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What do these random quotes prove? That you don’t know how to read?
People can reply to me all they want. But try not to put words in my mouth and then to reply to these words that I never wrote.
Száhala is merely making music he likes. It’s me who’s saying his music is the “truth”. I’m not saying he’s making any testament, and I never even used the word “testament” once in all these forum posts.
btw, I don’t need to have a formal training in music to say the stuff I’m saying, because it’s not needed for my current purposes, since all it’d do would be to more accurately describe what’s going on with these tracks, and would not change in the slightest the value judgement that it is my goal to express in here. I don’t need to read Afternoon Owl‘s composition on paper and compare it with any of Mozart’s symphonies to see their style is completely different: I can understand just fine the different styles represented, and better yet, I can explain the psychological meaning of these styles, because reasons. Anyone can do it if they put the effort.
Here’s a little window to what the freaking depths of philosophy look like, btw:
“Music”—and the grand style.—The greatness of an artist cannot be measured by the “beautiful feelings” he arouses: leave that idea to females. But according to the degree to which he approaches the grand style, to which he is capable of the grand style. This style has this in common with great passion, that it disdains to please; that it forgets to persuade; that it commands; that it wills—To become master of the chaos one is; to compel one’s chaos to become form: to become logical, simple, unambiguous, mathematics, law—that is the grand ambition here.—It repels; such men of force are no longer loved—a desert spreads around them, a silence, a fear as in the presence of some great sacrilege— All the arts know such aspirants to the grand style: why are they lacking in music? No musician has yet built as that architect did who created the Palazzo Pitti— Here lies a problem. Does music perhaps belong to that culture in which the domain of men of force of all kinds has ceased? Does the concept grand style ultimately stand in contradiction to the soul of music—to the “woman” in our music?— I here touch upon a cardinal question: where does our entire music belong? The ages of classical taste knew nothing to compare with it: it began to blossom when the Renaissance world had attained its evening, when “freedom” had departed from morals and even from men:—is it part of its character to be counter-Renaissance? Is it the sister of the Baroque style, since it is in any case its contemporary? Is music, modern music, not already decadence?—Once before I pointed to this question: whether our music is not a piece of counter-Renaissance in art? whether it is not next-of-kin to the Baroque style? whether it has not grown up in contradiction to all classical taste, so that all ambitions to become classical are forbidden to it by its nature? The answer to this first-rank question of values would not remain in doubt if the proper inferences had been drawn from the fact that music achieved its greatest ripeness and fullness as romanticism—once again as a movement of reaction against classicism. Mozart—a delicate and amorous soul, but entirely eighteenth century, even when he is serious.—Beethoven the first great romantic, in the sense of the French conception of romanticism, as Wagner is the last great romantic—both instinctive opponents of classical taste, of severe style—to say nothing of “grand” style.
From 1888. The complete aphorism from which I got the first quote on the review.
When I read someone’s review I want to read what the reviewer thought of the reviewed object, and if a piece of music made him think about “fools that become kings”, that’s all interesting and fun to read. That’s what reviews are, after all: personal opinions.
However, even though my review of Enuma Elish is personal, too, I’m trying to build this personal opinion on very solid theoretical foundations. I go all the way down to the freaking depths of philosophy before I get to voice my ultimate opinion and final judgement. Because I’m using Enuma Elish as an excuse to get to the meaning of music I mentioned above. So take it as philosophical essay if you want. Because compared to my review of Betwixt’s Hydra, it really is philosophy.
The thing is that anyone can hallucinate a narrative out of Firecloud. In other words, the “narrative” is not in Firecloud at all, it’s in your brain, i.e. it’s entirely fictional and superimposed on the track by you. One thing is to interpret a feeling out of a melody and call it “sadness”, another is to interpret “fools that become kings” out of it. A couple more steps in that direction and we might as well just give up altogether on trying to understand the meaning of music, and just go take some LSD together to some forest and hallucinate giant monsters out of trees.
What I mean to say is that it’s OK to imagine “fools that become kings” when listening to Firecloud, but trying to extrapolate from this idiosyncratic imagination and from the review this imagination produced that EVERYONE will imagine the same thing is silly.
