groans of deteriorating machines, piecing together a mysterious world that no longer worksThis. It's odd, much of the talk of stuff that isn't strictly music on this thread (my own comments included) are pretty much just describing Ambient of some fashion -- but no one's coming right out and saying ambient, not as a huge, sweeping generalization at least. A lot of the ambient out there, it's very... god, what's the word, it _moves_, at least. It's the sound of things making noise. It's the breath of the world, whatever world that is. Even the crackle-hiss layered on a lot of tracks I wouldn't necessarily call under the Hauntology umbrella, well that's a sound of life layered on, too, even when it elicits the past.

Warren's got a line in Dok that, if I recall correctly, came out of an earlier work -- paraphrasing 'cause it's not right on me at hand -- about going to the graveyard and listening to the sticky sussurus of decomposition, and about standing up higher and listening to the world resonating with its own stark mediocrity.

(Which probably had nothing to do with hauntology in either context. But it's two really hard and lovely lines, isn't it?)

To point, though, if you unlayer anything by Burial, fuck if it's not just little ten second cries of every mediocre musak-wail of the past thirty years, isn't it? Without the heartbeat in the background, and the sound of bubble thin walls straining outward while the world drowns, it may as well be any little love-diddy, and little singalong pop keen, any refined-and-looped feel-sound in an Audi commercial. Just tossing the beat-layer on top really just pulls it up to an Audi-Hybrid commercial. Lookit, there's a car racing along an open road, with "Loving you" playing in the sunlight. It's the sticky sussurus -- (you know why that line stays with me? Because it _aches_. It's hummingbird wings dipped in hot wax and straining in painful death.) -- of meat falling off the bones of the world that makes Burial haunted. It's not the creepy filtered voices (or every boy-band tune would qualify), it's not the beat, it's not the words, it's not even the occasional creak of machinery -- it's that dripping, sticky sound that the music plays fast around for fear of getting caught, spreading decay. Not so much the music in the next room, but the fear that by observing (hearing) the music in the next room, we've alerted it to our presence and the decay has spread. Y'know, maybe. I'll bet there are real words for all of what I just said there.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55666#Comment_55666 2008-06-03T17:35:17-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 jzellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=575 @Ariana: Marry me. (Just kidding. But that's a lovely bit of writing. And I think you nailed why Burial is interesting.) @paulmcenery: Apropos of nothing...are you the same Paul McEnery that used ...
@paulmcenery: Apropos of nothing...are you the same Paul McEnery that used to write for Mondo 2000 and GettingIt?

@iangil: Have you ever heard of Paul Morley's book Words And Music? It starts with Lucier's "I Am Sitting In A Room" and uses it as a starting point to talk about pop music in an avant-garde context. It's a trite precious -- the whole thing is framed as Morley invisibly riding with Kylie Minogue through the cityscape from the video for "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" -- but it's really an interesting book. Morley's idea seems to be the notion that there are different narratives describing the history of pop music -- you can choose the Robert Johnson / Bo Diddley / Rolling Stones version, or you can look at the one that starts nominally with people like John Cage and Alvin Lucier and works through Kraftwerk and Afrika Bambaataa and Stock, Aitken & Waterman.

Listening to the music linked here, it reminds me of Joseph Cornell -- or rather, William Gibson's electronic version of Cornell, the autistic AI sitting in an empty space station from Count Zero, taking bits of refuse and detritus and making shadow boxes with them. It seems like this hauntological thingy is the same idea, but with music instead of visual art.

Which makes me want to write an app that goes out, finds fragments of audio from the Net and collages and recontextualizes them based upon keywords...I wonder if there's any sort of command-line audio processing tools that can utilize VSTs or AudioUnits....I could use PD, I guess, and then dump the files into Flash for presentation....

Great. Another idea to become obsessed with and try to work out at four in the morning in the dark. Sigh.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55675#Comment_55675 2008-06-03T18:23:21-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 For consideration: The definition of ambient music, as per Brian Eno (via Satie's "furniture music"): "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention ...
The definition of ambient music, as per Brian Eno (via Satie's "furniture music"): "Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting."

Sonic hauntology does enforce attention. It does enforce concentration. For ambient music to do the work of "useful music" that Eno intended, it must be the ultimate "easy listening."

