lux

It also made us shit stalactites of crap (His entire discography)

Nickelback... is there still talk about them?

Sure, my speech wasn't even focused on technical innovation, but rather on the predominantly cultural aspect. In the '90s, there were bands capable of capturing the collective sentiment of general adolescent depression (Nirvana, Nin, Slint, etc.), they are cultural manifestos before they are artistic ones, and without a cultural meaning behind as a prerequisite, I don’t believe there can be an artistic value in a strict sense. Deconstruction has always existed, even before the '90s, but in the '90s it became explicit with the peak of the elusive postmodern society, and it exists today as well. In fact, today there’s only the act of deconstructing, but it’s a mechanical deconstruction, almost a given. And the material to deconstruct no longer exists, or rather, it has stopped in the early '90s. So, the phase is one of total standstill, and today "deconstructing" begins to be synonymous with "not having ideas," so we should start "building" again. Concerts, well, sure if someone were to record a live album today on the level of Kick Out The Jams, then we could talk about it again... but the point is always cultural: we are lost in the fragmentation of our multiple identities, we have raised the threshold of sensitivity to external stimuli. It’s like trying to install an originally designed kitchen in an apartment with rooms that are not well defined and confused. It’s impossible from the outset. There are no longer political dichotomies with strong meaning, the sense of youthful rebellion no longer exists, utopias have been thrown away, there’s nothing worth spending an entire life or a musical career to say. Until the '90s, indeed, there were those who at least made nihilism their artistic input, their “faith” to follow. Being "post," being an outsider had historical meaning, now we don’t even have the strength to contest because A: the act of contestation has become rhetorical and people have understood that it does nothing, B: there’s nothing left to contest, because to contest you must recognize an "other" different from yourself... but we don’t even know who we are anymore. It’s as if Hegel's dialectic thesis-antithesis-synthesis had exploded, all three blur and assume the role of the other. In such a situation, forget about creating art coherently... we can only exhaust ourselves.

Indeed, everything suggests the worst, and not just for the music, never mind. It will mean we will sift through masterpieces of past decades.

That’s the point, not only is there no invention, but there’s also no creation of defined musical movements; once the new wave emerged with its accompanying emotions and clearly outlined historical, cultural, and emotional backgrounds, regardless of whether something new was invented or not. There was a more or less conscious project behind the creation, but now I see none of this. It’s also objectively impossible to give birth to a new trend now; from what can we actually start? Post-rock has existed and should belong to the past, at least in its most overused clichés (to avoid a sterile revival). Some say we should start from electronics, but electronics has always existed, even in combination with rock; it certainly wasn't discovered in this decade. So the focal point is the context in which we operate, the so-called society, not the individual artists who, poor things, are unable and trapped by a myriad of cultural references from the past, hybrid influences that overlap and mutually exclude each other. It’s a globalized chaos, an improper acceleration of the knowledge possible by mankind; there’s no time to absorb outside stimuli and translate them into original and coherent expressions. We don’t even know what feelings we’re experiencing and what we want to communicate anymore. And the results are albums like this, which, beyond any questionable artistic value, don’t really make it clear where they want to go... obsolete industrial rhythms from 20 years ago over paleolithic shoegaze guitar riffs, that overused gothic aura, the most interesting pieces are the ones that mimic Kozelek, which says it all. Of course, all this adds to the undeniable fact that probably there’s more that has been invented (even though I prefer the term "discovered") than what remains to be invented, at least for rock. If culture (understood as an act of knowledge, communication, and common feeling) is sick, confused, and devoid of reference points, then music (which is a cultural product) can only be sick, confused, and devoid of reference points.

Yes, the record is interesting, if only because it tries not to settle into already established sound practices. However, this "music without a center, on and of madness" worries me a bit, because it is indeed original but also excessively enigmatic, I think, tending to close in on itself, localizing rather than cosmopolitanizing. In the '90s, one deconstructed to rebuild, not only from an artistic point of view but also from a cultural one. The works had a unity of intent that was organic, they were complete, they were goals achieved. But today, it seems to me that one deconstructs because the doctor has ordered it; one operates (in the best cases, like these Father Murphy) on the destruction of what was already destroyed in the previous decade, one rushes toward a blind post-post-post and I don't seem to see universal ambitions aimed at forging a new artistic movement, let alone a cultural one. We float like this, picking up what is around us, perhaps damaged by the globalized knowledge that now infests our lives; we are capable of knowing an outrageous amount of stuff in a short time (which didn't happen before), touched by a vast array of diverse and conflicting stimuli (indeed, dichotomous I would say), but perhaps precisely for this reason, we are incapable of rationalizing, discerning the past and present material with awareness, of creating with knowledge. As I was telling Saputello last night, the crisis for me is cultural, even before it is strictly artistic, because it is not possible that in this fucking decade, all those who have ventured into rock music have revealed themselves, for the most part, and as far as I know, incapable of creating something that truly matters. The blame isn’t theirs (it’s not that all musicians suddenly became mediocre and talentless, and coincidentally all concentrated in this decade), but it is the context of today, which honestly does not stir great imagination. Sorry for the digression, probably banal and populist, but it's what I think.

Sure, I’m talking about the music of the people, about rock (avant-garde or otherwise). And I speak of it as a cultural movement, even before an artistic one. It seems to me that no new organic trend with precise intentions and stylistic intuitions is emerging anymore, even if it were to last just a couple of years. Aside from revivals, which are a clear sign of the dead body of rock that remains, and which is now being picked apart by the most talented vultures in the square. There is no longer a shared feeling, or if it exists, we are no longer able to decode it according to a coherent rock evolution. Of course, interesting albums can come out each year, but as you will have understood, that’s not what I’m referring to. Besides, weren’t you the one who was tired of the excellently played and well-packaged albums of today? All this because the crisis is cultural before it is musical, and everyone who treats music as if it were a simple aesthetic manifestation to be contemplated without time or space, merely to enjoy the service, will sooner or later realize it. Because it’s beautiful to deconstruct, but what is left to deconstruct now? Of course, the decade isn’t over… we’re only at the beginning of 2009…

Well, there are some valid pieces (in the first part of the work), but overall it seems to me more like an amateur band than a talented one, especially those industrial rhythms... I don’t know. The second part, on the other hand, seems like a real brick right there. Anyway, even the most optimistic must probably admit it: rock as a historical artistic movement is truly dead; it’s no longer clear in which direction it should go. This damn fragmentation of cultural identity with a strictly post attitude led to some brilliant albums in the 90s, but now that well has run dry too. What can you invent after post-rock? This is the musically poorest decade since rock 'n' roll was born. A real global crisis, comparable to the economic one that awaits us with open arms. In fact, someone has already been touched by that embrace.

Aeneas, 8.5 for Power Corruption And Lies by New Order and 8 for TDS by NIN and The Modern Dance by Pere Ubu? And then 9 for The Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here? Something is escaping me.

Yes, Alè, but don't mess with Sartre.