I’m not doing what you think I’m doing, basically. But it’s still nice to know how your brain and imagination work, though!
and as an Australian living in Finland with an inescapable obsession on a long-dead civilization, that’s no surprise
Wait… Száhala is Australian?
Also, I tried to decipher your following post, Sherkel, but failed. I have no clue what you meant to say with it.
EDIT: bleh
I mean, the first time I heard Alek Száhala I thought it was terrible. I think it was Tigris on Crush on Hardcore 3. Later, after getting hooked on Carbon Based’s Cyclone (and momentaneously spreading it on my high school, lol) I found Iron Squid, and that’s when it got serious: I knew at that point that even though happy hardcore and whatever were terrible, the Finns were doing just what my little developing brain was demanding. Gradually, I came to learn to appreciate what these pioneers were doing. For with this kind of “stupid” “non-music” you actually have to make an effort to entrance yourself in it. The hypnosis I mentioned above won’t work if you aren’t active about it.
And how did I even get to this extreme form of EDM? I was searching online in Google for “fast paced electronic music” or something to that effect, and kept navigating through a huge amount of genres because I wanted to hear it all. I liked trance, for example, but the prospect of finding music even more powerful than that motivated me to keep searching. I knew I’d like electronic music because I already actually did: I freaking loved Slyder’s Score the very moment I heard it in GTA III‘s Rise FM. So it’s kinda funny that shortly after I solve the problem of EDM, Száhala, who made me conscious of this problem, releases a remix of the very track that got me into it.
Your review reads much more like a series of essays on various topics than just thoughts on Enuma Elish, but that’s certainly not a bad thing. Develop each of those ideas more and you could have a long series of pieces on the hidden meanings in Finnish freeform, all centered around a single track at that! Being strictly anti-review myself it was pleasingly thought-provoking.
Thanks. I have to connect the ideas expressed on those first paragraphs a bit better, but they are all nonetheless on-topic and relevant to the review.
The reason I started the review in a more theoretical (and outright philosophical) vein and went out of my way to bring the issue of complexity to the table, was because the number one objection of all current and future critics will be the apparent lack of complexity of Enuma Elish (and indeed of all EDM, really, house and trance and whatever included). These critics are so used to the classical style of music that when faced with EDM they will immediately brush it off as too “simple”, too “stupid” and too “popular”.
For this reason I have to redefine what complexity means in music, or even outright declare its relative unimportance for EDM, all the while showcasing that I am conscious that complexity is, in general and in principle, a good thing as far as art and intelligent human beings are concerned.
I’m saying, then, that even though a track like Afternoon Owl is structurally simple, it deserves to be taken seriously. I even accept and allow that you call it “non-music”—call it whatever the hell you want, basically, but I’m siding with this “non-music” now, and my job here is to explain to you and to every skeptical critic out there the APPEAL of this “non-music” and why it has continuously managed to FASCINATE human beings all over.
And my ultimate conclusion to this question is: because this “non-music” or whatever the hell you want to call it is… virile as fuck. What IS complex music anyway? If I’m right that music=feelings, what ARE complex feelings? Forget about complexity and intelligence for a second, and think what the psychological implications of rave music and EDM are. THAT’S where I’m trying to get to. This “non-music” does not need intricate structures, nor any nuanced melodic shenanigans to have an effect: it’s direct, on-point and to-your-face. So let’s redefine what complexity means for this “non-music”, because we all know already that not all EDM is equal, and we too respect and desire complexity.
This subject is only marginally concerned with my review and therefore with this topic, so I’d rather not get into it. I’m aware nationalism is an extremely sensitive subject to the vast majority of the people on the planet (even though we are all now living in the freaking 21st century), so I’ll end my thought at that point and you can interpret it however you want.
It’s also funny calling the Finns “barbarians” when they consistently rank among the most civilized countries on the planet today, so there’s also that added irony. It’s ultimately a serious point (because they are culturally barbaric as I explained), but there’s certainly a funny element in there, and I hope it made you smile with it. 🙂
If by that, you meant, […]
I meant that most countries today are not virile. This is because industrial, peaceable societies in which war has been practically abolished become more feminine. (Of course every country still has an army and military culture differs immensely from civilian culture, but the fact remains that demographically, i.e. in numbers, civilian culture is reigning supreme and we are all, soldiers and civilians included, deeply immersed in it.)
