Identity Protection Spurs Audience Involvement:
One of the main concerns of members of TSOAF was that their identities and relations to other musical groups would influence peoples’ reactions to the new music. The artists figuratively killed their perceived sense of authorship by masking their identities from the masses. Consequently, this allows audience members to focus on their personal experience and interactions with the music. Instead of considering questions like "Is that Anthony Green's voice?" or "What is the translation of the German section?" the listener is encouraged to hear the sounds, the moods, the fluidity of the discordancy, find goosebumps running up and down his spine, and relate it back to his own life.
Roland Barthes' article The death of the author claims that "the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author" (Barthes 148). Don't just nod your head at this statement. What does it mean? Take a look at it this way. Current criticism is brilliant at defining a work in terms of the author - intent, style, expression. An author provides a basis to talk about a body of work. But what happens when the author is unknown, or does not want to be known?
Then the big question of "What does this piece of work mean?" falls primarily to an audience member's interpretation. It is the death of the ego of the author, encouraging the audience to, in a sense, be its own author of the work.
I'll be honest. The first time I ever heard Un'Aria, I had no idea what the vocalist (Anthony Green) was saying. It's a short song, one minute and six seconds. And I listened to it again and again, trying to figure it out. Why did I care so much about the lyrics? Well, the tone of the song itself, I found personally beautiful. But in a very sad, mournful, disturbing way. Finally, I caved. I Google'd the lyrics and was shocked. Where I heard the word "right" it was actually "raped". Where I heard the word "deferent" it was actually "different". Did that knowledge change my understanding of the song? Duh! Totally different meaning than I'd originally imagined, much more bleak. But did that knowledge of the lyrics change my feelings toward the song? No, because I was focusing on the tone of the song in the first place. That's not to say that lyrics don't matter. They most certainly do. Lyrics can direct a listener to different images and thoughts. But what is often overlooked is that the connections made from the author's (often vague) directions are the property of the listener, not of the author.
Barthes reasons that the author's "only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them"(Barthes 146). This is precisely what Balling proposed to accomplish. In Barthes' eyes, ironically, I suppose Balling would be considered a true author. But is he really the author? He created the terms for the production process, giving artists one day for an impromptu recording session. But it is the many musicians whose recordings Balling remixed who we, today, would consider the ultimate authors of the work. In this light, we might say Balling is the producer, not the author.
The problem is that there really is no way to talk about TSOAF without referring to Balling as the producer, the author, the innovator. In this case, all of these terms point back to the origins of the group, and those origins stemmed from the man who put it all together.
See what's funny there (in an ironic way, not a blatantly HAHA way)? On the one hand, I can say that TSOAF has no official author. First, it is a collaborative effort. Second, at the time of the album releases, all identities were protected. On the other hand, I can definitively claim that the author of TSOAF is Rich Balling. But it is not only his genius that comes together in these works. It is all of the participating artists' genius. And that genius was purposefully concealed from the public in order to spur personal audience involvement with the music.
In fact, the reissued version of the first album, Tiger and the Duke, includes other bands' remixes of a few songs from the second album. Originality can only be based off of what's come before. TSOAF pulls from a vast amount of traditional and untraditional techniques and sounds and transforms them into one cohesive product. This group pulls off a remixing of ideas extraordinarily well, I might even go so far as to say expertly. Allowing other bands to claim a space on their reissued album with remixed works only enforces the idea of the death of the author. It sends a message, to me at least, that creative works are meant to "know no halt" (Barthes 147). TSOAF insists that a piece of work is never truly finished, and allows others to be involved in reworking it by concealing the precise origins of authorship.
Appreciation for good music is high on Balling's values. Listening and appreciating music can be a "spiritual phenomenon," he says (Stereo Subversion). Balling believes that part of the reason for the demise of a thorough appreciation (and, of course, interaction) with music is that "today's music lacks identity" (Stereo Subversion). I can't be the only one to find it extremely ironic that Balling then spins that idea on its head, and creates an identity through the lack of true identity. By eliminating the artists' names and thus, their influences and external relations, TSOAF owns an identity belonging to culture. In other words, today's culture owns the identity of TSOAF simply by listening and reacting. It is not the influence of record labels, not even the contributing artists, who really matter. Listeners are meant to experience and personally connect with the progressive music.
