Adam Cornelius — People Who Do Noise

Glancing over the list of artists interviewed on this dvd I thought to myself: who are these people? If this is a documentary on noise why limit yourself to the scene of Portland, Oregon (USA) to have Daniel Menche stand out as the most famous artist?

Watching it soon enough I realised that you don't need 'celebrities' (as relative as that is in a scene like noise) to tell you something about this genre. It actually underlines a statement made by Sisprum Vish that anyone can do it. Therefore the opinions by obscure artists like Argumentrix and Honed Bastion are as valid as those of Merzbow and Incapacitants. To have Kitty Midwife tell us why there's only few women involved seems to conceptually support that fact by her being the only woman in this documentary. Pretty much everything you can say about the genre of noise is covered, all the people interviewed have different theories and ideas. From Pulse Emitter's cosmic approach that seeks to cancel out the human influence to Sisprum Vish's aim to fully use that to an embarrassing extent. And then thirdly there's Soup Purse to claim that all they do is bring forth the sounds that are going on anyway and always (which to me sounds like limiting your cinematic diet to social-realism, which doesn't really appeal to me, I'd prefer Pulse Emitter's approach). Even within Yellow Swans (a duo) there's disagreement over the amount of control over their sound. When they discuss Portland's scene many suddenly agree on how creative the Portland scene is, only Smegma's Ju Suk Reet Meate puts that into perspective by saying that if enough people believe such a fantasy it will become somewhat real. When Smegma moved there from California it was merely to stay out of the desert and the ocean and Portland was a place where you could still find cheap housing for five unemployed guys.

From a musical point of view it's interesting to see the variation that the seemingly limited genre offers. From soberly shot rooms ('Rotture' and 'Foodhole', two places in Portland) you get a taster of what the music of all the talking heads sound like. It's nice to find out yourself that, as abstract as it is, there's definitely taste and quality involved. I do also think that this music is, more than many other genres, aiming for the experience of physically undergoing the vibrations, and therefore it's more difficult to capture on a recording. So harsh noise like Oscillating Innards is less likely to have full effect in my livingroom than the more varied, droney approach of GOD (not the first group with the audacity to use that name, but Kevin Martin quit that also quite noisy band years ago and went on to use the infinitely more humble The Bug since then). When there's more physical activity than just some knobtwiddling, like Josh Hydeman's hyperenergetic style remeniscent of Masonna, it's easier to empathically feel that physical aspect. That part also made me think of early Dillinger Escape Plan, which supports my feeling that a lot of noise is another step further in rock's search for extremity. Something that Soup Purse confirms later on in the interview.

All the different opinions aside, only one thing is lacking: actual, fundamental critique. All the people interviewed are musicians in this field and logically they think what they do is great (without anyone becoming overtly pretentious). When the guy from GOD starts about the uncommodifiable direct experience of noise as opposed to pop music I think you could use someone countering such a bold statement. Noone really attacks the idea of DIY, which may have brought wonderful things but also has the capacity to destroy skillful art. You could argue that it's become too easy to be an artist and that the sea of self-released stuff makes real quality drown in a sea of mediocrity. Or like Stockhausen once attacked techno artists, who claimed his work to be an inspiration, by stating that a lot of them were too lazy. Anti-authoritative as the genre may be, it could be interesting to have some people acting as an authority to comment such things. That's where Masami Akita, Rudolf Eb.er or even more academic composers like Bernard Parmegiani or Phill Niblock can shed some interesting lights on the subject. People Who Do Noise is an enjoyable documentary as it is, but it definitely leaves room for a follow-up.