Another six Musique Machine reviews produced over the last few months, including Angus Carlyle's mystagogic field recording opus In the Shadow of the Silent Mountain, a fine postumous outting for Peter Christopherson in the guise of Electric Sewer Age and a career high for English ambient/industrial artist Cremation Lily.
This is the
first of what I intend to be a series of short pieces drawing out some of the
themes of my research over this year. Broadly they deal with issues around the purported shift in modern
developed societies from politics to economics and from national sovereignty to
trans-national "governance". More specifically they approach those
issues by way of what has been termed - for better or worse - economic
theology; which deals with the legacy of theological thought for modernity's
experience of economy and government. This first piece is an opening into work
which deals with the genealogy of hierarchy (a theological signature par
excellence) and its significance for understanding bureaucracy in the age of
globalisation. My intention is to avoid excessive referencing and to make these
pieces as "blog like" as possible. However, where the material involves
lesser known or esoteric sources some degree of referencing will be
unavoidable. These pieces have two aims: to provide to a descriptive account of
what I am calling "one-world" governance; and to contribute to the
expanding field of political/economic theological research, which first and
foremost seeks (in a Kantian sense) to construct a critique of secularisation.
1. Everyone
thinks they know what bureaucracy is about; paperwork, pointless rules, red
tape, computer says no. Despite this seeming familiarity it nonetheless
stubbornly resists conceptualisation. The
critique of bureaucracy - an endeavour once undertaken by all shades of the
political spectrum - has fallen by the wayside in recent decades. The reasons
for this are multiple. Of special significance however was the framing in the
immediate post-war years, of bureaucracy as a phenomenon associated with the
state civil service and mass political parties. Indeed this characterisation -
which has been tacitly accepted - reached its extreme with Ludwig Von Mises On Bureaucracy (1944) in which this
father of neoliberalism blamed government suppression of the profit motive
through regulation (and New Deal style welfarism more generally) for the rise
of bureaucracy in the US.In an echo
of what was to come under Reaganomics and Thatcherism, Von Mises located
central government as the seed bed of bureaucratisation, the stifling of free
enterprise and even totalitarianism itself.
Ludwig von Mises 1881-1973
Even before
Von Mises' polemic the Left had an ambivalent relationship with bureaucratic
forms of organisation. On the one hand, Marx in his early writing saw in the
state bureaucracy only an imagined universality which in practice was
preoccupied with little else than securing and legitimising its own forms of
activity and giving rise to a cult of authority. In his writing on the Paris
Commune he went further to claim that the suppression of the city bureaucracy by
cutting their salaries to the level of an average worker was the Commune's
first truly revolutionary measure. Lenin on the other hand viewed the state
bureaucracy predominantly as a weapon of the dominant class and thus as potentially
appropriable by a revolutionary party as a means to transform society. Lenin's
admiration of the 19th century German postal system with its complex but
remarkably efficient structures was well known and became the butt of jokes
from Von Mises about socialists wanting to turn the whole world into a post
office. Lenin's adoption of bureaucracy "for revolutionary means" and
the use the Soviet Union made of it significantly hampered any independent Leftist
critique. Consequently the pejorative "apparatchik" has
become a near synonym for bureaucrat.
Fast forward
to the 1970s and these basic coordinates were the starting point for Claude
Lefort's analysis, with the civil service and mass party as his principle object.
Interestingly though, Lefort raises the problem of bureaucracy's autonomy with
respect to the class struggle and the state. Like Max Weber in the early 20th
century he recognised bureaucratisation as a problem with capitalist
development generally and not simply as emerging as an instrument of class
power. Bureaucracy's rationalism, its reduction of complex tasks to technical,
calculable units and its reliance on impersonal, non-clientalistic relations,
are all factors drawing on wider developments in society. By this account bureaucracy as form of social
organisation seems to have its own internal dynamic, irreducible to traditional
Marxist categories, or for that matter the hyperbolic red scare rhetoric of the
neoliberals. It is as the young Marx observed "a circle from which no-one
can escape" but its essential character is stratification and ordering. As
all the commentators on bureaucracy have noted, its principle tendency is
towards self-expansion, thus mirroring capital's ceaseless drive to accumulation.
