Replies to the review of SaReGaMa

SaReGaMa wrote: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/13679/review_detail/?review_id=67923
From the name that some people like to use for this style - Noise World Electrojazz, I agree mainly with "Noise" part. Ok, it has some Jazz elements, but I don't think it's enough to be called Jazz, you know. And why World?

Anyway, not like 99% of another Jamendo "industrial-ambient-noise" albums that usually arouse contempt mixed with pity to their talentless, the works of Lo Fi Lazer have something enthralling and fascinating in them. There's always suspense for the next move, and it never leaves you disappointed.

I'd like to comment on this because the topic interests me a lot and also because I'm responsible for the tags questioned by the reviewer.

Usually it's quite problematic to file music into genres. Personally I tend to go more with what music "is" than how it "sounds". This is of course asking for trouble because music "is" not the same for two individuals. One person might think that most music with saxophone is "jazz" while another person doesn't experience it as "jazz" unless a major 13 chord is frequently played. I do hate a lot of jazz myself, but I still can't deny that one of the strongest criteria for jazz is that the music relies heavily on improvisation. And "improvisation" totally is the major spice in the Lo Fi kitchen.

Noise is also difficult, because noise do not physically vibrate in a way that can form melodies or chords. And actually ,this is what makes it "noise" - which leads to the statement that "noise doesn't sound like music" and if you can't hear melodies and chords - well, then it has to be noise! But what should you call it when musicians "play" noise the way you would normally play "music"? What really happens then is that the listener's imagination starts to create "musical structures" out of noise. Even though these structures are not there in a clinical way, the musicians can keep on to sort and serve noise in a way that feeds the listeners imagination. The listener and the musicians do meet inside a virtual structure that is only implied by attitudes and gestures. So tell me, is "noise music" created by the listener or the musician?

IMHO "noise" actually relates as well to Iannis Xenakis early war sound inspired compositions as to Miles Davis seventie's classic band with Pete Cosey as "noise guitarist" ("Aghartha" for example), as to the music created at IRCAM during that time. And today "noise" is used to describe the sounds made by disembodied FM radio receivers and all kind of "circuit bent" toy parts mounted inside plastic Hagendaas ice-cream boxes ;-)

"Industrial" is easier because it was so strongly hailed by Edgard Varèse back in the twenties, brought back in by the early eighties by the duo Cabaret Voltaire (that took their name from another experimenting scene in the twenties) and finally hijacked by modern metal bands as a chick trademark to indicate "art" or simply the use of hard hitting sounds that sound more metallic than the usual drum or tube amp guitar hit sounds. But all along its history this style tag has kept its taste of industrial processes, as in sound of metal machines and electric circuits. "Industrial" is a simple tag because it goes a lot on the actual sound of the music.

The psychological, "psychedelic" or "imaginative", effects mentioned above have been used in music for ritual purposes all along the human history. Like for healing as well as for inducing mass psychosis to control people. This element is what led me to use the "world" tag. However, "world" is really a degenerated term because nowadays it doesn't keep its original flavor of "ethnic" or "being inspired by local folk music". It just stands for "something else", either "cross-over" or completely outside any means of systemization.

After writing all this I'm sure you understand why I hate to talk about music ;-) It's stupid to let the artists set the style tags for their own music. Jamendo should go for a system where only listeners can chose between a few given tags - not being allowed to make up their own tags

Quote SaRe "not like 99% of another Jamendo "industrial-ambient-noise" albums that usually arouse contempt mixed with pity to their talentless"

You still have that good old venom in your reviews. 99% is a lot, SaRe, and are you sure you don't count yourself in the talentless mixing bunch.... When o when can a bit of down-to-earth reality show up with you, master, surrounded by idiots and imbeciles.... Why can't you just write a review about a record without smashing down others and acting as mr god himself? Get laid and remove some pressure, though i pity the victim....

Pboy, totally agree with yer great tagging explanation. Great album again. Its a pity som guys are only looking through tags and commenting them from their own standards, in stead of just listening. Tags indeed can be spoiled and confusing, as some reviewers.

KraftiM wrote: "...smashing down others"

Eh? Name please who did I smash in this review? If you felt that 99% are implying to you somehow I'm sorry - it means it's time for you to start working on your inferiority complex.

KraftiM wrote: "Get laid"

- I'm a layman, I'm not a monk

Why it's so difficult for you to accept that people have a right to write reviews about what they want, in a way they want?
I see you all the time commenting on other ppl's reviews that weren't written accordingly to "yer" standards.
Let them be already!