It’s a snarky remark not to be taken too seriously: a verbal shot at all civilized men reading me. And I wanted to contrapose “virility” with “barbarian” and then with “noble”.
Also, I say the Finns, and really every other country that is not the USA, Germany, France, Italy or Greece, are culturally barbaric… because they are. In my country, for example, instead of studying and cherishing Montaigne (a Frenchman) we study and cherish some national nobody merely because he happened to be born on the same piece of land than us. This emphasis on national culture makes my country barbaric too, because the best culture on the planet was produced in the countries I mentioned above, not on mine.
I guess my writing could’ve been clearer there. It’s seems I imply the Finns are the ONLY cultural barbarians, but that’s not my intention. I will change it to “Aren’t the Finns among [the best of] our contemporary cultural barbarians?”.
Which part of culture specifically are you talking about here? The climate? The introversion? The spirit of sisu?
Already answered that above, but I loved that you mentioned this “sisu” concept. I’d never heard of it before, and after reading the wikipedia article on it it really is amazing how it captures the stuff I was trying to convey on the review, lol. I’m going to have to add this concept there somewhere, somehow.
Alek Száhala – Enuma Elish
The grand style follows suit with all great passion. It disdains to please, it forgets to persuade. It commands. It wills.
Friedrich Nietzsche
This will be a very preliminary review of Enuma Elish, which I intend to work on over the years as my knowledge of music theory expands. I’m currently busy with much more pressing matters, though, and will remain so for the coming years, so I’ll leave this here for now and you readers can do with it in the meantime whatever you want. This review will be built upon a bunch intuitions that I’ve developed over the years, through a lot of hours spent listening to music, as well as my philosophy study and overall life experiences. I have never formally studied music, so intuition is all I can use for now I’m afraid.
Is Enuma Elish music? The problem that Enuma Elish poses (and before it Afternoon Owl, and before it most of all progressive electronic dance music, and before it Ravel’s Boléro… meaning, then, the entire group of so-called repetitive music) is philosophically relevant. For music simulates feelings, and therefore an order of rank of music will correspond to an order of rank of feelings… which is what philosophy ultimately strives for. The merits of music, as it happens with the merits of all artforms, hinge to a great degree on complexity. Complexity which is, as Kierkegaard explained, one of the principal means towards immersion, the ultimate goal of all art.
But if we are to assume this “repetitive music” is extremely simple, almost downright stupid, composition-wise, then why has it come to dominate mankind’s taste to such an extent? We still all cherish Boléro–even though it was harshly criticized back when it was first played by many composers and critics, and for quite some time after that–and EDM has never been so big, with DJs like David Guetta touring today the entire planet and ratcheting up their net worth to several million dollars. Surely, it must be attaining the immersive effect art strives for even with extremely simple compositions. We could of course redefine what “complexity” means composition- and structure-wise, or maybe even add to the former the dimensions of sound design and production, which are certainly complex and demand a lot of effort from the artists (and are only possible with cutting-edge technological marvels, such as DAWs and synthesizers). Crafting powerful or remotely remarkable sounds is tough, and this is why the guys from Infected Mushroom, for example, are regarded as master craftsmen. Moreover, there’s no denying that a track like IM’s Flamingo is complex, since it is the result of about 320 different channels, i.e. 320 different timbres (–not quite true this statement, but let’s assume it is for the purposes of this line of thought), combined and played together on a time-span of less than 9 minutes. Timbres themselves can of course be ranked according to their expressiveness, which is just another word to denote their relative complexity, and this is why an instrument like a violin is ranked higher than for example a flute (that it is harder for the musician to master it and play it should not affect our final judgement on it, since as critics and receptors of music we only care about the timbre, i.e. the sound, coming out of the instrument). So another appeal of EDM is definitely how it pushes technological advances to their limit and how it consistently delievers unique, strange, novel sounds. Perhaps when our brain is bombarded by such weird stimula, the complexity of the structure of music stops being so important, and the monotony of structural repetition can be thus compensated for with the strange and bizarre, and ultimately more expressive sounds that technological progress offers our artists.