But if it's not merely an instrument of the dominant class or an outgrowth of
the state, where then does the power of bureaucracy lie, and where does it
ultimately come from?
These
questions were never really answered. With the advance of neoliberalism in the
West and the collapse of Soviet Communism, social theory moved instead towards
the individual subject and that subject's placement within a network of power
relations. Grand theory attempting to explain the rapidly emerging age of
globalisation took a back seat. The caricature of the state or party bureaucrat
proffered by the Right won the day, and as socialism waned and mass parties
across the West shrunk, critique of bureaucratic power fell into abeyance. In Lefort's analysis however there were the
beginnings of a theory of social power that would be developed throughout the
decade and into the1980s, notably by the likes of Gilles Deleuze, Felix
Guattari and Michel Foucault. Little was done however to contest the notion of
bureaucracy as exclusively a problem with socialism, the big state and mass political
parties. As David Graeber notes in his recent book on the subject, the
instances of the word bureaucracy in English language publications have
fallen steadily after reaching a peak in the mid 1970s. Intriguingly though he
also notes that other terms generally associated with bureaucracy such as paperwork
and performance review have risen dramatically over the same period. Could it
be that rather than disappearing with the Soviet Union and the mass socialist
parties, the problem of bureaucracy has been forgotten? Lost, owing to a theoretical
development that has obscured the basic problem, tying its fate to the wrong
historical figures and leaving us unable to understand how power and order
function in the era of globalisation.
2. An
essential point which has often been overlooked is that bureaucracy is both a
form of social ordering and an ordering power itself. Its nature is order
through and through and one where the edges are difficult to find. Furthermore,
it's an ordered/ordering power distinct from the type of rule making authority
we associate with sovereign nation states. In other words, bureaucracy does not
attempt to ground itself in anything like a popular will or charismatic leader.
As Weber noted, charismatic power is antithetical to the impersonal power of
the bureaucrat. The cult leader or Medieval King might draw his power directly from
his person, but the public official draws theirs from their position within the
hierarchy. Rarely do bureaucrats or officials of any kind feel the need to
justify themselves in political terms since their sphere of actions is deemed
to be purely technical or administrative and relations with others governed by
contracts of the business rather than social kind. This does not mean however
that the power of the bureaucrat is neutral or benign. Indeed the lack of a
traditional centre of authority is one of the more often complained about
aspects of bureaucracy. How often do people demand to "speak to someone in
charge" when dealing with a big company or state service? What people want
is someone with the authority to "cut through the red tape" and just
make a decision. Often such a person simply does not exist (charismatic
individuals tend to be weeded out by bureaucracies). Authority in a bureaucracy
is widely dispersed and jurisdiction heavily prescribed. The lowest call centre
workers or even their supervisors simply don't have the power to interpret the
rules, whereas senior managers know next to nothing of the details of their
businesses and are transfixed by metrics and key performance indicators that
tell them nothing of the reality on the floor. A general incompetence prevails,
yet the money continues to roll in while lives are daily thrown into turmoil.
What are the basic characteristics here? Let's think
again about the most generic description of bureaucracy; ordering and
stratification, nominally independent of sovereign (or if you like political)
power. Ordering is perhaps too general a concept to be of much use here. Armies
are heavily ordered and have chains of command, but soldiers are not
bureaucrats, though the upper echelons of the armed forces are sometimes
considered to be. And we can think of endless examples of highly ordered human arrangements
that are not stratified; a football team for example or the members of a
theatre troop. Workers too might have many different roles but all be on the
same grade at a big company, in practice organising the work between
themselves. Management on the other hand we always tend to associate with
"layers". The relationship between modern managerialism and
bureaucracy is an important part of this story which we'll leave for another
day. Of our two principle concepts we're thus left with stratification, or to
be more precise, hierarchy. No true bureaucracy is without hierarchy and every
description of bureaucracy from Marx to Graeber emphasises it as a fundamental
trait. Have we not however ended up back where we began with a familiar concept,
the very familiarity of which resists precise determination? What then is
hierarchy? It's a Greek word, the origin of which is in fact very precisely, though
not very widely known. Rather than
denoting mere gradation it refers to a totalising form of order and action that
operates explicitly within an economic context. Economic, that is, in its
broadest sense as the administration of people and things.
