Myths, Mathematics, Motherships, More Brilliant Than The Sun…
“kids of that period and location were geared towards a manufacturing based economy, whereas they found themselves in what is called post industrialized society. So you get Herc being trained as an auto mechanic in vocational school messing around with his father’s system, Flash similarly schooled making his own cross fader, stuff like that. It’s easy to see that hands-on interest in fucking around with (often obsolete) technology linking to futurism and space rap and electro, currents which have apparently stayed in the ether ’til today. Also tempting to link it to PE’s soundscapes as a representation of a political landscape, or NWA’s as a geographical/political one, as in the same refusal to be left for dead in the ass-end of the system”.
This social angle is needed to balance Eshun’s powerful hybrid of musical myths and conceptual hubris. It’s up to us to expand upon these perspectives, and especially in praxis.
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Abstraction:
January 7th, 2010 at 18:55
More Brilliant than the Sun was published in the last century. It was, when it was published long ago, one of the few book-length investigations into the extremity of our condition. The writing and thinking exposed the tiredness of the humans in general, to say nothing of music criticism.
Neither Eshun nor anyone else has taken the lead and for the most part, the music has stagnated. The important work being done is known only locally.
At this point, More Brilliant than the Sun is old news at best; Deleuze and Foucault are old news (though Eshun refers to them only incidentally; they were in the air).
Where are we now? Why is More Billiant than the Sun being reviewed as if it were a recent publication. Why isn’t it in print? Why haven’t you given us another volume, Mr. Eshun? Why hasn’t anyone pushed the language further ahead?
brytburken:
January 7th, 2010 at 21:47
Thanks for your comment, Abstraction. And I see that your questions seem to answer themselves quite nicely. This book is being reviewed because it’s still the latest in its field. And because I just stumbled upon it.
“The important work being done is known only locally. ”
Are you talking about music or writing? Nowadays, local innovations in music are being spread worldwide at the speed of net.
But from my point of view – that is, from the south of Sweden – writing about electronic music stays local. I don’t know any blogs or whatever that writes about music in the vein of Eshun. Perhaps you do?
In swedish there is music writing that takes off where Eshun left off. Not much, but it exists. Blogs. Literary projects. Poetry.
With the 24 hour presence of the net, it seems like the local and the social is getting increasingly important. “The scene”. The creation of community. In a sense, this is the post-digital era.
brytburken:
January 8th, 2010 at 09:19
Let’s go back to the quotes at the beginning of the post. More than the concept-machine – which usually grows tired quickly and is very tempting to over-use to the point of absolute banality – of D&G I think we could use these two concepts as points of departure: SF as war machine and MYTH as organizing principle.
Also: more important than pushing language itself further ahead is, I think, to push it into new areas. More than innovations in textual styles, we need the SOCIAL mutation of literature.
Perhaps we could be helped by looking at some “despised genres”; the erotic short story, porn movies without porn, skate videos without skate, mail art without art, etc. What we need is new forms for music writing, I think that much is clear.
Drexciya i The Wire « B R Y T B U R K E N:
November 20th, 2010 at 01:55
[...] att ha fört över den Detroitska krigsmaskinen till konstvärlden, men varför? Styrkan i Eshuns More Brilliant Than The Sun var just förlitandet på musiken och dess värld – i sig – att man inte behövde [...]