But the idea is that, complex or not, this “repetitive music” is indeed immersive–and I don’t need to look outside my window to see its effect on other people–I can see its effect just fine on my brain, and it’s ultimately on this effect alone that I can base everything I say.
Besides, even though music is an artform, I do not believe it can be evaluated and judged with the same criteria used for visual arts, for these always simulate tangible things. A picture will simulate a cup of coffee, an action movie will simulate a street fight, and the more pixels on the picture the better it will look, just as an action movie from the 60’s is significantly less entertaining than, say, 2002’s The Bourne Identity. Literary arts require their own set of criteria, too, but they use words and these are symbols that refer more or less unilaterally and unambiguously to concrete things. But the sound of a bagpipe or of any of Bach’s fugues do not simulate anything tangible: they simulate feelings. Music uncannily objectifies feelings through sound, and these then proceed to stimulate our feelings, after captured by our ear and interpreted by our brain. So admitting music=feelings, by evaluating music I’d pretty much be evaluating feelings! The criteria used to evaluate music would then have to match at some point and to some degree the criteria used to evaluate feelings—and it’s precisely at this point that music criticism becomes philosophical, and all the criteria that worked in general for all the other artforms must be revised. In short, “complexity” was a very useful concept that practically sufficed to guide us through our judgment of any artform, but with music it might get a bit more complex than that. What are “complex feelings”, anyway?
Of course, every person has his own inclinations and own instincts, and is subject to his own environment, and therefore generally feels a certain set of feelings–and is conditioned to more often feel a certain way–and to prefer to feel a certain way. What will the warrior prefer to feel? And what about the bean-counting shopkeeper? And the little girl? So to each of these we could attempt to correspond some set of feelings, some set of music.
–But this has been a long enough digression from my current goal already–wasn’t this supposed to be a review of Enuma Elish?
Enuma Elish, then, is an extremely repetitive piece of music. It is intentionally repetitive, for you can see Száhala streamlined it (i.e. simplified it, at least in structure) with each available version. Check the HBC podcast from December 2011 and see how the track differs there. First thing coming to my mind, is that I enjoyed the muddled sound of the kick and bass showcased in that version. The final version sounds much cleaner, as all cutting-edge EDM tends to sound with it’s laborious mixing and mastering procedures. But that kick muddled on that bass sounded great. A bit of dirt and smoke and lack of transparency is appreciated once in a while and, barbarians that we are, we certainly like getting our hands dirty, don’t we? I shall return to this in a bit, so keep this dirty kick and bass on your mind.
Besides that, I thought his streamlining was good. At the 38:22 mark on that set, you see that a newer stage emerged on that part, intensifying the feeling of panic to compulsive levels. Száhala opted in the end to scrap it, and I think it was a good decision, because the final version ended up being full 9:46 minutes of length and such an explosion of feeling at that point would have been distasteful. IM’s recent Spitfire also outstandingly simulates panic on its second half and they stopped their climactic rise right at a tasteful point and refrained from delivering an outright explosion of feeling. That’s what being in control in panic-inducing situations feels like. Száhala scrapped the addition of panic altogether in the final version, then, and opted for persistence and endurance of feeling instead. The HBC-set version also featured some interesting nuance: a little twisted timbre going up and down your ears, left and right your speakers that appears at 37:35 on that set. This shows once more that Száhala pruned and trimmed his final version quite possibly to perfectionist levels, and only God knows what other cool tricks he ended up scrapping from his final released version. Once more, though, I agree with its removal, though maintaining it in the final version would certainly not be as offensive as maintaining the previous explosion I mentioned above. It’d make it more nuanced, to be sure… but I don’t think “nuance” is quite the goal here.