There is no unambiguous
translation; however, Marx, when he referred to bureaucracy's "cult of
authority" and Weber, when he described the "ideological halo of the
bureaucrat", may have had some inkling of its etymology. In early
Christianity it referred to the office (the ἀρχή, archē) of the bishop in relation to
his subordinates, and developed out of the more general hierarchēs meaning the one who carries
out a sacred ritual. It is however through the works of an unknown author of
the 5th century known to us as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite that the term
acquired the lexical weight which it has carried ever since and which St Thomas
Aquinas denoted as sacred power (sacer
principatus). In two texts - The Celestial Hierarchy and The Ecclesiastical
Hierarchy, this apocryphal author describes how a transcendent first principle
(God, nominally) is able to govern through the use of intermediaries right down
to the smallest elements of creation. The intermediaries of this divine
government of the world are respectively the order of Angels and the clergy. These
works had immense authority during the middle ages owing to their supposed
provenance as the writings of a Athenian convert of St Paul. Aquinas in
particular drew from the Corpus
Areopagitum, citing it in hisSumma Theologiæ more frequently
than he did Aristotle. The ranks of Angels carrying titles such as thrones,
principalities, archangels, and cherubims can still be seen depicted on the ceilings
of Medieval buildings throughout Europe and the near-East.
Ceiling fresco depicting orders of angels. Baptistery in Florence.
Hierarchy, sacred order, is the name for this metaphysics of
government, the original "world order" connecting heaven and earth
and the origin of the key concept in bureaucracy. It is also a commonplace term used to describe all manner
of systems of gradation. That this symbolic figure of global technocratic
malaise has its locus in theology is one of the great mysteries of power in the
West. In my next piece we'll delve deeper into the meaning of this
economic-theological concept, drawing out the "metaphysics of hierarchy"
and how it depends on an important distinction in the Ancient Greek
understanding of Law.
Who would argue that in these dark days a dose of utopianism
wouldn't go amiss? True it is that the political scene at home and
internationally hardly encourages any optimism, but perhaps in these 'times
that try men's souls' we might do better when looking for a glimmer of another
world to restrict our gaze to those things nearer to hand, in the more obscure niches
and preoccupations of life in developed societies. The rarefied world of
modular synthesizers may not seem for many a likely place to feel the stirrings
of such utopian longing. These antiquated looking objects festooned with knobs
and dials, sprouting cables in rainbow shades could be props from a Soviet-era
science fiction film, or take pride of place at the heart of an early nuclear
power plant. For the uninitiated the era of huge banks of analogue equipment
emitting otherworldly bleeps and bloops is forever associated with lab based
boffins with a university stipend or the excesses of moneyed progsters like
Keith Emerson. Moreover, didn’t it all end more or less before it began with
the advent of digital technology, the printed microchip, home computers and
software emulations? But you'd be wrong in thinking this. Analogue music
technology more generally has slowly been making a comeback since the turn of
the millennium and like vinyl never really went away, being beloved by that
crowd who hail its signature warmth and thickness.
However, it isn't merely the hippsterish fetish for a more
"authentic" sound that is driving the revival. Today's
synthesists are coming from a variety of backgrounds, from avant-garde
composition, to modern techno and utilising the technology in ways that were
never previously explored. In doing so they're reviving something of a utopian
spirit, one that longed not just for new sounds and new ways of making music,
but saw in itself a correlate to the massive social upheavals taking place in
the 1960s and 70s.
Modular synthesizers differ from other types of classic
analogue synths such as the Arp Odyssey, Korg MS-20 or MiniMoog in that they
have an open architecture that allows a custom configuration of different parts
or modules to the owners specification. Unlike the instruments listed above
modular synths lack a normalised signal path and so the audio and voltage
signals need to be patched across the system using cables, thus lending them
their characteristic Heath Robinson-like appearance. This of course allows the
user to utilise as many or as few parts of their system as they would like.
