A phrase from my last blog post has
properly bothered me over this past couple of weeks.
It utilised a
similar painstaking but punishing guitar deconstruction (which in itself had
forbears in the Sonic Youth of Evol and
Bad Moon Rising), balanced with a
dour jazzy syncopation, and punctuated by whispery introspection.
‘Guitar deconstruction’. I know what I’m
getting at with it, but it reads to me now as clunky shorthand, without
adequate contextualisation. (This is the reality of being a writer. If all the
usual life horrors aren’t enough, you get this shit waking you at four AM).
I think
I meant that the bands I was discussing – Slint, and Sonic Youth especially
– radically changed the parameters of the guitar, but not through accepted
channels or gimmicks such as making it faster, slower, louder, fiddling with
tunings and guitar effects, etc etc. They may very well have employed any or
all of these techniques, but it was
more in their philosophical attitude to the instrument. They took apart –
deconstructed – its usual ‘rock’ purpose but they did not destroy it. They sought
change it at its very root. The music that emerged was, at least partly, an
inevitable consequence of this attitude. It’s linked to what Simon Reynolds
talked of in his original definition of post-rock: that the guitar was used to
facilitate texture and timbre. Reynolds cited Sonic Youth as a key example of
how the guitar was un-rocked, and
this Wire essay by David Stubbs
further expands on the theme. I’ve also been listening to the No Wave artists
that immediately preceded and inspired Sonic Youth, like Glenn Branca, and Rhys
Chatham, whose ‘Guitar Trio’ (composed in 1977) was performed numerous times in
the ferocious underground venues of late 70s-early 80s New York.
While I’ll be going more into No Wave and all
this un-rocking in my book, what has
started to fascinate me is deconstruction itself, and how it seems a
fundamental principle of [post-rock]. When I tossed off that phrase in my last
blog post, perhaps I unconsciously had in mind something Rudy Tambala said to me:
We didn’t want a
guitar to sound like a fucking guitar. And I think that song [‘Sulliday’]
really encapsulates it. You might think that’s
a power chord, but it’s not, it’s just smashing a guitar against something,
dropping it, and then going over and having a smoke, or whatever. But it was
really, let’s try and tear away, aggressively, any aspect of rock and roll. […]
There was this desire to destroy, even the groove. I think eventually we ended
up thinking we’ll keep the groove, keep the bassline, even if we deconstruct
it, keep the groove going, and just go fucking out there.
What is deconstruction? Let’s turn to the
Sonic Youth of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida.
From the moment
that there is meaning there are nothing but signs. We think only in signs.
We are all trapped by this, us poor sheep;
we’re only able to create or analyse anything through ‘signs’ – which dominate
everything from language to the unconscious – and think in set responses that (a)
predate our existence and that (b) we’ve internalized throughout our lives. Signs
are not a route to free expression, but a limiter of it; words, for example,
only work in relation to other words. The idea of ‘logic’ dominates Western
thought and shoehorns us tighter into those expected channels.
Deconstruction – as I understand it – isn’t
just about fervently searching for
these signs then, when we find them, holding up our hands and thinking ‘oh
well, life’s a done deal’ (see Structuralism). Instead, deconstruction says
that we have to look, and look really fucking hard, for everything dictating
our responses. But another mode of seeing is possible. And once we’ve accepted that we have to go back to the
roots of everything to find this new way, then we can deconstruct those signs, those structures.
In short, deconstruction doesn’t destroy,
with all the nihilism that implies; instead, it studiously takes apart,
analyses, and then carefully, radically (and threateningly) reorders, using the same materials.
This is highly relevant for [post-rock]
guitar, but it’s also an underlying theme in numerous other aspects of the
[post-rock] sound and aesthetic. What I’m finding as a recurrent topic in my
interviews is a fixation on destroying
cliché. And it’s waaaaaaay more than just the usual ‘we’re doing things a
bit differently’ statement within every musician's interview arsenal. The torturous
recording process of many key albums bears testament to this.
The first time
something is played it is at its finest, and the minute you try to recreate
that it becomes an imitation of something that was originally better. But… the
problem with a lot of improvisation is that it meanders away from the point too
much. So the thing that this time [studio sessions for Laughing Stock lasted for seven months] afforded us was to go in
with people that we wanted to play with almost from an attitude point of view,
give them absolute freedom in terms of what they play, so that everything they
do play is free form, but then to construct an arrangement by taking little
sections of that and building that up from there. But that takes a large amount
of time because… ninety per cent of what you play will be rubbish. If you’re
improvising, if you get 10 per cent which is any good then I think you’re doing
really well. I think you’re doing amazingly well if you get half a percent!
(Mark
Hollis, Talk Talk)[1]
There’s plenty of other gold in the
deconstruction hills (challenges to authority; listener comprehension; critical
interaction) that need a lot more thought on my part, but with a pretty free July, I’ve
got time to give it. And although I’m bastardising Derrida’s notions somewhat (or
rather ‘deconstructing’ them HAHAHAHA) to help interpret the works I’m
considering – I think, after months and months, I’ve found the first definite
thread bringing my [post-rock] peeps together.
That it’s a subversive and nebulous one in
itself is entirely, entirely fitting.
[1] Hollis was interviewed c.1991 by John Pidgeon for a promotional
cassette; this quote is via the excellent Quietus
piece by Wyndham Wallace http://thequietus.com/articles/06963-talk-talk-laughing-stock
The image at the start of this post is from the installation Six String Sonics by Gil Kuno (2011). In this fully playable sculpture, Kuno reconstituted each of the usual six guitar strings into a separate instrument,
effectively making six guitars with one string each, which can be played
simultaneously by six musicians. More information, and watch/listen here.
