I certainly didn't plan on starting off my new project of one or more smallish music reviews every Monday with a slam, but this record doesn't leave me much of a choice.
Other Channels is published on the Ghostbox label, the darling of a small, but loud mostly British group of critics who champion the concept of hauntology, something I haven't made up my mind about yet. On one hand I heartily approve of many of the artistic ancestors hauntologists like to relate to, reaching from M.R. James to J.G. Ballard to Nigel Kneale. On the other hand I have a feeling that "hauntology" often is just a different word for intellectualized nostalgia, a simple way to indulge in nostalgic impulses without being embarrassed. What exactly modern hauntological art has to say about the here and now, I'm not sure of.
And if this Advisory Circle album is typical of the music hauntologists champion, I am quite sure it hasn't anything to say at all. I have seldom heard a less ambitious and less interesting grab bag of mumbling, "important" samples, analog synthies and so-so trip-hoppy beats. The whole album just sits there, sounding like something even a bad net label wouldn't accept and leaves me absolutely puzzled. What on earth makes this important? Why would I want to sit through it? Why does all the intellectual groundwork end up sounding like this?
I would actually appreciate if someone could explain this to me.
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2 comments:
I think you are forgetting where part of the inspiration for this type of music comes from -- old public information films. Much of the music produced from the Ghost Box label is library music, what is essentially background music.
The Ghost Box label has made this music available for the listening enjoyment of anyone who is fascinated by the often overlooked, seemingly mundane aspects of the past.
I would agree with you there, if Ghost Box would only compile and reissue library music, but since they use the library music to create something new I expect more than nostalgia and a love of greyness.
But, as I said, I have only heard one album from the label, I might very well think differently about others.
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