I immensely enjoy reading theoretical discussions of different forms of musics cultural importance and significance as that relates to its

lyrical content, mood and aesthetic sense. Simplistic analysis will attempt to provide amalgams that let you quickly composite auditory memorise and synthesis the music on your own and subsequently decide whether you like it. More abstract impressionistic analysis will look at the aesthetics and attempt to poetically describe the music. Other analyses will look at the music based on its quality as an example of a genre. One of the more interesting forms of analysis will look at music and lyrics as a political statement. My favourite type of criticism is one that looks at the music on its own terms: What are they trying to say? Have they successfully said it? Was it worth saying? Has anybody else said that before? The emphasis there on the word say is clearly problematic, as say, instrumental music or vocal-free electronic music will not have any words, and to a certain extent neither will foreign music, or music with unintelligible lyrical content. Being a very word-centric person, peoples analyses of music allows the aforementioned conjuring of the music in my head, something I have certainly done since I started recording music (see Einsturzende Neubauten essentially being an influence initially based on the idea of recording random crap). I initially read a review and thought it sounded weird, was given a CD of theirs (the first CD of Strategies Against Architecture III), and fell in love with the idea of this noisy, expressive music. It also (probably) never occurred to me that this was very much both modern classical influenced, performance art influenced as well as being essentially film soundtrack music (the idea of people listening to music because it was featured in films and that thus it reminds them of the film is abhorrent to me). Reading about music still gives me this effect, and often hearing something described in hyperbolically significant terms is much more inspirational than actually listening to the music. This is partially because I have a very distinct set of criteria in my head concerning what makes me like music that would be impossible to describe. Having said that, anything completely new sounding is always a revelation, as much as it was when Id barely heard anything. Speaking of barely having heard anything, my early ideas as to what constitutes good music seem to me now both inspirational and kind of stupid. I have always appreciated a level of rawness, a level of things being unhinged, scary, malevolent...dark. Hence metal. This liking for expressionistic, psychologically troubling music is juxtaposed with a simultaneous liking of impressionistic, otherworldly music. Metal at its best offers both of these things, it is an abstract world, nothing quite makes sense, particularly in extreme metal, words are unintelligible, the music doesnt particularly guide you through itself at all despite when it is done best being composed of utterly inseparable parts. This visceral, image provoking world I found reflected in the strangest of places. Korns debut album, despite its clear immaturity, level of angst that veers on being obtusely cloying and my newfound inability to sympathise with the sentiments delivered, I still see it as a disturbed and formative work of art. It is primitive, I can now hear Captain Beefheart, PJ Harvey and delta blues in its histrionics, which shouldnt make as much sense as it does. It sounds like a chamber on the inside of your head and the characters that populate it. The gibberish, the awkward changes, the haunting dissonances, the ghostly backing vocals, the odd times as at the intro to Blind where they are restrained and minimalistic. The way that the way the post are you ready riff sounds not like the surge of Vikings or cock-rockers or anything very masculine but rather angry and impotent cavemen banging rocks together. The music is not at all cool or pretentious or complex, and therein lies its power now it

reads almost like outsider art, the silly scrawling of a man like Don Vliet himself. Korns initial name before they adopted what is possibly a stupider name was Sex Art. Which is hilarious not only in the fact that it is just an awful, awful name for any band but that if a band was to be deemed sexless, Korn was it. Despite Jonathan Davis whispering, subdued delivery that frequently rears its head. It is embarrassing, infantile and desperate sounding, as much so as any Xiu Xiu album, and as far as I can tell, whether the assholes in Korn knew it or not, is entirely the intention behind the music. Far as Im concerned its the logical conclusion of the thesis posited by Lennon on Plastic Ono band and made massive by Nirvana, you can be bitter, angry, messy and people will relate. Therein lies the clear problem with those who adopted the sound but not the message of Korn, the music doesnt work if it actually makes you look tough and soundtracks UFC or extreme sports, its rage works because it registers manifestly as weakness and self loathing. Contrast this with Pantera, who I also enjoy, and who I simultaneously know are unequivocally responsible for giving many people the impression that metal is tough and angry and conservative in the most uptight way possible. So why am I talking about nu metal (first time Ive used that term sofar), well, because Im talking about music, writing about music and what my formative years of listening to and investing myself in music mean to me looking back on them, organising my thoughts. Perhaps the formative band whose manifesto I still look to and see as my blueprint for the creation of successful, meaningful music and also a band that can easily been seen as laughable and childish. System of a Down took

