Harsh Noise Music and Transgressive Literature
A few days ago, I saw a tweet on Twitter of a screenshot taken from r/playboicarti asking people’s opinion regarding the new Kendrick Lamar’s album, Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers. Replying to that tweet, I said, and I quote: “I would rather bleed my ears listening to harsh noise “music” than the new Kendrick until “it gets good.”” My reply received mixed reactions, both positive and negative. But, the most interesting thing that I took from making this tweet after notifications of people liking it kept coming through my iPad was that, maybe I should give harsh noise music a chance if I really am staying true to my statement.
Source: Radii China
For those of you who don’t know, noise music, as the name suggests, is a music genre which focuses on the expressions of music and it intrigues through the uses of noise. It’s meant to be raw, animalistic, unconventional, and many other adjectives which are generally not found in what makes up mainstream music. Harsh noise music takes it a step further to ensure that the music they produce goes beyond noises that in many still makes up a coherent musical production. Instead it opts out to erect this monolith of pure noises that go on-and-on that the music itself takes a backseat to the pondering of meaning that can be very esoteric at times. And this pondering of meaning is exactly where the point of harsh noise music often attracts its listeners, similar to transgressive literature.
Browsing comments all over the internet regarding harsh noise music fans’ opinions on why they really enjoy this type of music, they almost always point out to the finding of expressions that go into their own physical, psychological, spiritual, and even moral-ethical phenomenon as a human; a living, mortal being. They understood that many of these music that are produced don’t necessarily have any meaningful musical elements if musical elements are what you are there for. That’s why the music takes the backseat, because it’s anti-music, and that’s what makes it a niche but cult-like favored genre of music beyond most known genres.
In its relation to transgressive literature, we should take a look at the work of one Marquis de Sade. The filth depraved mortal beings who started the libertine movement and philosophy as well as having written the story of 120 Days of Sodom. This story contains pages after pages of unstructured narrative of glorifications of over-the-top violences of manners ranging from physical to sexual repeated over-and-over again until nothing is left by the end for anyone brave and patience enough to bear de Sade’s writings. At surface value, this piece of literature offers readers as much as that for listeners of harsh noise music.
Yet, just like the previous discussion of harsh noise music, the value of these kinds of transgressive literature lay beyond the generally accepted meanings of how messages in literature or music or anything created in the name of art and artistry can be found. I remembered that on a literature Discord server I was in, I asked what even is the meaning behind 120 Days of Sodom. Someone replied that it should be understood in the context of the libertine’s principle and philosophy. And that’s where all the puzzle pieces connected for me.
The libertine believed in three stages of transgression: transgression against the law and government, transgression against God and religion, and transgression against the self and nature. The first two are mostly self-explanatory, but the last one is where we may find the answer to 120 Days of Sodom meaning. Transgression against the self and nature can be understood that after rejecting everything beforehand, the next step toward absolute freedom is to return to our animalistic nature where violence and sex occupies what’s there of our early ancestors rationale. Yet, after that, nature must be transgressed, which means that though we have returned into our animalistic nature there’s an effort to strive beyond that ancient savageness into a higher purpose of savageness which doesn’t return to the making of law, government, God, and religion.
Even to me de Sade’s libertine principles can be hard to understand at the end but it lays out the understanding why transgressive literatures exist and keep on being made outside of the mainstream eyes similar to harsh noise music and other strange music genres. There’s this nature inside humans to go beyond what has been established until a dead-end wall is found and is agreed by a small but significant number of people to be truly what is in the end. This is not to say there will never be any further progress into harsh noise music and transgressive literature. As long as artists have ego, there will be at least one who refuses to accept that the wall is the dead-end.
In the end, the writings produced in this article are in no way meant to make readers have to agree with anything that has been said here. Agreement and disagreement is what keeps art and its world moving, or not…if you don’t consider harsh noise music and transgressive literature as valid forms of art. Still, it’s valid to resent these kinds of music and literature. The purpose of this article is to give a retrospective to what many might not know about and give a different perspective into its understanding. And to close this retrospection into harsh noise music, in the wise words similar to that of Anthony Fantano’s;
tran…sition. Have you given these kinds of music a listen? Did you love it? Did you hate it? What would you rate it? You’re the best, you’re the best. What should I write about next? Alif Hidayat, harsh noise music, transgressive literature. Forever.