It amuses me on a few levels, therefore, to suggest cultural hauntology as the very definition of "uneasy listening."]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55683#Comment_55683 2008-06-03T19:03:57-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 Sonic hauntology does enforce attention. It does enforce concentration.... I would have had no idea, which may be why I'm so far off on a lot of my musings, here. Apartment dwelling, grown up ... Sonic hauntology does enforce attention. It does enforce concentration.... I would have had no idea, which may be why I'm so far off on a lot of my musings, here. Apartment dwelling, grown up latch-key kid, me. I grew up in empty houses with the television on in one room and the radio on in another -- a clock wrapped in a hot-water bottle, basically. My clock radio plays me to sleep, volumes up to wake me in the morning, and I've generally got a playlist going all the hours in between. I get a brief adrenaline spike when my iPod battery dies when I'm out. The only time I haven't got music at some volume is when I'm with someone else, and focussed on them. All sound, especially music, is ambient to me unless I've consciously stopped doing everything else to just listen (usually a new track, or when I need to cycle my brain). The only sound that enforces my attention is absolute silence.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55731#Comment_55731 2008-06-03T20:36:14-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 jzellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=575 That's interesting. See, I've almost entirely stopped listening to music unless I'm paying total attention to it -- when I'm walking to and from the bus, for example. I no longer just put music on ...
Problem is, I can't not pay attention to music. If it playing, part of my brain is working on it. It's distracting.

Side effect of writing/producing music, maybe.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55793#Comment_55793 2008-06-04T04:06:03-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 radian http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1965 @jzellis: finds fragments of audio from the Net and collages and recontextualizes them based upon keywords... Good idea, if it wasn't so sunny I'd be firing up processing later and aiming it at ... finds fragments of audio from the Net and collages and recontextualizes them based upon keywords... Good idea, if it wasn't so sunny I'd be firing up processing later and aiming it at freesound's tag cloud.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55821#Comment_55821 2008-06-04T08:10:31-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 jzellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=575 @radin: Exactly what I was thinking, along with del.icio.us's MP3 filtering tool. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=55900#Comment_55900 2008-06-04T13:32:23-07:00 2008-06-04T13:32:54-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 you might be interested to hear that Mordant Music have a sale on. Albums, singles and picture discs, cds in petri dishes and the most fabulously designed cd packaging i've seen at bank balance ... Mordant Music have a sale on. Albums, singles and picture discs, cds in petri dishes and the most fabulously designed cd packaging i've seen at bank balance friendly prices (the bumper package for £30 is a steal)]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=56518#Comment_56518 2008-06-06T00:03:10-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Telecart http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=341 I used to call this "Illbient" (I think I stole that from Ishkur), though I don't think the term is interchangeable with sonic hauntology. The latter seems to me to be more of a theme than ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=56523#Comment_56523 2008-06-06T00:13:09-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 frenchbloke http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=759 'illbient' was the wire's buzzword for 'dark ambient' in the mid 90's. Virgin released several compilations solely from this . The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=56612#Comment_56612 2008-06-06T08:17:40-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 Digressing a bit as well: I sort of loathe genre names, but I always considered 'illbient' to be sort of like someone took drum and bass/dub or what have you and dropped them in a black hole or ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=56793#Comment_56793 2008-06-06T18:36:17-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 mister slim http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3696 The Art of Noise basically invoked a particular composer as haunting 20th century music in The Seduction of Claude Debussy. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=57918#Comment_57918 2008-06-10T13:19:32-07:00 2008-06-10T13:20:21-07:00 helenforsdale http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3735 i think all of you need to bear in mind that the term "hauntology" was coined by simon reynolds, the same schmoe who blessed us with the unfortunate term "post rock" and thus ...

hauntology is interesting as an idea, but the whole thing just strikes me as another (pseudo)intellectual way of labeling, and therefor demystifying a rather obscure and unique form of art. by it's very definition, nostalgia is nothing new kids, it's an inherently human concept. intellectualizing and over thinking it - thats counterintuitive to the very structure of this form of art or music. worst case scenario is that we'll start seeing musicians classify their work as "hauntology" on myspace. feh.

i also have to call bullshit on reynolds claiming this as an inherently british form of nostalgia - that's a load of malarkey.


take this all with a grain of salt, as i'm moving to london to study under the dude who hosted the whole hauntology thing anyways.

