Silence (and what to do with it) Part 2

Terrific interview by Dan Warburton with Radu Malfatti, a composer and player I have become obsessed with over the last few months. Almost seven years on his ideas about music (and the absence of it) still are more relevant than ever. He is also totally my kind of guy, sparing nobody and nothing, saying what has to be said and ever looking forward.

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Addendum:

Following extract is, I think, the most important passus of the interview. I will deconstruct (and reconstruct) this further in the following days when I have got the time. For the time being I will refer to an earlier post of a few months ago which led to a minor discussion with K-Punk at the time (who got his point from - or agreed with the point of - Simon Reynolds) and whose argument I find I have neglected to rebut. The dichotomy/oppposition under discussion has nonetheless been grinding at the back of my mind ever since. (Incidentally, it also ties in with Ralf Wehowsky's quote I referred to a few posts below.) Anyway, more on this the following days.

"Warburton: (...) I can't decide if it's a blessing or a curse to be fantastically aware of very tiny details (acoustic or otherwise) of wherever you happen to be."

Malfatti: For me it's a blessing: the more we are aware of things the better. We can decide later if we "need" them or not, but look at all those people who are unaware of most of what's going on around them. Sure, it would be a curse if every little detail entered our brain and passed through the short-term memory gate and stayed in long-term-memory - then we really would have a lot to carry around with us! - but someone once said that we don't use more than 65% of our brain capacity, and I'm absolutely sure that most folk don't even use that. I assume that this is the underlying structure or meaning of the meditational aspect of certain human knowlege. What happens if we elevate the known into the realm of unknown, the unimportant into the realm of important? We sharpen the consciousness and I think we then are able to become aware of the acoustic environment surrounding the music - and: the music itself!!"

It seems I am more and more retreating from the world of 'normal' music these days. One way or another these days I always end up, or listening to a whole lot of unstructured improv and noise assaults, or investigating the merits of this or that modernist composer (Scelsi, Webern, Xenakis). It goes even that far that a lot of my time is spent listening to silence on disc. With 'silence on disc' I mean the kind of music that makes you wonder whether it is your computer humming, the house squeaking or, indeed, the music that you put on that you are hearing at a given moment. Anyway, if less is more, nothing is everything.

None the less I am again amazed at the gullability of the common music scribe to believe that Interpol has anything whatsoever to do with Joy Division. I have never detected a single trace of Joy Division-ness in Interpol and the new album makes that point even clearer. I almost threw up when that overacting singer pointed out to the world that "it's not so bad". Ian Curtis would never have daigned to come up with a silly line like that. For Christ sakes', not only is it that bad, it is even worse. Then again, Our Love to Admire is easily their least irritating record to date, though there is not a single note on it that even comes close to the brilliant 'Evil', the group's only non-irritable sequence of notes.

On another tip: whether it is Richard James or not (I think it is him, though), I think The Tuss is absolutely worth your time.

Silence (and what to do with it)

Right now listening to Radu Malfatti's Nonostante II, a piece of solo piano. It stretches well over 30 minutes, but - and this is the crux - there is about ten minutes of music on the cd (and then I am being generous, I think it totals even less).

Though I was forewarned by a review in The Wire, I still thought it was some kind of mistake, since the first minutes were reasonably filled with piano tones. But then a strange thing happens. You literally have to count the minutes before you get served some more notes. Sometimes you get three notes, sometimes only one, sometimes four or five. In between there is just silence.

It creates quite an awkward atmosphere. You are actually waiting for the music to come. So, what to do while you are waiting? Listening, of course. And while you are listening the sounds of the immediate environment (me typing this, lighting a fag, my pets moving through the loft, public transport in the streets) get sort of amplified. Silence yes, but no void.

With Nonostante III it is mostly the same, though the instruments (mostly clarinet) are different. The thing is, you do not mind, because it kind of puts you in touch with your surroundings, something a melomaniac like myself tends to forget. Music tends to fill up your living space, be it as a mere backdrop or as a more intense experience. Moments of silence change all that. It allows your hearing - and your body - to build up a system of suspense and release.

The effect is different also from a radical piece like Cage's 4' 33". In that case, you know there will not be any music played at all, and although Cage put it forth mostly with philosophical considerations, silence has become some kind of a gimmick, employed from time to time by many a lesser spirit, solely as an empty reference.

For the majority of people, for whom pop music is the only music they recognize as such, silence has become a threat rather than a moment of contemplation. Silence forces the mind inward or outward, stasis becomes impossible. Anyone who attends a live show these days will have noticed that artists regularly have to ask the audience to shut their big mouths. People nowadays just do not know how to handle silence anymore.

With Malfatti's recent music your listening experience is continually suspended. The surprising element of improvisation comes alive again. Most improv sets tend to be exciting for just one listening, but this way the discovery is allowed to happen time and time again.

Note the difference with minimalism. With minimal music (be it La Monte Young, Steve Reich or or the ultra-minimal techno of Richie Hawtin and Wolfgang Voigt) you tend to fill in the empty parts with your imagination. You amplify not your surroundings, but a single element within the minimal composition, which becomes a focal point. Or, alternately, you switch from one element to another, choosing to single out one sound over another. Returning silence compells you to listen more attentively, it instigates a search for sound in itself.

Ultimately this leads to the realization that silence is a defining part of music. Classical and jazz musicians and people who are into musique concrète or sound art will consider this a truism of course. But like most truisms its significance has long been lost.