Dislikes and turnoffs

[Namahs]

Got the idea while reading "Regional Sound" and seeing the names bizarre uproar and grunt.

Saw grunt opening for Eyehategod some years ago and didnt care at all for them or their random candle/whip/feces porn showing on the background.

Fascism, feces, paedophilia and overalm just being a dick at least work as an instant turnoffs for me.

[theworldisawarfilm]

Saw grunt opening for Eyehategod some years ago

Wild. Where was this?

[Mogao]

What makes you say "fuck them"?

Nothing.

I rather focus on the things I enjoy.

[Namahs]

Saw grunt opening for Eyehategod some years ago

Wild. Where was this?

Kuudes Linja club in Helsinki

[Namahs]

What makes you say "fuck them"?

Nothing.

I rather focus on the things I enjoy.

Thats the goal here also.

When I was just getting into noise those names kept popping up all the time and it was pushing me away from this genre. Then I luckily started founding subgenres and acts that I like

[MuhSteve]

If you don't get it ... then leave it alone.

[Scream & Writhe]

Closing as I'm not sure what this thread would really bring to the table. It doesn't have to all be sunshine and rainbows, but I think as a designated topic this can quickly descend into counterproductive territory.

Edit: re-opened for the moment, prove me wrong.

[Atrophist]

Not to sure why this thread exists and I think your comments are a little misguided on Grunt. Mikko Aspa's Grunt have been at the forefront of Suomi Noise for the good part of nearly 30 years. Grunt are a highly respected project, a root in the 'power electronics / noise' tree. Grunt is a calling / a vision of Mikko Aspa. Mikko also founded Freak Animal Records back in the mid 1990's releasing classic noise albums, not only by Grunt but by the likes of Lasse Marhaug, The Haters, Sewer Election, Cloama ... the list goes on. Mikko also promoted live shows in Finland often bringing in noise acts from overseas ... and a great magazine called 'Freak Animal'. Mikko not only produces sound as Grunt but also under the moniker of Alchemy Of The 20th Century and Nicole 12, and was a founding member of Temple Of Tiermes.
He is a great man of noise, production and promotion.
If you did not like what he was performing (I am sorry I have never heard (of) EyeHateGod) then you could have simply gone to the bar to chat amongst friends or left the building and returned later. There is no reason to say that you didn't like them. That they 'turned you off', they were just not your cup of tea ...
As for the films .. yeah, I admit some of the porn / torture / war footage does get, and is, a little cliched these days, but would you say the same if you were watching TG back in the 1970's or SPK or Nocturnal Emissions or Whitehouse back in the early 1980's? If the visuals play along to the sound then why not use them? And again, if they 'turn you off' just leave the room and no-one is offended but yourself.

This forum should not be about slagging off other projects. If you don't get it ... then leave it alone.

This is all true, but also I don’t think anyone should be above criticism. From what I know of the man he would be the first to agree.

Also, while I do not have the opportunity to unscrew the tops of the heads of the people involved in Bizarre Uproar and Grunt and look inside to see what’s really going on in there, I think these projects’ ”fascism” seems misunderstood. To me it simply seems like an extreme form of provocation and transgression. But as in really provocative and transgressive, kinda like the upside down crosses that are now mandatory on the covers of metal albums were ahocking 40 years ago.

[Atrophist]

Regarding the topic for this thread, yeah most types of porn, either as audio samples or part of background visuals, do seem pretty boring, embarrassing and done to death to me. It seems too easy and obvious. Obviously just my own humble opinion. Although I’m sure someone could pull it off if they had a more of a singular, original vision of what they wish to achieve.