just my two cents -
-joshua...]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58059#Comment_58059 2008-06-10T22:13:12-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 roque http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=482 I'm not sure how to address most of your argument-- it escapes me how something can be both "obscure and unique," in danger of being demystified, and a simple "inherently human ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58097#Comment_58097 2008-06-11T02:43:46-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 helenforsdale http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3735 it's not an argument, it's a musing. don't confuse the two. yeah, i think you and i aren't quite on the same line of thought on this - i really don't understand yr response. i'll try and clarify ...
yeah, i think you and i aren't quite on the same line of thought on this - i really don't understand yr response. i'll try and clarify a bit:
i think what's beautiful about hauntology, and nostalgia is that in being "inherently human" - i'm suggesting that it's a natural phenomenon. i think in over analyzing something that's a natural response - and therefor genuine, you run a serious risk of becoming dangerously insincere and disingenuous. i think over analysis in general is detrimental to most forms of art - especially for the artists themselves.

also, i just like poking fun of simon reynolds. i mean, the guy invented the term "post-rock" and is constantly genrefying things. he *is* an exceptional writer though - his columns for the wire are fantastic and "rip me up and start again" is probably the best book on post-punk. but seriously, someone needs to give that guy a swirlie or something, it's long overdue. ;)]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58118#Comment_58118 2008-06-11T04:54:09-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 someone needs to give that guy a swirlie or something, it's long overdue. Geezer, you're the student here. You're the one who gets the swirlie. someone needs to give that guy a swirlie or something, it's long overdue.

Geezer, you're the student here. You're the one who gets the swirlie.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58157#Comment_58157 2008-06-11T09:48:01-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Harlotbug3 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3539 I followed this discussion more and less than I should have, wondering all the while if ghost bussed in tracks could provide a perfect fight fire with fire anti fascist anthem, seeing as nostalgia is ... The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58201#Comment_58201 2008-06-11T11:30:58-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 robb http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=518 warrenellis: Headphones essential, mind you. interesting. using big empty spaces of sound bouncing off the old dead church apse... but listened to on small direct input... is the ideal audience one ... warrenellis: Headphones essential, mind you.
interesting. using big empty spaces of sound bouncing off the old dead church apse... but listened to on small direct input... is the ideal audience one person in headphones, or a collective in a vast hall at a dj gig? which is best to spook/effect? one person's fear of the dark, or the campfire ring of kids in a cold sweat feeding off each other's nerves?

note that my interest here is lightly battered in pop. pure haunted ambience "oooOOOOOoooOoOOo*hiss*crackle*" stuff is nice, but hard for me to talk about as it's too blank a slate which can attract a lot of loaded conjecture.

curious about people's thoughts on whether hauntology is primarily english, european, or international? ellen allien's "SooL" sounds very hauntological (love that word) compared to previous work. she's a figurehead for the berlin electronic scene. what, if anything, does that do to the genre/theory's notion of locale? our american ghosts haven't been dead as long as uk ghosts. their stories taste different.

i find myself looking for these ideas in my collection now that i know a name for them. ghost/spectre hunting. is this a desired effect? a new audio spiritualism, people filtering pop audio for evp? i feel like i'm making too much of nothing. do i hear dot matrix printers from the grave in "Sool"'s "Ondu" rather than just a rhythm LIKE a dot matrix printer's?

who will be the houdini to hauntology's conan doyle?

also, @Ariana: stop being humble about your writing (i think it was the 7 songs thing where you hid the descriptions?). the burial, the waits, the in-between radio descriptions are evocative in the right ways.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58209#Comment_58209 2008-06-11T11:43:06-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 acacia http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1559 So this is the 5th time this week I've seen this: What does 'yr' mean, when it replaces 'your' (I'm assuming)? Is it a reference to something? The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58216#Comment_58216 2008-06-11T11:51:59-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 helenforsdale http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3735 "yr"? yeah. it means you're really lazy. warren, shush, you're just begging for a purple nurple.

warren, shush, you're just begging for a purple nurple.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58219#Comment_58219 2008-06-11T12:01:33-07:00 2008-06-11T13:54:33-07:00 Theremina http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2471 Huh. I just pulled my head out of my ass and clued into this thread. Believe it or not, I had NO idea that someone had quantified the "mood" in music that I'm often going for. I'm not sure ... just pulled my head out of my ass and clued into this thread. Believe it or not, I had NO idea that someone had quantified the "mood" in music that I'm often going for. I'm not sure what to think. Compulsive "genrefication" often strikes me as a bit wanky.

Warren, would you say the tracks that I'm working on for Miasmah would qualify? (Everything we're doing revolves around site specific acoustics, old samples, vintage gear and instruments, binaurally mic'd "EVP" moments, drones built on layers of ambient room noise, etc.)

I get what they're saying, and it strikes me as the aural equivalent of Photoshopped montages of Victorian and Edwardian ephemera and filters that make the whole mess look like scratchy old film. It sounds like I'm panning it, but I'm not.

