Wednesday, September 28, 2005

THE MUSIC OF CANCER

This is cheerful, this guy is using the sound of cancer in a dance track. What does cancer sound like? Harsh and rasping like emphysema or dull and monotonous and painful, apparently there is a sound when microbes rub together and this will be amplified for Matthew Herbert’s “thought-provoking music”.

“My new record is going to be a disco record. So, people might be out having a good time on a Saturday night, but they might be dancing to a disco record and the beats are made from cancer,’ he smiles”.

I disagree with the notion that music should be thought provoking, it should not provoke thought of any kind, it’s pure emotion, one of the few ways in which our society allows us a mad, abandoned, pagan release. When someone says “the lyrics are great”, I know I’m going to hate the music, not that there’s anything wrong with good lyrics as an adjunct to a fine song, but if your sole goal and function is to provoke thought, the music is sure to be crap. As to the sound of cancer, I really friggin don’t want to know, if I get cancer one day I’m going to have that song in my ear like some horrible earworm, turning over and over like that Doo Dee Doo song they won’t stop playing on the radio.

Matthew Herbert is semi-famous for doing music with unusual additions, his piece, Plat du Jour is the music of food, featuring musicians and chefs whisking eggs and drumming with coffee tins. He’s also done a piece about chickens called “The Truncated Life of the Modern Industrialised Chicken” using sounds from an abbatoir, mixing all the melodies with “half-a-dozen free-range organic eggs on a Pyrex bowl".

There’s only one question to be asked, what is the sound of an endive and will it move me?

1 comment:

Giggletree said...

Thanks Luke, ran for my life, an ex-friend harassing me on Blogmark, not pleasant.

Like the lexicon, here's ejjvreo, the sound you make when you step into a shoe containing a parktown prawn.