Noise and Music - a new book

Probably due to the monthly influence of Wire Magazine (the music mag, not to be confused with the tech-mag Wired), my musical taste has gradually drifted more and more towards bands that feature a thick crust of noise in what they do. Of course I have long admired Sonic Youth who have been in this genre since the early 1980s. But the main new thing in the last few years has been music from Japan.

In particular, Boris (who remain my favourite band of the last few years), Keiji Haino (especially the Fushitsusha cds), Merzbow, even the Acid Mothers Temple and High Rise, Sunn O))), Earth, etc. I am, perhaps, one of the few people to have listened to the 50-cd "Merzbox" all the way through. The other day I found and downloaded a five-hour Fushitisha concert from Hosei University in 2003. I bet that will be an intense listen. Ideal revision music perhaps?

A book has arrived on exactly this theme - Paul Hegarty's Noise / Music a History - full of complex arguments as befits the author's position as a lecturer in philosophy. So among various descriptions from the history of noise in music, there is also the occasional mention of Heidegger (The Question concerning Technology - which I read a few years back), Deleuze, Derrida, Adorno, Kant, and so on. This book is currently my "last-thing-at-night" reading and is proving a little difficult for this role. I am having to alternate with Derman's My Life as A Quant (also not a very easy read). Perhaps I would be better with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which arrived the other day.

Current noise favourites include the version of "Untitled" from the last Boris cd from the live show in Tokyo, April 2009, a recording of Keiji Haino and Lee Renalso in New York in 2002, some old Naked City recordings and Bill Laswell with Haino and others in Tokyo a week or two ago - the wonders of the internet that such music can find an audience so easily

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And how odd that Japan should be the source of some much of this extreme music

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Keiji Haino - a Fushitsusha show