Glenn Branca - Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses
sample here, with audio edit and Cage interview fascism
A fairly typical sequence of Branca’s dense just outtonation chord clumps.
The purpose of this CD release seems to be to combine a recording of this work with audio of the controversial John Cage interview in which Cage declares that he “wouldn’t want to live in a society” based on Branca’s compositional and performance aesthetic, and that such a society would be one of fascism.
The effect borders on a smear of Cage, only because his words in retrospect are so utterly ridiculous, even beyond the idea that Branca’s music is fascistic - which it is, to the extent music can be fascistic, which is not at all in the manner of a music like Muzak which can be used to foster a state of domination. This music’s actual political effect is most likely to amuse and activate, but its musical effect is certainly to overpower and stupefy a careful listener.
Generally, however, Cage’s position, in a conversation with Wim Mertens (also an engaging musician) which is termed an interview, is of a pillared priest of music who can say nothing wrong, and wills that he has said nothing wrong. This is an obvious effect of Cage being a sort of impish mystic in music, whose works are derived from ideas about the culture of music performance rather than from the character of harmony in itself (he is a second order musician), and of his being dramatically successful in that role. Cage’s famous conversation with his teacher Schoenberg was to the effect that 1) the lack of a sense of harmony is an impenetrable barrier to music composition, 2) Cage lacked that sense, and 3) Cage would persist anyway, “beating my head against the wall”.
The humor of Cage decrying Branca’s work, which blows the entire house of harmony into pieces. I often wonder whether Branca has a sense of harmony, as much as an understanding of techniques to create harmonies, which often seem to follow one another in the manner of objects of study at a natural science museum - but it is clear Branca has a sense of humor, at least.
In the interview, Cage refers continually to intention. I often feel that intentions should come from the work; that the work should not depend on its creator’s intention to succeed. This is a problem with much improvised music. The “is this improvised?” question may murmur through the audience, and if it is not improvised, what then? Then the intention was to make a composition, which has a different set of expectations, which are also suspect. In the end there is no artist, there is a work. Creation is over. An person needs to occupy the natural space of music (or of ideas about the culture of music performance) in a moment of execution. I must confess that, as an audience, witnessing that moment happening is incredible, but it is rare, which is why much improvised music relies on compositions of various sizes and sorts, to provide an escape hatch.
Cage expresses a desire to have freedom from intention, to which Mertens responds that “no goal” is a goal in itself. At this point, Cage actually conversationally dominates Mertens in a way which could be called fascistic. Cage: “No that’s a misuse of the language. If you say that a non-goal is a goal, then you’re using the language to defeat the language, to defeat the mind… then the language is of no use.” In fact, language may be of no use. For example, Kurt Godel demonstrates that no axiomatic formal system can be both complete and consistent. Clearly not having a goal can become a goal, and possibly it is as soon as it is conceived as distinct from having a goal. Cage is using his status to deny Mertens an opportunity to develop the conversation on Mertens’s terms. The phrase “defeat the mind” is particularly telling of Cage’s fragile position, as his idea of “no goal” must certainly come from the Buddhist “no mind”.
Branca and Cage seem to have generally allowed the water to pass under the bridge, although I understand there was no public reconciliation. The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, founded years ago by Cage with Jasper Johns, and so perhaps still in some sense carrying a posthumous imprimatur of Cage, gave Branca a grant in 2009, two years after the Atavistic Records release considered here. Perhaps Branca’s ethnomusicological step here, collecting this cultural source material, is his way of dispensing of the issue.
I love the interview’s background sound - flinty, squealy, fascistic Big City America.
1 year ago