[chryptusrecords]

”fascism” seems misunderstood. To me it simply seems like an extreme form of provocation and transgression. But as in really provocative and transgressive, kinda like the upside down crosses that are now mandatory on the covers of metal albums were ahocking 40 years ago.

this framing is a "turnoff" for me to be honest. if you're gonna flirt with right-wing shit just admit that that's what you are or stop playing with it. if you want to be "provocative" you shouldnt get mad when someone thinks you're a nazi or a pedophile or whatever. own your shit. fascism might seem transgressive when you live in a social-democratic european country but i would challenge any of these people to come live in USA where cops regularly kill people in the street and in their own homes for no reason, it's not cool and brutal and transgressive, fascism is NORMATIVE and reinforces capitalism always.

[MuhSteve]

I must say though I did see Grunt in Mantsala (Finland) in 2000 and it was either Mikko or STROM e.c. who played to a loop of the Bud Dwyer suicide footage and it was really mesmerising

[Atrophist]

[but i would challenge any of these people to come live in USA where cops regularly kill people in the street and in their own homes for no reason, it's not cool and brutal and transgressive, fascism is NORMATIVE and reinforces capitalism always.

But these people don’t live in the US. It wouldn’t make sense for them to transgress against someone’s else society, rather than their own. It’s fine if you don’t like it, though.

[Atrophist]

I do not know the work of Bizarre Uproar, I have a feeling I saw them in London with Pain Nail, Grunt, Testicle Hazard, AntiChildLeague, Con-Dom and Testicle Hazard many moons ago (there were that many bands that night, I couldn't remember who was who).

Not gonna lie — I probably would have given my left bollock to attend this show ….

[chryptusrecords]

But these people don’t live in the US. It wouldn’t make sense for them to transgress against someone’s else society, rather than their own. It’s fine if you don’t like it, though.

it's not about whether i "like it," i like a lot of right-wing music, i just think their position is bullshit

[Mogao]

I liked this topic much more when it was closed!

[adult human]

I don't think it's bad for this thread to remain open though of course I hope (in vein?) it will produce substantive discussion about a topic worth talking about. I don't think there should be anything wrong with mentioning that you think various tropes - specifically racially, sexually or violently provocative ones - are trite crap that rarely if ever get anywhere close to transgression, provocation or even base level investigation that many would claim they are all about pursuing. Yes, accusations of fascism, racism, sexism or even just incel edginess are very clumsily and lazily thrown around with regards to noise and PE - usually by a lot of people who don't know or care much about it as a culture anyway - but I tend to think this inaccuracy provides a useful distraction for those who get lumped in with the accusations. It's really easy to dismiss charges against these unsavoury themes when all that's being said is 'this noise is made by nazis/edgelords' but I've noticed it's a lot harder to get an illuminating answer out of these transgressive artists when you drill down into what they think it is they're achieving in their art and why - what it is exactly that their 21st century noise album has to tell you about any of these unpleasant realities that anyone with a pair of eyes and ears cannot glean with far more depth and feeling simply by opening them for a few seconds, any given time or day of the week.

So yes, personally I do think that stuff is usually a turn off and deserving of critique. I continue to be puzzled by how readily so many participants in a musical style with clear, demonstrable roots in experimentation and abstraction remain content with so relatively narrow a pool of ideas and strategies. It leads to poor aesthetic results as well as social ones and that, for my money at least, has every place to be (politely) detailed in a forum about noise culture.

[heavyelectronix]

this framing is a "turnoff" for me to be honest. if you're gonna flirt with right-wing shit just admit that that's what you are or stop playing with it. if you want to be "provocative" you shouldnt get mad when someone thinks you're a nazi or a pedophile or whatever. own your shit. fascism might seem transgressive when you live in a social-democratic european country but i would challenge any of these people to come live in USA where cops regularly kill people in the street and in their own homes for no reason, it's not cool and brutal and transgressive, fascism is NORMATIVE and reinforces capitalism always.

So you can't use any right wing imagery in a critique of those politics? You can't be politically cryptic in a way that makes people wonder what the project is really about? Why so black and white? This view leaves absolutely no room for nuance and is a major turnoff. Not to mention, fascists are snappier dressers and have slicker imagery that's more fun to play with. Name one communist group with a Nazi level of pizazz. Name a single anarchist author that's as sexy as Yukio Mishima.