No, I know exactly what you mean, and it does seem that way, which is why I'm getting squirmy. I am either hugely attracted to or deeply repelled by that stuff, depending on context and execution. Hauntology isn't a bad label, far as labels go, but if someone stared describing my wax cylinder experiments as "hauntology" I'd wince, even if they meant well. I always do that when someone throws my work into a cubbyhole.


who will be the houdini to hauntology's conan doyle?

Whoever they are, I can't wait to hear them.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58238#Comment_58238 2008-06-11T13:02:03-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 Warren, would you say the tracks that I'm working on for Miasmah would qualify? (Everything we're doing revolves around site specific acoustics, old samples, vintage gear and instruments, binaurally ... Warren, would you say the tracks that I'm working on for Miasmah would qualify? (Everything we're doing revolves around site specific acoustics, old samples, vintage gear and instruments, binaurally mic'd "EVP" moments, drones built on layers of ambient room noise, etc.)

Ooh ooh ooh does this mean you're sending me the rough mixes? Ooh ooh ooh (Mr Peevely)!

It might qualify. I don't know that "hauntology" has spread incredibly wide as a label in the last two years. And, as you can tell from this thread, it means different things to different people. Mark Fisher hears nothing but the ghosts of indictment emanating from the death state of late capitalism, Mordant Music hear library music from the 1970s echoing through the walls like an old episode of SAPPHIRE AND STEEL.

I suspect that "hauntology" will become a descriptive tool rather than a genre label. Right now, it's a broader church, but that probably won't last too much longer.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58247#Comment_58247 2008-06-11T13:33:22-07:00 2008-06-11T13:36:20-07:00 Theremina http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2471 Dearie, are you sure your email is not still fuxx0red? I sent rough mixes aeons ago. Don't have them on the laptop. Will send again sometime soon. Erik just sent me the latest Miasmah release, ...
Erik just sent me the latest Miasmah release, Jacaczek's Treny. So deliciously dramatic:

]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58252#Comment_58252 2008-06-11T13:43:08-07:00 2008-06-11T14:24:09-07:00 helenforsdale http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=3735 i'm all for the broader churches. here's to hoping it doesn't end up as a defining signifier like "indie rock" has. back in the 90's, "indie" was an wide net of punk, hardcore, ...
here's to hoping it doesn't end up as a defining signifier like "indie rock" has. back in the 90's, "indie" was an wide net of punk, hardcore, sxe, diy, crust, lo-fi bands. it wasn't a sound, it was a shared ethos of independence. now it's a "sound".

i suppose i'm arguing against harsh definitions. as an artist, i would hate to be lumped into a genre - it really narrows the breadth of ones work.

things could be worse - we could be discussing the definition of "post-modern".]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58259#Comment_58259 2008-06-11T13:59:25-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 Mer, are those your strings on the track? The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58260#Comment_58260 2008-06-11T14:01:22-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Theremina http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2471 we could discussing the definition of "post-modern" Ew. Yeah, let's not. I'd rather get my nurple purpled. Ariana, nope, that's not me. I have some violin work on another Miasmah ... we could discussing the definition of "post-modern"

Ew. Yeah, let's not. I'd rather get my nurple purpled.

