If anyone's stilll receiving...
‘Radio – live transmission…’
Hauntology is an idea within the philosophy of history introduced by Jacques Derrida in ‘Spectres of Marx’. The word, an alchemy of ‘haunt’ and ‘ology’ deals with "the paradoxical state of the spectre, which is neither being nor non-being". Record labels such as Ghost Box and Mordant Music, are alive with bands that rely on found sounds that are quintessentially English; The critic Simon Reynolds and our old friend K-Punk have also dubbed this new genre as ‘Hauntology’.
‘Junk Receiver (Broadcast From Bug Powder Radio)’ is hauntological – but not the current hauntological offered by the Ghost Box bands of Focus Group or Belbury Poly – all snatches of old TV themes, soundtracks from public information films, Hammer Horror murmurings and Oliver Postgate. ‘Junk Receiver…’ goes much further than that.
If Hauntology was a country ‘Junk Receiver…’ would be a catalogue of transmissions from it’s heart of darkness, shadowy flickers of Burroughs’ Tangiers.
After the static attack that is the ‘Message from the Exterminator’, there’s an alchemy of sorts going on in ‘Under Ether’. It’s not easy to create music from the dead-air static of short-wave transmissions and other noise from the audio wasteland of signals - Stockhausen, Henry, Varèse and Dockstader - figures of musique concrète, created pieces of dense sound collage undoubtedly among the most radical and important ever conceived;
But it was never popmusic. Uh-uh no way – it was art.
So is this.
Art that is, and….um – pop music.
No, really – stay with me on this one – this sort of thing happens all the time. Pop music in the future will sound like ‘Under Ether’ well, at least I hope some of it will anyway. Long ago, ‘Beat Box (Diversions I & ii’ by the Art of Noise was labelled ‘A Collage in Sound’ when no one understood it, and then a year later it was re-issued and it was labelled ‘Electro’ – It became a club hit on the US dance charts and the all-white Art of Noise were voted the second best new black act at a US awards ceremony – like I said, – this sort of thing happens all the time. If cLOUDDEAD were still going they’d take ‘Under Ether’ under their collective wings too – it’s that good.
But then I think ‘Endless Summer’ by Fennesz is a pop album and ‘On Yage in Tangier’ believes that too – James Binning’s guitar shimmering in the sun; If Hauntology was a country ‘On Yage in Tangier’ would be at No.1 in that country’s charts – the all-time summer single, blasting out of small transistor radios all over the markets of Tangiers and the territory of Hauntology (if it was a country). Whilst all this is going on, the hipper art-crowd of Hauntology are passing samizdat cassettes of ‘Cortex Department Room 23’, smug in their knowledge that they are listening to something, deep, dark, illegal and good.
‘Gutter Cosmic Nova Dust’ sounds exactly like what it says on the tin until the organ sound comes in, then it takes on a whole new shape, or shadow, or shadow of a shape – if possible, think Buñuel on ether. ‘The Narcotic Frequency’ is the mournful transmission of a national anthem( if Hauntology was a country) – it burns along, real slow, but you can’t help but be moved by it. The finale ‘Opiate Antenna for the Soft Machine’ is cinematic exit music almost Gill Melle-style, very ‘Andromeda Strain’, very good.
Fadeout in grey room. Transmission ends.