I've found that actual fascists are very up front about it. I know in the black metal scene it was/is a very common practice to out, doxx and excommunicate bands and musicians who were not seen as true to the cause, I don't know so much about noise and PE.

And if somebody's just being an edge lord, so what? I guarantee some dipshit incel slapping a swastika on his noise tape is doing less damage to the fight against inequality and oppression than your Amazon Prime account or your Visa card.

[xIncorruptibleCorpse777x]

Stuff that sounds bad turns me off

[electric knife]

As for Aspa and his national socialist music scene connections, there is this article from a couple of year ago. Make whatever you want from it

[raato]

i don't really understand why some seem to get so touchy and defensive when someone else says they don't like the thing you like... i read the OP as a mere personal preference, that shouldn't affect how you feel about the artist/stuff.

i'm not going to poke the M.A. beehive any more than this: i don't care for the guy either. i (and a lot of his critics) do understand and appreciate what he's done for finnish noise/underground scene, but as someone pointed out, nobody should be above critique. and me not liking him shouldn't take anything out of your enjoyment.

for me, the nazi/fascist themes are a turnoff as well. i'm an anti-fascist through and through and also belong in one of those minorities the contemporary nazis want to eradicate from their utopia. i understand the shock value of old in fascist themes, but with the rise of far-right sympathies and neo-fascism in recent years i think nazi imagery has as much "shock value" nowadays as a pool of vomit in front of a bar on saturday. same goes for sexist and homo- or transphobic themes as well. it's not very shocking anymore when it's something that's targeted towards you (or people close to you) everyday.

at the end of the day, i just gravitate towards stuff that doesn't have stuff that i dislike. i'm glad there's people and labels out there offering alternatives to the edgy nihilistic aesthetics. nothing inherently wrong with nihilism and edginess, i can be both on certain days (ffs my alias means corpse in finnish), it just gets boring pretty fast if that's all that a scene has to offer.

[Scream & Writhe]

adhuman is going in the right direction- this stuff should be discussed. Did some cleanup here to try and avoid having to lock it up again. Let's go.

[MaldororEstMort]

i avoid a good chunk of fashy and pedo shit...so uhh that's all i got without shit talking 🤷‍♂️

[heavyelectronix]

I don't think there should be anything wrong with mentioning that you think various tropes - specifically racially, sexually or violently provocative ones - are trite crap that rarely if ever get anywhere close to transgression, provocation or even base level investigation that many would claim they are all about pursuing.

Of course there's nothing wrong with seeing certain subject matter and just not being into it; that's a judgement we all make when selecting projects to listen to and consider.

That being said, I also think it's unfair to lump these topics into "trite/crap/tropes". Look at what Himukalt is doing with the topic of sexual violence, look at what Interracial Sex is saying about racism. Those two projects have brought a totally new life and perspective on topics that have been getting beaten to death in noise for forty years.

"Transgressive" is a term that gets thrown around often, mostly as a put down, but I think transgression is in the eye of the beholder. I also think inviting transgressions against your own morals in this context makes for a fascinating experience. For me, listening to a Nicole 12 album for the first time was genuinely uncomfortable and unpleasant. I had never listened to anything dealing with that subject matter and being a father myself made it even more repulsive. It was a truly hideous forty minutes and I respect any piece of art that can drag those kind of feelings out of a person.

I do agree, however, that most attempts at "transgressive" music are ham-fisted at best.

Yes, accusations of fascism, racism, sexism or even just incel edginess are very clumsily and lazily thrown around with regards to noise and PE - usually by a lot of people who don't know or care much about it as a culture anyway - but I tend to think this inaccuracy provides a useful distraction for those who get lumped in with the accusations. It's really easy to dismiss charges against these unsavoury themes when all that's being said is 'this noise is made by nazis/edgelords' but I've noticed it's a lot harder to get an illuminating answer out of these transgressive artists when you drill down into what they think it is they're achieving in their art and why - what it is exactly that their 21st century noise album has to tell you about any of these unpleasant realities that anyone with a pair of eyes and ears cannot glean with far more depth and feeling simply by opening them for a few seconds, any given time or day of the week.