Ariana, nope, that's not me. I have some violin work on another Miasmah release coming up soon, though. One of Elegi's new discs.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58261#Comment_58261 2008-06-11T14:02:45-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 I have some violin work on another Miasmah release coming up soon, though.MY email works fine. Cough cough ahem. I have some violin work on another Miasmah release coming up soon, though.MY email works fine. Cough cough ahem.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58263#Comment_58263 2008-06-11T14:07:10-07:00 2008-06-11T14:09:39-07:00 Theremina http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2471 I'll send 'em when I can. :) Meantime, if you check Elegi's myspace, you can hear a track off the new album with me (sometimes pitch-shifted or otherwise manipulated, sometimes organic) called ...
Meantime, if you check Elegi's myspace, you can hear a track off the new album with me (sometimes pitch-shifted or otherwise manipulated, sometimes organic) called "Skrugard." The whole album's devoted to the first --often doomed-- seafaring arctic explorers.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58266#Comment_58266 2008-06-11T14:13:36-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 Y'know the track you've got up on The Parlour Trick came to mind a couple of pages back when I was talking about summoning a where more than a when. It's certainly a haunting piece -- though I don't ... The Parlour Trick came to mind a couple of pages back when I was talking about summoning a where more than a when. It's certainly a haunting piece -- though I don't think I'd call it hauntology as definitions seem to be hedging around here -- it has more... reality to it than the imagined never-weres I see in a lot of what's being classified Hauntology.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58268#Comment_58268 2008-06-11T14:24:17-07:00 2008-06-11T14:33:14-07:00 Theremina http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2471 Wow, thanks, Ariana. The piece is based on a vivid nightmare I had years ago, about waiting on a train platform in the middle of some vast Besinski-reminiscent landscape (one of those super rare ...
Anyway, it was a really memorable, tangible place! I'm glad some of that reality translates into the piece. We used a lot of weird vintage or otherwise unidentifiable samples in it, and ambient room noise, so it definitely has a ghostly quality, but yeah, not sure it's "Hauntological" or whatever.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58276#Comment_58276 2008-06-11T14:49:19-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 Anyway, it was a really memorable, tangible place!That's a difference, I think. Hauntology seems to often summon wandering down back alleys that look really familiar, but the last time you were ... Anyway, it was a really memorable, tangible place!That's a difference, I think. Hauntology seems to often summon wandering down back alleys that look really familiar, but the last time you were there you were drunk off your ass, and you'll never find that one door again, because it's dead and gone and quite possibly wasn't there to begin with. You've caught your dream train and forced it to circle the vinyl forever so we can all hear it. Burial almost all sounds like it wants you to chase it down, a will'o'wisp in a long fallow field, a voice that's always three rooms away; Mystery Train sounds like it's coming closer, and you can't stop it. Neither is inherently better -- I really like Burial, a lot -- but they're very different, to me.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58280#Comment_58280 2008-06-11T14:52:43-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 Dearie, are you sure your email is not still fuxx0red? I sent rough mixes aeons ago. Don't have them on the laptop. Will send again sometime soon. You might have sent them while my mail was ... Dearie, are you sure your email is not still fuxx0red? I sent rough mixes aeons ago. Don't have them on the laptop. Will send again sometime soon.

You might have sent them while my mail was fucked. Damnit]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58333#Comment_58333 2008-06-11T18:59:13-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 roque http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=482 can art really be harmed by labels? I'm a writer, and I've never felt the urge to self-describe as an "artist" or call my stuff "art," so maybe there's something here I just ... the art itself so it becomes less than it otherwise would have been? because if so, it seems to me that the only way to prevent that is to stay in your garret and never show your stuff to anybody and also never communicate with another human being about art, ever.

my impression is, rather, that the people we've talked about in this thread will go on doing what they want to do and the word "hauntology" will be stretched to fit accordingly, or ditched as necessary, and that railing against the label is pointless.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58721#Comment_58721 2008-06-13T00:01:54-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 MusiM http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1297 So first off apologies, as I simply skimmed over what I missed from the last week. So I've given a few of the bands a bit of a listen. First off I must say I love Burial and if I take anything ...
So I've given a few of the bands a bit of a listen. First off I must say I love Burial and if I take anything away from this thread its them.

I still don't think Hauntology is anything new in music. Maybe a musician saying their music is all about it might be but the general concept is not. Creating a mythos by invoking memories in the listener or paying tribute to an existing mythos is something every musician aspires to do in their music (or at least I sure as hell do). Perhaps my view may be slightly biased since I listen to a lot of soundtracks and love atmospheric pieces.

John Cage hands down qualifies for this genre, but not on the electric side. The neat thing about John Cage is he was doing atmospheric landscapes of sound maybe as early as the 30's (I'd have to check, the guy was born in 1912). He used precise timing combined with breaking objects, pianos with bits of metal in the strings, running water, and radios (being turned on and off) among other things.

Oh and seriously, Chris Watson... no. See I checked out problem 5 or 6 artists from various websites that were supposed to qualify as Hauntology. Half of them could probably qualify as one of those "sounds of the savannah" cd's as they had no actual melodic progressions but samples of nature. The other half seemed to consist of lots of reverb and muffled drums, and while I find those things very cool, I also like a bit more variation track to track.

See my problem with most sub-genres is they kill room for creativity and make giant egos. I don't know about the rest of the world but we actually had a little bit of a rave scene in the mid-west (I live in Oklahoma) of the US until around 2001 or 2002. The downfall in my opinion was that they had a sub-genre name for every beat variation on a 4/4 measure. If you limit a music to lots of reverb and muffled drums, you're limiting it too much.

The idea behind Hauntology is neat but its what musicians should already be doing. Music is supposed to evoke previous emotions in ourselves and elaborate on them making new neurological connections in our brains and hearts.

