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| quote: | Originally posted by Vector A
There is also the idea of "absolute music," meaning music that is not written to accompany anything else (stories, or images, or activities like dancing or ceremonies). In that sense any music made "just for listening" could be called "abstract" or "absolute." |
I'm thinking along the same lines. For me, abstract was always about something unreachable, music not made with intention of invoking clear images, scenarios or feelings. Music without purpose and definitive solutions. Music for the sake of music. You can express its qualities and how it affects you, but nothing about it will leave any explicit cues to help you do it, and it'll probably have a completely different effect on someone else.
Gant Graf is a perfect example. I always visualized the whole thing as a high energy, dense stream of electrons going wild around some imaginary trajectory trying to break loose - unsuccessfully, because they are subdued by an electromagnetic force that takes them back on the path the whole time. Suddenly an unknown, even greater force appears and starts to manipulate the stream first into peaceful, beautiful and otherworldly shapes suggesting nothing harmful could ever happen, but then all of a sudden it receives a command that the stream must be destroyed and launches a weapon of self destruction that finally annihilates the whole stream structure. I know this description breaks every possible law of physics and that every other listener has his own interpretation of the track, but Autechre didn't offer any single allusion or reference in it sound or structure-wise to draw some kind of collective conclusion about it.
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