brettworks

• An article about “neoclassical” piano music.

“Neoclassical music doesn’t cut through the noise of our society, rather it is camouflaged within it. It is superficially calming and pleasing and gives only the illusion of escape from ‘these uncertain times’. But to my ears it has a numbing quality, the musical equivalent of living blue-pilled in the Matrix, of ordering Deliveroo or of mindlessly swiping on Tinder. It is a substitute for real art that should be (at least occasionally) uncomfortable. In the old days, the elites had private chauffeurs and listened to actual classical music. But these days ordering an Uber and listening to the Peaceful Piano playlist has scaled that luxury to anyone with a smartphone.”

“In its attempts at aping the codes of high culture it masks the dominance of the algorithm itself. It erases all traces of a point of view, a simplification of music that will willingly invite Artificial Intelligence to take over its composition and production. If we don’t hear a real person behind this music, why should a human even be involved in making it? If this epidemic of low attention-span and facelessness continues, the more artists will willingly debase themselves, and the more they deserve to be replaced by robots. It’s already happening.”

• An article about Autechre as live music.

“Sean Booth and Rob Brown work in such an uncompromising and radical manner that they approach the cutting edge and logical limit of this music and have wrestled with how complex music can be presented to the listener without diluting its full force and form. Over the last decade or so, they have met some of the big issues involved in contemporary electronic music head on: selecting or discarding sounds from a near infinite array of options, finding an appropriate frame to put around an extensive archive of recordings, and guarding aesthetic principles so that the music maintains its integrity and relevance in the wake of what has come before.”

“Autechre’s live music is an epic oeuvre of radical composition and decomposition accelerated by the power of the microchip, as well as one the wildest workouts you can imagine for body and mind.”

• Ganavya, “ami pana so’dras” (2024).