Excerpt from 'Noise: Part 1' (in progress!)

As Attali writes: “For despite the death it contains, noise carries order within itself; it carries new information.” This new information might contain unexpected insights. Take for example the middle ‘noise’ section of the Ride song ‘Drive Blind’. When I catch a glimpse of the audience during this section, I might occasionally see someone in the front row, with arms open, face lifted to the skies, eyes closed, smiling. I know they get it, and I know they are getting it - some kind of communion with a universal, vibrational force. There are good reasons for this, which I’ll come to later. But firstly to put it in context: noise for me especially in guitar music represents abandon, and nihilism; it can be an explosive expression of frustration, anger, and pain, yet it can be a supernova of emotional and aspirational power all at the same time… Noise can express disdain with the world, whilst making you more present, active, and potent in it. As noise trashes what is already there, it is asking for something better: something ideal and absolute, but something real. In the song ‘I Hate Rock ’n Roll’ by The Jesus And Mary Chain, at 1’ 35’’ William Reid’s guitar solo is backed with what I would call noise… great noise: sheets of noise, one bar after another. Have a listen - loud. Some talk about experiencing the void, but this is music to drive off a cliff to… Oblivion and Nirvana become interchangeable. And the noise answers everything in the song: the anger, the hatred, the frustration, the pointlessness of it all - probably more than the words and the chord progressions do. The noise effect is also a way of trashing the song itself and the music industry in a way that no clever verbal swipe could ever manage. I once played out this song at the end of a DJ set in a club - just to see what would happen. It cleared the floor (of course it did!) but there was one guy at the front in the middle of the speakers …arms reaching out, face turned upward, smiling and shaking his fists jubilantly at the sky during William’s ‘solo’… he gets it.

So why is this? Why is noise so powerful to those tuned to its ‘voice’? I’m favouring the writing of Jaques Attali to explain the distortion-loving Shoegaze, as well as Sound Art movement. Attali writes: 

“But noise does in fact create a meaning: …because the very absence of meaning in pure noise or in the meaningless repetition of a message, by unchanneling auditory sensations, frees the listener’s imagination. The absence of meaning is in this case the presence of all meanings, absolute ambiguity, a construction outside meaning. The presence of noise makes sense, makes meaning. It makes possible the creation of a new order on another level of organization, of a new code in another network.” 

Perhaps when you listen to the noise part of ‘Drive Blind’ or ‘You Make Me Realise’ or William Reid's guitar solo in 'I Hate Rock and Roll', you’re experiencing not only a higher plane, but life through an alternative network…

Another thing with noise is that it is almost completely abstract. Coming from an Art College background, this equates strongly with expressionism, and artistic freedom. In a world of recorded popular music based on accepted form, and formula, where colouring only 'in the spaces’ and not outside the lines is what people have to do: noise can be extremely invigorating. Live, when we play the noise part of 'Drive Blind' we as a band are finally free from any Pop music constraints. In all purchased music today, even the most ‘punk’ of acts, it is easy to see what Jaques Attali describes as being “…a disguise for the monologue of power”.. and that: “The artist was born, at the same time his work went on sale”. There are hidden power relations in every act of buying music. Yet it’s contradiction, noise, is more than a simple rebellion or protest, or a voicing of the ‘other’, it is the sound of power itself, made audible, visible in all its spectra, not hidden. It challenges you. When we play the noise part of 'Drive Blind' we detach ourselves from having to impress with lyric, melody, or fashionable beats…There are no words, hooks, melodies or even a beat; but live, it remains Ride’s most powerful and authentic statement. The noise part of ‘Drive Blind’ is the most we will ever say about anything, because it says everything.

LC 2015

Gaz Coombes' November shows: acoustics, reverb, space, sound and magic

Before music was put more fully in the hands of the people, 'new music' was commissioned for specific events, and hence fairly specific locations. The composer was either already working on the music in the location itself, or the location for the finished piece was in mind from the start - there was a relationship between music, and place. 

In the case of churches: music, emerging from chant, was part of a calling out to a higher force - a calling in song which would always receive its response enshrouded with reverb - as architecture and acoustics play with textures, frequencies and note elongation mysteriously, and seeming magically, in a special place.

