#47 in a possible series. One way for a misanthrope to clear the house of unwanted overstayers after a dinner party, I find, is to put on a CD of the late Beethoven quartets. It’s music I like but almost everybody else can’t stand. So I’m happy, they’re miserable and they go. Result!
Ugly music works every time – but it must be ugly music I want to listen to while winding down late at night. That usually rules out everything from Ades, Birtwistle and Carter to Varese, Xenakis and Zappa.
So last night when my wife was overtired and desperately needed to sleep but was still on the internet at 11.30pm, my thoughts turned again to ugly music.
Stockhausen’s Helicopter Quartet was out as it’s too ugly even for me, being the sound of four helicopters each containing a member of a string quartet sawing away seemingly at random, so I tried Oktophonie – an electronic portrayal of a intergalactic aerial battle or somesuch bollocks but terrifying at the correct volume ie LOUD – but she was unmoved. So I put on King Crimson’s Red album from 1974. After thirty seconds of the first track, she was in her pyjamas. Result!
6 Comments:
There is a free legal CD-length download available briefly at xww.dgmlive.com of a concert of the superb 1982 incarnation of the band - Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Bill Bruford. It’s not that ugly - some of it's almost beautiful - but bits of it are.
There was a guy in a second hand record store in Auckland back in oohh...too long ago now....who used to get all the self consciously cool types to bugger off at about 8.30 on late shopping night by the very simple expedient of putting Little River Band on. Very loudly. Worked a treat...
Re your comments on KC, I once left a boyfriend on the grounds of his ridiculous predilection for their melodious musings... heh heh.
Ohh, Stephen, you can't be that mean to your lovely wife, I thought manipulation by music was left to the retail experts!
As someone who was there at the time, all I can say is that it was extremely effective. It is an awful noise.
According to Uncut magazine, this is a version of Wyatting. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyatting.
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