Also, modular synthesizers don't normally have a built in keyboard although
they can be integrated with one. Before more portable commercially sold equipment
utilising keys was developed all synthesisers were constructed in this way, the
most famous being those build by Robert Moog. Moog was also highly successful
in producing smaller cheaper instruments that utilised the same technology but
in a scaled down more performance friendly package. The MiniMoog (1970) was
portable, stable, had a normalised signal path and crucially a built in
keyboard. It became the most recognisable and iconic synthesizer ever made.
MiniMoog
At the same time that Moog was developing his modular
systems in the early 1960s, on the other side of the United States Don Buchla had
just been hired by the San Francisco Tape Music Center to help them build a new
kind of electronic instrument. Buchla, who sadly passed away last year, was
both an engineer and a musician and arrived at the center via NASA where he had
worked on developing technology designed to withstand cosmic radiation. He was
also associated with the Grateful Dead whose own brand of cosmic happenings he
lent his engineering skills to in collaboration with Owsley Stanley, who alongside
audio engineering was the first person to synthesise mass qualities of LSD. In
a not entirely unconnected way Buchla was involved with the Trips festival and
was rumoured to sit beneath the stage playing one of his early machines during
the Grateful Dead's sets. He was familiar to the avant-garde community around
San Francisco and had produced his own series of wigged out tape music
compositions. This unique combination of hippy outlook and cutting edge
engineering prowess fit well with the counter-cultural mood of the time as well
as the aspirations of his colleagues in San Francisco who included noted
composer Morton Subotnick. In 2016 Subotnick recalled his instructions to Buchla: "I didn’t want a keyboard ... I didn’t want to reproduce the old
way to make music, which was pitch-based orientation. I wanted it to be
gesturally-based. I said, ‘This is not a musical instrument. This is, at best,
an instrument to make instruments. It’s to paint.’
The metaphor of painting would stick. After producing a
series of large, uniquely designed and versatile modular systems during the
60s, in 1973 Buchla produced the Music Easel, a compact modular system
utilising the touch sensitive plates he had developed instead of a keyboard.
These plates could be calibrated to a traditional chromatic scale or they could
be patched in to trigger different parts of the instrument or modify the
sequencing function. In 2013 on the back
of a revival of interest in Buchla's instruments, production resumed on the
Music Easel with demonstration films on YouTube describing the instrument's
sliders as "brushes".
The differences between these two key designers of modular
synthesizers as well as the wider social environment in which they worked are
key to our story here. While Moog's instruments appealed to more keyboard-centric
musicians looking to add new timbres to traditional forms of composing
(exemplified in Wendy Carlos' Switch on Bach) Buchla's instruments were
designed with the musician's interface as the starting point for producing a
unique performance based experience of composing that incorporated a very 1960s
emphasis on play. This was similarly reflected in the type of modules produced by
Buchla, many of which had less than intuitive functionality and somewhat
whimsical names. Take for example the module simply called Source of Uncertainty. While
Moog's original machines were principally studio tools, never intended to be
used by themselves, Buchla's instruments were aimed towards live performance
and included several innovative methods for programming repetitive elements and
sequencing them into rudimentary compositions. And whereas Moog's later compact
instruments reflected an economy of ergonomics and intuitive practical
interface, Buchla's Music Easel and other smaller systems retained their unique
design and somewhat mystical performance aesthetic.