Gender and Music Creation I probably pride myself on the fact that I would consider my main musical influences female, although thats pretty ridiculous and also pretty much accidental. While the music those women make is almost always heavily influenced by male artists (its impossible not to be) and compared to female artists. However, despite the preponderance of male influence on these women, they still, to me, often make better music. Why is this? For one thing women can, again, from my perspective, get away with being angrier. The music also tends to be more introverted and psychologically complex, even more political music written by women tends to have more of the personal is political, which is something Ive recently been trying to incorporate into my music. I dont write love songs, I dont write funny songs, I often write ambiguously angry songs or sad songs that lack any specificity. But the main thing I write about is angst, which is pretty universal (unless youre a happy person, in which case, well done). Angst is self-indulgent and turbid, kind of a horrible, bloated narcissistic thing that comes across as immature and pessimistic and difficult to relate to. Hence making the personal political, a thing that female artists do more than male artists, is an important tool in making my songs less superficial and self indulgent (if you look into them, Why you being so unkind? reads as a pretty shallow plea out of context), while still letting me do the thing that I know how to do best. I cant really do whimsical, charming, joyous or amorous. Likewise pure adolescent rage is something Id probably enjoy being in the position to holler about, but its still not satisfactorily what I want to convey, maybe its more honest, but its also more irresponsible

and embarrassing. Its a flaw that I cant write about much, one that Im overcoming, mainly by becoming gradually more inauthentic. I hope its clear from the above that my goals in songwriting, apart from the simple fact that it soothes the soul, which is its main purpose as far as Im concerned is that it says something relevant about the world around me. And while the problems of real world interpersonal relationships cover many of my songs lyrics, as well as my own psychological problems, my favourite lyrics of mine are to me at least on some level political commentaries, in some cases more complex than others. Importantly though, they (I hope) dont read as didactic, or in some cases as political comment at all. The perfect song for me at the moment is simple, universal, surreal, thematically complex and ultimately some sort of comment that I can articulate through ridiculous singing. Its tricky, because as much as you want to sell (emotionally) your music via a calculated determination of which stylistic traits are politically correct or innovative or unique, you cant. You sell yourself, your own personality etc. This is something that is kind of difficult to come to terms with. If you can make something thats pretty good with not a lot of effort, its hard to push yourself to make something great. Moby. Its about emotional connection, having faith that people at least think kind of similarly to you and can sense that empathy and empathise. To be truly authentic and honest, not literally necessarily, but in terms of being as deceit-free as possible I comport myself like hot fat, quick moving particles. Need a fire, but not to catch fire, balance. Otherwise I congeal, solidify, becoming sticky and opaque. Movement, I lose clarity in solidity, lose clear thought in the cold. Like the freezing snow, I need heat to become liquid, free, so as to not crush and trap people, but to wash them away. Play music like you're falling down a hill, running for your life, waiting for a ride that you know won't come, rushing, bristling, blushing with energy. Stumbling about looking for the light, trying to pull yourself together. It's not lazy indifference, forceful pummelling, bemused mastery or hopeless meandering. It's forcefully stumbling, running too fast for your own feet, but trying really hard to keep from falling over completely. It's being on the precipice, running along a high-wire to save someone. If you're running along it purposelessly, the effect is lost, if it is not quite high enough of the ground, likewise, if you're walking carefully it may bore. Actually, this leads onto another type of performance method that works... Being an entertaining tightrope walker who feigns falling to show the danger and hisher mastery, this is a more admirable stance than the aforementioned, but it needs that element of purpose beyond entertainment. The physicality of the performance is important in accomplishing this. A physically challenging performance helps to engender a kind of empathetic response in an audience. In order for a performance to be physically challenging there needs to be uncertainty, or at least the awareness, in both performer and audience of uncertainty. I'm not sure if this can be constructed or whether it must be heh, stumbled upon. Words are so important to this, I've written about this before, that even though I write complex lyrics (even when they are few, possibly when there are too many) that you really don't need to hear them. They perform their function whether you can hear the words or

not, assuming the words are good enough (the Kevin Shields quote about there being nothing worse than a song with bad lyrics). Always reminds me of the time I talked to tall Darcy, who's very sceptical of words, seeing them as syllables with sounds and performing best as clichs, in a purely functional capacity. It's funny, I used to be able to rationalise many of my songs, obsessions and all, as being genre exercises divorced of content meaningful to me. Obviously meanings are unavoidable, writing's about making choices, even at its most primitive and unedited. You can't avoid the choices and their emergent meanings. This is why the pouring forth of lyrics, musics, and their slow refinement is so...absorbing and soul destroying. Back to music criticism, radical openness is now the order of the day for me. You reveal more about yourself by showing, not telling. Asking people about themselves, not what they do, but who they are. Why do they do what they do? What is important to them?