So yes, personally I do think that stuff is usually a turn off and deserving of critique. I continue to be puzzled by how readily so many participants in a musical style with clear, demonstrable roots in experimentation and abstraction remain content with so relatively narrow a pool of ideas and strategies. It leads to poor aesthetic results as well as social ones and that, for my money at least, has every place to be (politely) detailed in a forum about noise culture.

The crying wolf routine gets old. Let's cancel that shit.

Frankly I think a lot of guys use right wing imagery because they want to have a noise project, don't have anything really provocative to say but want to get a rise out of people. I think that crowd does generally (but not always) lean right and racist but there's a spectrum of those beliefs and some of those people are far more redeemable than others. Zyklon SS is a good (or bad) example of this, I think. He just wants to piss people off, and he's succeeded. I'm inclined to believe him when he says it's a fuck you to the noise community as opposed to a political statement. Plus his noise is good. But, yeah, most of these guys are fucking morons.

I think there are also people who find the ideologies gross and are approaching it in a satirical and critical way, in the tradition of some of the original artists (Ramleh, TG) who invented this genre and heavy hitters all along up to present day (Grey Wolves, Con-Dom etc).

Politics aside, I do think that as a genre solidifies and becomes better defined it does have certain subject matter that becomes associated with it and I don't think that's necessarily bad. It's always nice to see someone with a fresh angle, but I don't think you have to reinvent the wheel to make good noise.

I kind of disagree with you about the politeness, though I was having fun arguing on a message board again for the first time in a long ass time.

[Joie de la Blumpy]

Apologies if this was already covered but having just posted another wee blurb on spectral music, I want to put in a good word for vagueness or haziness, per Fineberg, the "smooth transformation from one state to another". Conceptually not to mention semantically. Certain thoughts themes ideas can be worked through a work in unquantifiable unqualifiable way shape and form. To put an artist on the spot and demand a definitive statement is...well, it's very much the thing of the moment innit? (And yes, the alternatives can be problematic.)

But is it art?

[WCN]

Honestly didn't know this thread was destined to go in this direction, I was thinking more about "dislikes" in attitude, tendencies, ethics etc. when it comes to how people interact with each other or present their work within the scene, not judgement of the art itself.

My thoughts are: Art does have a unique privilege to give an honest voice to evil, and I believe it's very important to be protected in order to continue to examine and understand the human condition. On the other hand, I in no way expect anyone to be able to, or want to, stomach certain attitudes, let alone support those who hold them/espouse them. I think it's incredibly ignorant to say "if you don't like it, don't listen/buy it" when it comes to racism, sexism, or other any other anti-humanistic worldview, as if it's just a matter of "differing opinion" when it comes to ideologies that revolve around denying people their basic human dignity. I know this is a modern talking point, but it's absolutely true: It's really easy for even the most "liberal" of us to tolerate or even appreciate certain attitudes in art we may "disagree" with, because it doesn't touch us personally, because 99% of us are white males. A lot of us would feel REALLY different about a lot of stuff if we were members of those groups being targeted. And I think if your sense of empathy, or ability to identify with other humans "different" than you, prevents you from being able to appreciate or tolerate certain artists or works, that's not shameful or weak, it's part of having an active moral code and conscience. More and I more I'm aware of how it's such an absurdly narcissistic, but unfortunately very prevalent, assumption to suggest that in order to for someone be interested, involved, and respected in noise, they have be have no objection to celebration of rape, genocide, racial humiliation, etc. And if you have a problem with this, you're not "down" and a "pussy."

With all that said, going back to the unique privilege of art, therein lies its importance to force us to constantly chew these things over, though I think often they just get simplified and swept under the rug in many minds. I personally believe arriving at a dualistic or even unresolved conclusion, whatever it may be, is the healthiest thing you can do.