As Barthe says, "a [work's] unity lies not in its origin but in its destination" (Barthes 148). A culture that leaves the work laying at the foot of its origin allows that piece of work to stagnate. But a culture that places the emphasis on the audience members' interactions with the work allows it to grow and prosper.
Transcending Genres:
Then the big question of "What does this piece of work mean?" falls primarily to an audience member's interpretation. It is the death of the ego of the author, encouraging the audience to, in a sense, be its own author of the work.
I'll be honest. The first time I ever heard Un'Aria, I had no idea what the vocalist (Anthony Green) was saying. It's a short song, one minute and six seconds. And I listened to it again and again, trying to figure it out. Why did I care so much about the lyrics? Well, the tone of the song itself, I found personally beautiful. But in a very sad, mournful, disturbing way. Finally, I caved. I Google'd the lyrics and was shocked. Where I heard the word "right" it was actually "raped". Where I heard the word "deferent" it was actually "different". Did that knowledge change my understanding of the song? Duh! Totally different meaning than I'd originally imagined, much more bleak. But did that knowledge of the lyrics change my feelings toward the song? No, because I was focusing on the tone of the song in the first place. That's not to say that lyrics don't matter. They most certainly do. Lyrics can direct a listener to different images and thoughts. But what is often overlooked is that the connections made from the author's (often vague) directions are the property of the listener, not of the author.
Barthes reasons that the author's "only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them"(Barthes 146). This is precisely what Balling proposed to accomplish. In Barthes' eyes, ironically, I suppose Balling would be considered a true author. But is he really the author? He created the terms for the production process, giving artists one day for an impromptu recording session. But it is the many musicians whose recordings Balling remixed who we, today, would consider the ultimate authors of the work. In this light, we might say Balling is the producer, not the author.
The problem is that there really is no way to talk about TSOAF without referring to Balling as the producer, the author, the innovator. In this case, all of these terms point back to the origins of the group, and those origins stemmed from the man who put it all together.
See what's funny there (in an ironic way, not a blatantly HAHA way)? On the one hand, I can say that TSOAF has no official author. First, it is a collaborative effort. Second, at the time of the album releases, all identities were protected. On the other hand, I can definitively claim that the author of TSOAF is Rich Balling. But it is not only his genius that comes together in these works. It is all of the participating artists' genius. And that genius was purposefully concealed from the public in order to spur personal audience involvement with the music.
In fact, the reissued version of the first album, Tiger and the Duke, includes other bands' remixes of a few songs from the second album. Originality can only be based off of what's come before. TSOAF pulls from a vast amount of traditional and untraditional techniques and sounds and transforms them into one cohesive product. This group pulls off a remixing of ideas extraordinarily well, I might even go so far as to say expertly. Allowing other bands to claim a space on their reissued album with remixed works only enforces the idea of the death of the author. It sends a message, to me at least, that creative works are meant to "know no halt" (Barthes 147). TSOAF insists that a piece of work is never truly finished, and allows others to be involved in reworking it by concealing the precise origins of authorship.
Appreciation for good music is high on Balling's values. Listening and appreciating music can be a "spiritual phenomenon," he says (Stereo Subversion). Balling believes that part of the reason for the demise of a thorough appreciation (and, of course, interaction) with music is that "today's music lacks identity" (Stereo Subversion). I can't be the only one to find it extremely ironic that Balling then spins that idea on its head, and creates an identity through the lack of true identity. By eliminating the artists' names and thus, their influences and external relations, TSOAF owns an identity belonging to culture. In other words, today's culture owns the identity of TSOAF simply by listening and reacting. It is not the influence of record labels, not even the contributing artists, who really matter. Listeners are meant to experience and personally connect with the progressive music.