Buchla's Arbitrary Function Generator
These differences in design and performance possibilities
were similarly reflected in the different synthesis techniques each employed and
thus the kinds of sounds these instruments could produce. Putting it briefly,
Moog's instruments functioned through what is termed subtractive synthesis,
which involves a waveform produced by an oscillator (sometimes several) being
passed through a low pass resonant filter which removes part of the harmonic
content of the signal. Sweeping the filter resonance produces rich shifts in
timbre. The resultant signal is then modified by a voltage controlled amplifier
(VCF or ADSR) which further shapes the sound and can also be used to modify the
way the filter affects the waveform. Owing to Moog being based in New York this
type of synthesis has come to be termed East Coast. Since Buchla and his team
were then based in California their synthesis technique has of course come to
be known as West Coast. A far less bloodstained alternative to the famous
hip-hop rivalry but one which fosters no less a degree of loyalty. West Coast
synthesis utilises several alternatives to subtractive synthesis, one of the
most common being waveshaping which rather than filtering out harmonic content
shapes the signal according to mathematical functions. Buchla also developed
combinations of VCF's and sequencing functions that allowed his instrument to
produce a wide range of naturalistic percussive and organic sounding textures. Morton
Subotnick's records Silver Apples of the Moon and Wild Bull are classic
demonstrations of the new possibilities inherent in Buchla's systems.
The Revival of Many
In the end however the hardnosed commercial environment of
1970s New York, coupled with Robert Moog's emphasis on more expedient, flexibly
employed and reliable machines led to his brand becoming the most successful
and iconic of the early synthesiser manufacturers. Although Moog's instruments
could never be described as cheap, Buchla's machines and especially his larger
modular systems suffered from being produced on a far smaller scale and carried
price tags within the range of few individuals. Even the smaller Music Easel was
produced on a tiny scale and commanded prices two or three times the cost of a
MiniMoog. More-often Buchla's machines were purchased by institutions or added
to the collections of wealthy enthusiasts. Don Buchla's counter-cultural and
open form of electronic music would for time being remain a niche
obsession.
Doepfer A-100 complete system
That is until the last decade or so, when an explosion of
interest in analogue synthesisers has forced manufacturers back to their
soldering irons. In the last three years alone recreations of classic
instruments like the Korg MS-20 and Arp Odyssey have come onto the market as
well as manufacturers like Dave Smith, Roland and Oberheim expanding their
analogue range. But it's been in the area of modular synthesisers that the most
surprising developments have occurred. What was once the preserve of moneyed
enthusiasts and adventurous music colleges has been reborn as a 'craft'
industry with dozens of boutique manufacturers producing modules with a
bewildering array of functions. One of the principle enabling factors has been
the development of the Eurorack format which created a standardised size and
voltage requirement for modules. German manufacturer Doepfer became a leader in
the revived market producing a wide range of simple, reliable but most of all
affordable modules and complete systems, some which emulate iconic components
from instruments of old. Doepfer's basic system includes twenty-three separate
modules and retails at less than £2000.
The establishing of this basic industry standard has
provided something of a level playing field for developers to experiment with
new kinds of electronics. One of the effects of this has been to reunify the
two schools of synthesis styles within the Eurorack format. Whereas a Buchla or
Moog system would be more or less wholly based on either the West or East coast
style (not to mention differing volt/octave standards) the open system of
Eurorack allows users to combine modules from multiple manufactures, utilising
different synthesis techniques to build playful hybrid systems with massive
ranges in sounds and modulation possibilities. One company that has taken
Buchla's zest for unconventional tactile interfaces onboard is Make Noise Co.
who produce an array of beautifully designed devices. Many, like the sequencers
Rene and Pressure Points incorporate tactile or other non-keyboard interfaces
as well as being marked by mysterious almost hieroglyphic-like symbols. As well
as building upon the techniques of the past an increasing number of
manufacturers are producing synth modules that go beyond pure synthesis itself.
Examples like Mutable Instruments Clouds, and Make Noise’s Phonogene integrate
innovative external audio processing techniques to complement traditional
oscillator based sound sources. There are even a few shortwave radio modules
available that allow the introduction of ghostly static, half heard
transmissions and other such audio artefacts into the signal path. On the
design front the new wave of devices also shows a multitude of obsessions and
styles, including replicating the vintage feel of older systems, tongue in
cheek pastiches of clunky cold-war Soviet designs (see XAOC devices) and path
finding experiments with user interfaces and panel art.