Gaz has shaped the new arrangements of the songs, the new line-up, and the way we we will be playing them, with the locations of the four shows in mind. Salford St Philips, Glasgow Oran Mor, Leeds Holy Trinity, and London Union Chapel - each place we will find ourselves in has its own acoustic properties: an 'original shell' of sound quality unique to the location, which becomes activated when a sound event occurs. When you record sound, the acoustic properties of the space define the sound itself. The acoustic space of the Motown recording live room is as much part of every hit as the instruments and musicians themselves, (albeit with some compression). Different spaces create different perspectives of the same music or song. It is almost as if you are getting a different 'mix' in each place, as it reveals, highlights, or mutes certain aspects. This is simple science - certain sound waves or frequencies are favoured or cancelled out depending on the dimensions or building materials of the room - but it means that not only do you never really hear the same version twice, it is almost a new version in each place.

And it is the transcendental quality of natural reverb that often 'sets free' the music, the sound, in a way that you might not expect. To meet deadlines and to feed the industry as a matter of necessity: in the recording studio sound is kidnapped, bound and gagged, manipulated by processes, software, by machinery, warped until it fits the producer's or artist's directives, until it is 'the right sound'. Then when you take the music out live, you are suddenly at the mercy of the space itself. Some of the O2 academies that we played in on the last tour were awful: booming, square, soulless places - can you really 'hear' music here..? And what of the sense of occasion? Are we being directed by the sponsors of the venue, who are more interested in squeezing our 'consumer group' for as much cash as they can, or are we experiencing something unique with the artist in a place chosen by them?

There will be new songs, a new set up, and we will be using very new Allen & Heath desk complete with onstage monitors mixers. But even as we make an inadvertent nod to our nation's musical past, choosing these venues is not a 'going back', but instead it is a move to the future - a way to really 'hear' music again after years of saturation - as once again an 'event' in a 'place'.

You want to hear something new? Come see us - choose your location!

Twitter ye not! (on either side...)

@Tim_Burgess & @rycurran16 - got an interesting point there! I have to admit that I feel like (for want of a better word) a complete charlatan, tweeting my activities - especially when it feels like I'm just 'selling' myself to my followers. Do they want to hear this? - I might be potentially boring them with information they possibly already know or don't care about. But it is part of being a modern musician today, to keep people up to date with what you're doing…and most importantly to spread the word so that the casual tweeter or visitor checking in on you will find out what you're up to. 

But there are at least two angles here - following the artist because you want to share their thoughts, and following the artist so you keep up to date with their work.

I'm certainly more reticent than most, but if I don't put this information out online - I don't exist on the Internet. Most of us live our lives satisfying curiosity now with a casual Google, or Twitter check - if there's nothing there, and if it isn't informative, then no-one will know. Some of you will know this and some not, but I am the drummer for Gaz Coombes, and as an example, a recent tour with Gaz saw us astounded that people still didn't know that we were playing live that night their home town, after we'd all felt like we'd sold our souls to tweeting, re-tweeing, Facebooking, linking to Gaz's website, and old-time promoting on our tour. STILL they didn't know, time after time (many didn't even know there was an album out!). So you can see why artists sometimes 'say they are bout to do something, say they are doing it and then say that they've done it'!

'Advertising' to followers doesn't make sense when your followers just like you for who you are and love hearing your thoughts - I can see how switching up from sharing thoughts to a generic promotion would seem like the old concept of 'selling out'. Noel Gallagher's twitter feed is also an example of this. But Tim has always been a good tweeter - a hilarious one! And he's maintained his output. He is one of the few where his thoughts are more interesting and funny than any 'press release' style of information (the Lance Armstrong bike Tweet is one of my favourite ever, possibly).

Part of Twitter is that it is so personal, so 'real-time' - it appears to allow a closeness to the person you're following. Twitter opens things up, but this can mean it opens a bigger window, for good, for bad… We've arrived at a classic moment here, where original followers sense a shift and don't like it - part of what's brilliant about it is that it reduces the barrier between star and fan - but this can be equally problematic !

Ultimately: Don't knock Tim for doing what he should do as a modern day musician - promoting what he's doing and keeping his followers informed. But on the other hand don't knock @rycurran and @SidFishes doing for what they should do - noting what they think is going on - expressing opinions in a democratic online discussion, one not restricted by hierarchical mores - and where truth is everything.