Moving to the final TYFTH version for good now, at the 3:35 mark a new stage erupts. This leads at 3:58 to what we eventually find is the goal of the track. This goal, this high-point and maximum of energy is your typical Száhala melody, persisting almost to the point of obsession. Its timbre is amazing… Am I a snake? Am I being snake-charmed? It’s not an euphoric high-point, as he does with Iron Squid’s climax: it is rather a point of relentless mental focus that is reached, a kind of hypnosis finally achieved, and it resembles more Afternoon Owl in that regard than any other of his tracks do, even if it is much more aggressive (Mageslayer is another that I could mention, but since it is nowhere near the level of Afternoon Owl, I would rather not get into it). At this point I have to ask: isn’t hypnosis ultimately the appeal of EDM? Isn’t the hypnotic, relentlessly focused mental state what we’re after when we put Man Eaten playing? And why does Psycho sound so powerful? So whoever says Boléro is not music might be right… but good luck stopping it and all good repetitive non-music like it from fascinating mankind. As for Enuma Elish, it does as it pleases, it commands you to feel it’s melody and it doesn’t give a damn if you can take it… because it will repeat it and shove it down your throat until you can. The melody is over when it wants to be over, and you better get used to it, because it’s not going to stop. Either go along with it and allow it to guide you on the marvels of focused action… or turn it off for good and call it all monotony. I’m sorry to all the “thinkers” who equated “repetitive music” with the death drive… but this is what the most energetic and productive activity sounds like. It’s what being in flow sounds like for the workaholic who for a minute forgets what time and environment are, and uninterruptedly works for 5 hours straight, the outside world be damned. It’s what the boxer feels when throwing the thousandth consecutive punch on the heavy bag while training for his upcoming fight. It’s the sound of unhesitating and unfrightened instinct in the making–and the sound of it actually being made. The welfare-reliant alcoholic looks down on the workaholic’s behavior as “monotonous and boring”, and the fat slob looks down on the world boxing champion’s training as “monotonous and boring” too (that’s what Jim Lampley said of Lomachenko’s superhuman training regime: that it was tedious). But what do the objections of these weaklings mean to us? The boxing analogy is specially on target here, because boxers train for three minutes straight distributed between one minute intervals, and Enuma Elish at 06:07 also happens to possess an interval whereby it slow downs to a full stop. As if it knew that successful instinct creation requires some rest time inbetween action. It’s unconscious genius perhaps, but it’s truth that is being aurally expressed by Száhala. Finally, after the rise, the goal is completed–the task is over: the instinct is created and the melody erupts for a final round with its full power.
Then, the gradual decrease in intensity of feeling, the cool down. The stage starting at 8:50 is particularly good due to that stunning twisted timbre. Száhala shows here, as he did with Afternoon Owl, the aural architect that he is.
However, my praise is not universal and there are indeed things I’d like to see changed:
1) The final loop of the melody, starting at 07:17, should have some added layers on it to increase its power just a tiny bit more. This would reinforce the instinct-creation meaning I laid above in a subtle, but effective manner. As it is now, it sides too much on the side of boring repetition. I’m not saying Száhala should go overboard and deliver an Iron Squid-like climax, and thus change the melody. I’m saying keep the melody, but add a little bit more power and expressiveness to it. See what IM does at 06:53 in Heavyweight? They add another layer to the climax and it worked phenomenally. Again, I just want a tiny bit more power, something that showcases some progress after that full stop.
2) The robotic flatulence at 08:56 as to be edited out. It’s ridiculous and rudely destroys the immersion. And if I am to remember Száhala’s comprehensive tracklist, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was actual sampled flatulence.
3) The transition to the final breakdown at 06:04 can be done better. The movement from full-on power to total breakdown doesn’t sound 100% logical here. It’s easily fixable: just add some drum roll and increase the tempo of the percussion and have the music mini-explode before the breakdown. As it is now it just sounds copy-pasted.
4) Put the muddled kick and bass I mentioned above back, but only on the first loop of track. Make it sound that the music gets cleaner as it progresses and advances. That’d work as another metaphor to the instinct-creation meaning I mentioned, too, and ultimately to all power, since the clearer and more transparent and more organized a thing or process becomes the stronger it is.
And—finally—the question must be asked, for it’s time someone asked it. Why is this virile music coming from Finland of all places? But tell me, friends, where are there virile countries anymore? Aren’t the Finns our contemporary cultural barbarians?
The noble caste was in the beginning always the barbarian caste: their superiority lay, not in their physical strength, but primarily in their psychical—they were more complete human beings (which, on every level, also means as much as “more complete beasts”—).
Friedrich Nietzsche
