JadedTurtle
polinskiwrote a new post about a thing i read on what 'lo-fi' used to mean vs. what it means now. /// -----> https://knru.polin.ski/what-was-music/
Dan Stowell@polinski love your generative Mark Fisher summary ;)
Lu wilsonoh this is interesting! it really makes me think of the cursorland album: https://pastagang.bandcamp.com/album/working-in-cursorland
it's snippets of tunes from the early days of pastagang made for jammers who were working their day job with nudel in the background, by jammers who were working their day job with nudel in the background
working in cursorland, by pastagang
22 track album
@polinski that was in the early days before everyone realised how addictive was and started doing it in more moderation
@TodePond that's such a great idea! like a communal, collaborative soundtrack to everyone's day, made by everyone.
but yeah there's a weird tension there isn't there, because it should be addictive, because making music is great! but if you want music to serve as a background to something else you're doing, which is totally reasonable, it also means the music shouldn't be too distracting either to listen to or to make. but then that sounds boring...
@TodePond ... i'd be curious to know if you know whether anybody who contributed to this album is more or less likely to listen to this recorded document rather than just tune into whatever nudel happens to be doing live?
@polinski haha music "should"nt be anything!
i think the more addictive thing about nudel is the inter-personal interaction you get from it with very little effort. it's a huge dopamine hit, and there's also a lot of FOMO you get from its ephemerality. "but if i log out now then i might miss something amazing!!!!"
i think the more addictive thing about nudel is the inter-personal interaction you get from it with very little effort. it's a huge dopamine hit, and there's also a lot of FOMO you get from its ephemerality. "but if i log out now then i might miss something amazing!!!!"
@polinski the fun part was that this album was constructed within nudel itself. people wrote out a list of strudel links with names. later down the line, pastagang did a little mix of each of those links and turned it into a "real" album
@polinski nowadays nudel has a different vibe during the day. now i can be the old hipster and say "nudel isnt what it once was ... during the glory days". i've actually stopped using nudel altogether and have moved to pastagang's other slightly more niche tool where the normies havent got to yet
@polinski i personally contributed to around one third of these tracks i think, and i occasionally listen to this album while i'm working. i know it's one of the most listened to on bandcamp, and that cant all be me.
@polinski i've spoken about this a bit before - pastagang music is weird because it's often very tailored towards yourself (especially if u participated in making it) but it has enough participation from other people too that it doesn't feel like something *you* made. so u dont get that uncanny feeling of listening to your own voice: you can hear your heartbeat coming out of someone else's chest. and theirs out of yours.
@polinski i think this is the pinnacle of the 'religious experience' feeling it sometimes gives
@TodePond i see. yeah it's a pretty utopian mode of music making. i really admire it, have often lurked and made typos in nudel. & big fan of pastagang.
i didn't mean music *shouldn't* be distracting, just that for me i sometimes want music on but don't want to be too distracted by it. and that's a crunchy conflict to how i am when making music or thinking about music i really love, which is that i totally want it to be distracting. i want my music to demand attention! except when i don't.
@TodePond and i find the liveness and ephemerality of live music incredibly precious and distinct from recorded music, but think both are super important.
and i think this difference is something to do with why my many attempts at breaking through into a properly live-coded or at least live-improvisatory approach to music have always seen me ultimately return to a much more, er, asynchronous, slow, iterative kind of music making.
i am too wedded to the finished, concrete musical artifact.
jamesholden