Monolithic Undertow
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Beschreibung
Beiträge
Monolithic Undertow The beginning and end of this book are quite good. In the beginning, he writes about the role of the drone in spiritual ritual, ancient rites, attempts to reach some sort of transcendence in different cultures (although one could argue that he should have noted the difference in the acoustic qualities of a Maltese underground burial chamber when it was used as such and hence full of dead bodies and its empty state today). The last part includes bands such as (early) Earth and Sunn O))) who have the drone at the very center of their general sound; he ventures into ambient (Eno, Radique, Davachi) and hives readers a solid list of music to experience. However, everything in between is quite random. That is mostly the case because Sword tries very hard to find any form of drone or “undertow” in the music/ bands that he likes and he often finds it even though it’s not really there or at least doesn’t play an important role in the sound of a particular artist / band. He often conflates repetition or noise with drone even though in the beginning, he explains that “drone” basically means “sustain” just to ignore this definition in the chapters that follow. Instead of looking at music with actual sustain/ drone sounds at the center , the author talks about many well-known bands and artists (The Beatles, John Coltrane, Sonic Youth, …) in whose songs he finds even a hint of drone and it is especially in this middle part of the book that Sword seems to forget what he wanted to focus on…there is not much talk about pure drone music in this part of the book. In the beginning, he highlights that he doesn’t want to write a history of drone music, but a book that “explores the viscous slipstream - drone, doom and beyond - and claims the sounds uncovered, which hinge on hypnotic power and close physical presence, as no less radical.” He goes on to say that Monolith Undertow “follows an outer stellar orbit of sounds underpinned by the drone.” And I would argue that the book falls short of this goal except for the first and last chapters. I get the impression that the author had an idea and tried to put bands and albums that he loves into a rather tight framework— whether these albums actually fit or not does not seem to matter. I mean, just because The Beatles use the sitar on some songs does not make them a drone band. Not even the Beatles songs the author talks about have a strong drone vibe - meaning that there is a sense / feel of sustain to get lost in. With many of the bands the author writes about, there really is no eponymous “monolith undertow”. After a strong beginning, The book becomes rather rambling, anecdotal, conversational and actually sometimes less informative than a Wikipedia article. Jumping from band to band becomes tedious quite quickly. Some sections are well-written and interesting because they take a more in depth look a a particular album and its sounds and lyrics while others are rather redundant. The later chapters on Sleep, Electric Wizard, Earth etc. are the best and I think the book would have turned out better had he just focused on a couple of bands and their sound. As for the writing, it often reads as if the author had found a Thesaurus for the first time in his life and could not put it down — it’s simply too much at times. Sometimes entertaining but other times his language repertoire is characterized by shaky images and crooked similes that are repeated in slightly different forms throughout the text. This book would have benefited from some serious editing of both content and language. You can still find many interesting bands and album recommendations in this book, but, to be honest, I would have preferred a simple list format for that. I think the problem of this book lies in what is presented and what it was marketed to be and what it actually is. So if you are interested in the drone genre, this book will most likely be a disappointment because you know most of the things in here already and will probably shake your head while reading about all the bands that - according to Sword - produce monolithic undertows. If you are interested in a book that looks at sound in its various forms, the book has some interesting chapters and Sword writes about a wide variety of genres and bands with focus on the 20th century. The physical book itself is beautiful and White Rabbit just announced the publication of the paperback edition of Monolith Undertow.
Beschreibung
Beiträge
Monolithic Undertow The beginning and end of this book are quite good. In the beginning, he writes about the role of the drone in spiritual ritual, ancient rites, attempts to reach some sort of transcendence in different cultures (although one could argue that he should have noted the difference in the acoustic qualities of a Maltese underground burial chamber when it was used as such and hence full of dead bodies and its empty state today). The last part includes bands such as (early) Earth and Sunn O))) who have the drone at the very center of their general sound; he ventures into ambient (Eno, Radique, Davachi) and hives readers a solid list of music to experience. However, everything in between is quite random. That is mostly the case because Sword tries very hard to find any form of drone or “undertow” in the music/ bands that he likes and he often finds it even though it’s not really there or at least doesn’t play an important role in the sound of a particular artist / band. He often conflates repetition or noise with drone even though in the beginning, he explains that “drone” basically means “sustain” just to ignore this definition in the chapters that follow. Instead of looking at music with actual sustain/ drone sounds at the center , the author talks about many well-known bands and artists (The Beatles, John Coltrane, Sonic Youth, …) in whose songs he finds even a hint of drone and it is especially in this middle part of the book that Sword seems to forget what he wanted to focus on…there is not much talk about pure drone music in this part of the book. In the beginning, he highlights that he doesn’t want to write a history of drone music, but a book that “explores the viscous slipstream - drone, doom and beyond - and claims the sounds uncovered, which hinge on hypnotic power and close physical presence, as no less radical.” He goes on to say that Monolith Undertow “follows an outer stellar orbit of sounds underpinned by the drone.” And I would argue that the book falls short of this goal except for the first and last chapters. I get the impression that the author had an idea and tried to put bands and albums that he loves into a rather tight framework— whether these albums actually fit or not does not seem to matter. I mean, just because The Beatles use the sitar on some songs does not make them a drone band. Not even the Beatles songs the author talks about have a strong drone vibe - meaning that there is a sense / feel of sustain to get lost in. With many of the bands the author writes about, there really is no eponymous “monolith undertow”. After a strong beginning, The book becomes rather rambling, anecdotal, conversational and actually sometimes less informative than a Wikipedia article. Jumping from band to band becomes tedious quite quickly. Some sections are well-written and interesting because they take a more in depth look a a particular album and its sounds and lyrics while others are rather redundant. The later chapters on Sleep, Electric Wizard, Earth etc. are the best and I think the book would have turned out better had he just focused on a couple of bands and their sound. As for the writing, it often reads as if the author had found a Thesaurus for the first time in his life and could not put it down — it’s simply too much at times. Sometimes entertaining but other times his language repertoire is characterized by shaky images and crooked similes that are repeated in slightly different forms throughout the text. This book would have benefited from some serious editing of both content and language. You can still find many interesting bands and album recommendations in this book, but, to be honest, I would have preferred a simple list format for that. I think the problem of this book lies in what is presented and what it was marketed to be and what it actually is. So if you are interested in the drone genre, this book will most likely be a disappointment because you know most of the things in here already and will probably shake your head while reading about all the bands that - according to Sword - produce monolithic undertows. If you are interested in a book that looks at sound in its various forms, the book has some interesting chapters and Sword writes about a wide variety of genres and bands with focus on the 20th century. The physical book itself is beautiful and White Rabbit just announced the publication of the paperback edition of Monolith Undertow.