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Noise music is harnassed sound that can be sonically harsh, painful, nauseating, and generally undesirable under normative circumstances.
Subjective definition
Noise music is a refutation of what initially appears to be a contradiction in terms. Noise is sound that is not wanted, and therefore tuned out. The defintion of music, being subjective, nevertheless includes a universal aspect of desirability for the listener. Much noise music is designed to create intense reactions out of its listeners. This reaction need not be positive for the noise to have its desired effect. Therefore, the objective of noise music is not necessarily pleasure, as it is for most other traditional forms of "music"..
Various Qualities
Noise music is loosely related to industrial, sharing its DIY ethos, independence and ethic of using "non-musical" sources. It also shares with early, Throbbing Gristle-era Industrial, a fascination with the hypnotic, and magical qualities of sound. Often punishing and abrasive, Noise music can be difficult listening, ranging from the free-form extreme electronic music of Whitehouse and Merzbow to the more sculptured sounds of Otomo Yoshihide.
Boyd Rice
American archivist and writer Boyd Rice has been a seminal influence on Noise music. Starting in 1975, Rice began experimenting with the possibilities of pure sound. In his live performances, he attached an electric fan to an electric guitar and also used an electric shoe polisher as an instrument. He created extremely loud, cascading walls of noise and played pieces of recorded conversations, news reports, and music just beneath the threshold of comprehensibility. Rice has created works that combine brutal soundscapes with various poetics. He has also structured noise elements into harmonious, rhythmic pieces that defy easy categorization.
Japan
The genre became popular in Japan, with a large following in Tokyo and Osaka. Musicians such as the aforementioned Merzbow, Otomo Yoshihide and other names like KK Null, Masonna, The Gerogerigegege and Hanatarash (founded by Boredoms frontman, Yamataka Eye) have made this nation something of a mecca for this style.
Albums and Non-noise influence
Lou Reed's double-LP album Metal Machine Music released in 1975 is an early, well known example of noise music. A lesser known, but perhaps more prophetic release regarding the future of Noise music, is Boyd Rice's 1978 LP, Pagan Muzak. Reed's Velvet Underground cohort John Cale's electronic drone music with artists such as Tony Conrad and LaMonte Young in the mid-60s can also be cited as having been influential. (see the CD release of Inside the Dream Syndicate Volume 1: Day of Niagra).
Mixing of Forms
In recent years European musicians associated with jazz, electronica and black metal have been active in the Noise music arena.
In Canada the Nihilist Spasm Band has been performing acoustic-based noise music for decades. In the early 1990s, the noise operas of Lisa Crystal Carver and Costes in Suckdog placed a new emphasis on drama and histrionics in noise music. This led, in part, to Chicago's free glam movement adding an emphasis on cultural and social dissonance to the concept of noise music. Another form of music has come out of noise, fusing rock to noise, aptly entitled noise rock. Some bands included in this genre are Melt-Banana and The Boredoms.
Fans of the genre distinguish between "pure noise", with essentially no structure, and "rhythmic noise", which contains elements of conventional musical structure, especially rhythm. Many industrial and electronic artists incorporate noise elements into their work.
Sound sample
See also
ja:ノイズミュージック
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