Three Modules: Make Noise Co Maths, XAOC Devices Moskwa, The Harvestman Hertz Donut
Along with this commercial diversification the modular
revival has also produced its own online subculture. The amusingly monikered
Muffwiggler.com is at the heart of this international community where
enthusiasts can pick up tips, trade equipment and synthesis secrets and
generally socialise with other likeminded souls. YouTube hosts hundred of
videos of modular synth tutorials, performances and a lot of people just
showing off their latest toys; while channels like Sonicstate and Future Music
Magazine regularly run features on modular synthesiser technology. A surprising
number of these personal videos however feature players performing wild and
complex techno work-outs on their systems. This is in striking contrast to the
focus on timbre and abstraction that characterised modular synth music in
previous decades and shows how the democratisation of the technology has resulted
in a broadening ofinterest among
players of more urban or working class orientated music. The amount of video
material available online points to another characteristic of the revival,
which is that these systems are not just or even predominantly for making
records. In fact the number of records utilising modular synthesisers is relatively
small and always has been. Indeed ever since the technology was first available
commercially there been a strange incongruence between the financial outlay associated
with modular synthesisers and the amount of recorded music produced with them.
People who bought them tended not to be studio musicians but electronics
enthusiasts who delighted in their open architecture and sound making
possibilities, not to mention how cool they made your living room look. In the
past this kind of high priced hobbyism was the preserve of the few, but with the
prices having come down and the boom in availability and online support the
pleasure of cosmic electronic experimentation is possible for more people than
ever. This renaissance has recently been recognised with the release of the
documentary I Dream of Wires.
This is not to say that there are no records being produced
using these instruments. In fact the last couple of years have perhaps finally
seen the impact of the revival trickle down into newrecorded music. Alessandro Cortini is one of
North America's most proficient Buchla players, as well as being a member of
Nine Inch Nails and an all-round synth nut. His series of Buchla based records
under his own name and his Sonoio moniker draw out the instrument's capability
to produce a deep range of emotive organic textures and rhythms. Cortini has
also contributed to Make Noise Records series exploring the range of their
flagship Black and Gold modular system. Another Buchla enthusiast Kaitlyn
Aurelia Smith mixes her modular systems with acoustic orchestration and
innovative voice modulations, producing sparkling pop/avant-garde hybrids. In
2016 on FRKWYS Vol. 13: Sunergy, she teamed up with one of Buchla's
most noted early students Suzanne Ciani for an expansive record of new-age and
ambient meditations; the inter-generational aspect highlighting the rediscovery
not just of the technology but of hitherto underappreciated artists like Ciani.
Elsewhere in the scene, Floating Points, Donnacha Costello
and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe each take modular synthesis in new directions. Floating
Points into complex jazz and techno territory striving to integrate advances in
modular synths with the latest studio technology, while Lowe has produced a
body of deep freeform and exploratory meditations, touching both on spiritual
themes and ephemeral percussive rhythms. These examples are not without
significance as they include records produced by women and people of colour;
groups who have traditionally found themselves excluded from the predominantly white
and male dominated world of modular synthesisers and music technology more generally. Here at least the utopianism
I'm getting at has an immediate and concrete appearance, despite there
being a long way to go.
If there's one thing that each of these artists has in
common and that perhaps characterises the modular synthesiser revival as a
whole, it's a rejection of the conformity and homogeneity of much mainstream electronic
music, while similarly shunning the academic roots of modular synth technology.
Evidently nostalgia and a certain longing for the supposed authenticity and
solidity of analogue equipment plays a part in all this. But if anything it's
the hundreds of online videos and the new hybrid forms of music being produced
that refutes this reduction of the revival to mere nostalgic re-appropriation
and points towards something beyond. To put it more prosaically: if nostalgia
is a longing for the past or a return to the origin, then a progressive form
can only be thought through a radicalising of that origin for the purpose of
going beyond a deadlock in the present. For me this obscure corner of music
culture points to a longing for a freer, more open and engaged type of artistic
creation beyond the stifling conformity and throwaway quality of music under Last-Days-Capitalism;
one that is both available to the widest number of participants and which
captures something of the hopes and expectations of the counter-culture of the
1960s and 70s. A world, in short, very different from the one we are currently
living through.None-the-less
such distractions, such mico-utopias are the morsels that must sustain us
through the long night of the present.
