This is music? A case of the Emperors New Clothes

Among the least debated and theorized, No wave, was a short lived avant-garde scene that emerged quietly in the late 1970s in manhattan. Though No wave somewhat intentionally went against the recycled rock and pop established styles common at the time, it was honestly more of an experiment with what sound could do, (or not do), and more specifically, what could come from the relationship of noise and dissonance. It generally reflected themes of nihilism and confrontation. Essentially, No wave was a backlash at new wave. Though paradoxical to say so, no wave will never entirely be able to cut its umbilical cord from new wave. No wave reflected a nihilistic social consciousness of  dissent emerging at that time. Despite this attempt to disassociate, No wave, ironically if I may say so, had a profound effect on culture to come, inspiring themes in the development of fashion, film and visual art. No Wave was a fairly direct reflection of culture bleeding from the concrete cracks of New York City sidewalks, about as honest as creative expression could be.

The most recognized and perhaps the most popular child of the No Wave movement is Sonic Youth, who managed to remain staunchly independent despite gaining in popularity.  Whats interesting about Sonic Youth being among the more known No Wave movement bands, it that sonic youth also happened to mark the end of the No Wave era. Their beginning was one of avant garde theory and powerfully raw live energy. They were later able to compose more conventionally structured songs that were easier on the ears but still refused to sell out to mainstream audiences.  Their eventual surrender to harmonious melody and aesthetic betrayed some of the main principles of No Wave and led to the demise of the movement overall, birthing a new era of alt rock reminiscent of No Wave dregs that catered more to general human music aesthetics, always wavering between industrial grit and ephemeral beauty.

No wave has not spawned any recent revival. It came and passed.

Bonobo: jazz for people who hate jazz.

It is relatively hard to dislike bonobo. A versatile artist from Britain that put out a couple albums at the dawn of 2000, this monkey did not actually become visibly recognized too much until Black Sands, a 2010 album that finally put Bonobo on the map of electronic artists that mattered. While I would not argue that Bonobo is in the class of electronic music, it would not be devastatingly wrong to say that Bonobo creates his own category, one whose primary ambition seems to be in creating ambiance, one with jazz undercurrents, partnering trip-hop with beautifully executed industrial and classical fragments, reflecting the height of trip hop influence.

Bonobo is a hard artist to place in any distinct category on its own but wavers somewhere in the realm between electronic; 

nobody wants to admit that they hate jazz, but jazz is surprisingly unpopular. Even if people won't admit it, they will be willing to say its "not their favorite."

Maybe its all the confusion and chaos, maybe the lack of repetitive expectation the more robotic limb of our subconscious hungers for. Bonobo allows for none of that. Bonobo takes sugary echoes of jazz and dissolves it in industrial beats the average post post post modern loser can resonate with.

Black Sands and North Borders, the two most recent albums, undeniably remain his most popular works. In MY opinion, however, his masterpieces truly lie in his early sketches; before vocals were even a thought, Bonobo was penetrating the air with haunting ambience that had just enough lightness of being, mass, and density to complement the atmosphere, many miles away from his so called "evolved" (No pun intended) slatherings of complexity in sound and texture that feature contemporary established artists.  I recall when his single, Cirrus, came out; it was a hint at his new direction with the albums to come and was really quite the tease. He moved away from artist and closer to simply a producer. And this is not to say that his later work is not good, in fact, musically speaking, his albums are fantastic pieces of electronic music. But they'll never have the subtle stirring of those primary works of anomalous individuality that transcend the cruel, dirty prison walls of genre. 

Waves Pt. II

Dark wave, minimal wave's moody older sister, has more visibly defined elements and idiosyncracies. Interestingly, though perhaps not always recognized for it, dark wave is responsible for the entire spawn of electro wave newborns*, and other post industrial influenced groups, french cold wave, general cold wave, and the Nueu Deutsche Welle, a movement unpopular or simply unheard of outside of Germany. In fact, dark wave really wasn't blossoming anywhere so much as it was in Germany, France, and to a lesser extent, Belgium. Though the specific terminology developed after the establishment of goth, its primary influence, dark wave explains anything new wave or post punk with a dark atmosphere. Yet to say something is a part of dark wave honestly means it is more deliberate, perhaps. Where goth developed organically and by some sort of cultural accident, dark wave set out to perpetuate the already constructed darkness in the shadows of post punk.The darkness becomes somehow more fetishized. Essentially, goth is dark wave, just as dark wave contains goth. Wave refers more to the overall implication and movement, goth being a member, and therefore the wind on the surface of this black ocean, transferring beautiful torment to the water through friction between melodic air and water molecules.


*please keep in mind i am going to just going to ignore Electropop altogether on this blog, it will just be nothing but a mess.*

Waves

Lets talk about minimal wave.

Minimal wave, in fact, attempts to be defined, or rather, "named" and named 'contentiously' at that, a genre of electronic music that focuses on instrumentation (emphasizing a pre-1982,but not pre sequencer) and quote, 'themes of sincere rather than ironic (?) detachment.' lets think about this for a moment. Clearly this genre is not truly classified into a category and it has been questioned as to whether it is definable at all. But that leads to the point, or lack thereof, of this excerpt.

what I'm really thinking about, honestly, is wikipedia's sad excuse for minimal wave description. "Contentiously"? there seriously seems to be some fear in clearly defining minimal wave due to its extreme elusiveness and confusingly impossible differentiation from synth pop or any wave for that matter. 

Did I forget to mention synth wave? How can we make the difference between these two genres more concrete? Thats because we can't. There is absolutely no difference and thats exactly what minimal wave wants.  Minimal wave wants to be nothing, is nothing and cannot be. Yet it will fight to stand alone as a genre and genre itself is just dumb. minimal wave requires a certain amount of exclusivity, both literally as well as figuratively. when i say this i am referring to the use of unpolished production involving synth and drum machinery manufactured from the 70s to mid 80s that helps us get a better idea of what it consists of structurally. Minimal wave implies a darker edge of some kind, and can function perfectly well on the shelf beside the royalties of dark wave and post-punk synth based anything for that matter.  Bands like Belgium's Autumn, Oppenheimer Analysis, Solid Space, Futurisk, and as much as it prefers to be tied to the broader spectrum of synth wave, Linear Movement, all constitute this group. lets not get into the contemporary place that minimal wave is today, or should i say rip off bands that call themselves minimal wave but are really just a couple wannabes with synthesizers lost on the internet and okay with never achieving any sense of fame/recognition. (of course this was never a goal of anyone in the minimal wave genre either).

Trying to define minimal wave is like trying to write a book in a language that doesn't exist. This abstraction is precisely what it strives for. so thank you minimal wave, for existing in whatever sense that means and reminding us all of the pointlessness of genre and the somewhat undeniable satisfaction of abstraction.