As Barthe says, "a [work's] unity lies not in its origin but in its destination" (Barthes 148). A culture that leaves the work laying at the foot of its origin allows that piece of work to stagnate. But a culture that places the emphasis on the audience members' interactions with the work allows it to grow and prosper.
Transcending Genres:
TSOAF experiments with "a complex arrangement of unusual song structures and tempos drawing from an array of influences including indie, rock, electronic, hardcore, and even world music" (Epitaph Records). The outcome reflects a transcendence of genre boundary. In fact, it creates a new genre of music: experimental.
As Lethem puts it, "simply placing objects in an unexpected context reinvigorates their mysterious qualities" ( Lethem 62). Instead of physical objects or text, TSOAF does this with sounds. By drawing on and rearranging aspects of different genres, it pulls attention to the various techniques used, and provides insight on how to create new sounds. It provides new tricks of how to listen to sounds.
Arguably, "some of today's most ambitious art is going about trying to make the familiar strange" (Lethem 63). In many tracks on these three albums, Balling efficiently pieced it together to give it a discordant, slightly eerie tone. We still hear the guitar, the drums, the vocals. But is that a melody, was that a harmony, oh no, lost the rhythm. TSOAF calls attention to how we as a culture define music, and pushes that attention into questioning the definition of music.
Collaboration:
The
art the band creates is a collaborative effort. The idea of originality is
completely skewed in this light. Maybe we could accredit all of the originality
to the Nightingale, but then what about all of those other artists who took the
time to sit down and work with another person’s work, which they’d never heard
before, and add onto it? That takes an extreme amount of time, as we just
learned from making our own remixes. At some point, it must be understood that collaborative efforts are not “cheats” and are certainly not unoriginal.
Jonathan Lethem's essay, The Ecstasy of Influence, goes so far as to say "collage...might be called the art form of the twentieth century, never mind the twenty-first" (Lethem 60). The entire creative process of TSOAF is a collage of sounds of many musicians, carefully pieced together by Balling. But society tends to put the extra emphasis on the individual. Even I've done it throughout this entire discussion of the music created by the collective group. A lot of my research comes from interviews with Balling, and I cannot help but notice referring to him more frequently than the band as a whole.
Jonathan Lethem's essay, The Ecstasy of Influence, goes so far as to say "collage...might be called the art form of the twentieth century, never mind the twenty-first" (Lethem 60). The entire creative process of TSOAF is a collage of sounds of many musicians, carefully pieced together by Balling. But society tends to put the extra emphasis on the individual. Even I've done it throughout this entire discussion of the music created by the collective group. A lot of my research comes from interviews with Balling, and I cannot help but notice referring to him more frequently than the band as a whole.
Lethem furthers his argument by claiming that "we in Western society are going through a period of intensifying belief in private ownership, to the detriment of the public good" (67). This cultural belief causes stagnation in the creative process and thus, products. Why does that harm the public good? Well, surely if everything sounds the same, less people will want all of it. That destroys the market economy. The people who get caught pirating are fined up the whazoo because of this cultural belief, and those people are, more often than not, just kids.
This emphasis on the individual has got to change, and I think it's on its way. As an audience member, a listener in the digital age, I create my own collage, my own collaboration. It's usually in the form of a playlist, but for other more ambitious people, it might go so far as a well-done remix. It is, of course, generally without the well-wishes of either artist or recording label. But I want to create a cohesive understanding of the vast amounts of music to which I've been exposed.
This emphasis on the individual has got to change, and I think it's on its way. As an audience member, a listener in the digital age, I create my own collage, my own collaboration. It's usually in the form of a playlist, but for other more ambitious people, it might go so far as a well-done remix. It is, of course, generally without the well-wishes of either artist or recording label. But I want to create a cohesive understanding of the vast amounts of music to which I've been exposed.
Sources:
Epitaph Records - http://www.epitaph.com/news/news/2971
Stereo Subversion - http://stereosubversion.com/interviews/the-sound-of-animals-fighting
Roland Barthes - http://www.tbook.constantvzw.org/wp-content/death_authorbarthes.pdf
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JNGXiFXMM4
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