The hauntology radio station was... well I heard Cheryl Crow (or maybe it was an advertisement for Cheryl Crow and a track with a female singer and acoustic guitar playing something rather radio typical).

Anyway, that's my two cents. I'm wary posting this much of my opinion on the net because I'm used to being attacked by adults disguised as fourth graders flinging monkey's flinging poo flinging stereotypes. Or something of that caliber.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=58784#Comment_58784 2008-06-13T05:40:11-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 warrenellis http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2 We'll try to keep Threemonkeys out of the thread...! The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=61378#Comment_61378 2008-06-22T13:20:04-07:00 2008-06-22T13:23:07-07:00 Theremina http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2471 HAUNT0RMUNKEYS POO IS HAUNTED It's my opinion that creative work can be hampered by overzealous labeling and analyzing. But I don't think anyone here is "railing" against anything, ...
It's my opinion that creative work can be hampered by overzealous labeling and analyzing. But I don't think anyone here is "railing" against anything, Roque.

There's this quote I almost remember, and always think of when chatting with folks about pigeonholing and the human compulsion to classify/categorize the piss out of life... I think it might be from the Industrial Handbook, either Monte Cazzazza or Genesis P-orridge in an interview about their contribution to industrial music and the scene. I'm paraphrasing from murky memory, but basically they said something like "well, obviously, since you're interviewing us about this and analyzing it down to the minutiae, its spirit is not alive anymore and we should all move on to other things." It struck me as simultaneously a snobbily knee-jerk reaction, and completely valid.

See my problem with most sub-genres is they kill room for creativity and make giant egos.

Exactly.

And sometimes I think the best compliment I can give or get as an artist is "this is just unclassifiable."]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=61415#Comment_61415 2008-06-22T19:33:13-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 roque http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=482 it all depends on your definition of "railing," I guess. words are like labels, to me-- quibbling over them just distracts from the important part of the conversation. The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=61539#Comment_61539 2008-06-23T08:56:46-07:00 2008-06-23T08:59:25-07:00 Ariana http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=1 It's my opinion that creative work can be hampered by overzealous labeling and analyzing.Y'know, I'd usually agree with you, but it occurs to me that the application of a Hauntology lable may be ... It's my opinion that creative work can be hampered by overzealous labeling and analyzing.Y'know, I'd usually agree with you, but it occurs to me that the application of a Hauntology lable may be _part_ of the creative work, in some of the above cases. Intentionally or not, the music that's being called Hauntological is getting the same treatment the Old Witchlady House on the hill would get -- people are listening to it in the dead of night, through headphones, listening for every creak and crackle for something more than might strictly be there. Video, packaging, and distribution can inform the listening experience in their own way -- I'm pretty sure this isn't the first time slapping on a label has done the same -- but it's interesting to see how calling it "Hauntology" has changed the way I listen to the things.

If enough people call a physical place "Haunted" the whispers start to spread -- pretty soon everyone knows someone that saw or heard a ghost. People start jumping at shadows and holding their breaths waiting for something to walk past the edge of their vision. The same seems to be true of Hauntology as a type of music -- after a hundred background-at-midnight listenings of Burial (it's good work music) I've started hearing places I know the artist has never been, and analysis of the word in this thread seems to have infected things that didn't even start under the label-umbrella with ghosts of their own.]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=61894#Comment_61894 2008-06-24T21:13:44-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 roque http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=482 Ariana-- interesting point; reminds me a little of some of the thoughts in "The Forbidden," the Clive Barker story that inspired the movie "Candyman." I guess, to carry it a step ...
I realize I have a tendency to conflate haunting with horror... maybe I'm off-base in that, maybe not, I dunno...]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=62623#Comment_62623 2008-06-28T10:34:11-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Theremina http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2471 it all depends on your definition of "railing," I guess. words are like labels, to me-- quibbling over them just distracts from the important part of the conversation. For some reason I ... it all depends on your definition of "railing," I guess. words are like labels, to me-- quibbling over them just distracts from the important part of the conversation.

For some reason I was under the impression that this entire line of discussion sprung from questions concerning semantics and connotation. I beg your pardon. :P]]> The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=62720#Comment_62720 2008-06-28T22:10:08-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 roque http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=482 exactly, and pardon granted. ;) The Hauntological Congress http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=2375&Focus=62846#Comment_62846 2008-06-29T17:51:35-07:00 2013-05-23T18:37:29-07:00 Theremina http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/account.php?u=2471 Pfft.