TEXT BETWEEN “ “ IS FROM CHRIS CUTLER’S NOTORIOUS ESSAY ON PLUNDERPHONICS, TEXT BETWEEN < > ARE UPDATES TO THE TEXT FROM DJ BALLI OR OTHERS QUOTED.

<SONIC SEX REASSIGNMENT CLINIC>

“Sounds like” <a Sex Reassignment Surgery in action>” as a” <pitch modified turntable -∞!!!> “slows rapidly to settle into a recognisable, slightly high-pitched Dolly Parton” (<the augmented sex organ!>). “It continues to slow down <∞> but more gradually now. The instruments thicken” <does this refer to genital reconstruction procedures??> “and their timbres stretch” <removal of the breast…> “and grow richer” <..shaping of a male contoured chest>. “Details unheard at the right speed” [Read more →]

1) SKANK BLOK BOLOGNA [*1]

Why Bologna and not Berlin? Because it’s a shithole ( with interesting echo and resonance effects, thanks to the widespread arcades ). The sonic psychogeography feeds itself on mediality: the life of an average European city, of an average population, of average size; an average advanced tertiary sector, with average infrastructures; average levels of ethnic integration; and an average forecast of socio-economic development. The sound of a „tiro“ ( electric doorbell opener ) [*2] at 16:35, on May 23rd, 2011, at Santa Viola district, just past Maggiore Hospital, on the right, Drzzz Drzzz! The sound of a remote controlled opening system in Prague, on May 23rd, 1922 „Please take a seat, I understand your repeated requests to talk to an experienced professional, Doctor Kafka has indeed been at the services of the „Insurance Institute Against Work Injuries for the Bohemian Reign“ for at least 15 years, and in fact, after a brief experience at the General Insurance, he joined our company, occupying that small office at the end of the corridor. Doctor Kafka says it’s the only one in the building from which you can’t hear the noises coming from the street“. Why Bologna and not Barcelona? Because the sonic mapping doesn’t need any artistic community elaborating other systems and models of coexistence, the daily course of urban noise refrains from them, just as Franz Kafka the insurer does. The stimulus of daily routine, of banality, of averageness, there’s no need for the hype of New York, Frisco and so on, psychogeography operates just outside of Mazzini street. It doesn’t necessarily seek originality, the specific acoustic resonance of a certain territory is not a sine qua non, and it’s not about recording the echo of the Himalayas during the autumn solstice from 3.000 metres above, nor has it anything to do with art, but just with mapping and documentation. We therefore do not put under our lenses the metropolis, not a sprawl, but an average city, comfortably within our observation slide, and hence the research will maybe come to some conclusions which will then be at the grounds of the beginning of a further research, and so on. Why Bologna and not L.A.? [Read more →]

by Riccardo Balli

1. (Clans Of The Alphane Moon, P. K. Dick, 1964 REMIX)

Before entering the supreme council room of the seven clans French colony, Gabriel Baines sent his man-made simulacrum ahead to see if by chance it might be attacked. The simulacrum – obviously equipped with a ghetto blaster – behaves like Baines, and dresses like Baines with oversize trousers, untied sneakers, and a baseball cap. He is a wizard in the Four Arts too. Baines has of course been outside Paris many times, but he felt safe – or rather relatively safe – only here, within the stout walls of this, the Hip-Hop city. Once he was even forced to visit that trendy, plastic town Nantes, the capital of the House clan, in search of escaped House members from the “melody on 4/4” work brigade. Considering they all look the same, well dressed in their cheeky expensive clothes, he had a great deal of problems in recognizing them. Anyhow, here today, at the twice-yearly council meeting representing all the clans, the House clan would of course have a spokesman and Baines as Hip-Hop representative would find himself seated with one of them. But more ominous would be the Gabber delegate: like every Hip-Hopper Baines is disgusted by the sight of those bald heads, their naive, stupid violence, which is not the result of any social oppression, but in fact just some transient fashion, completely business oriented. Baines still quailed at the anticipated confrontation with Howard Straw of the Gabber clan. [Read more →]

Corollary to “In Skatebored We Noize” by dj Balli (+ Bel.04)

For decades now Situationism has been subsumed by the historification assembly line, emptied of any subversive potential. It is a corpse, an object of interest offrom Academy’s forensic scientists in search of pret-a-portér radicalisms. However, some of its “practical-theoretical” organs have been transplanted. For example, the alternative use of urban space performed in such an explicit way by psychogeographical dérives stands as a founding element of skateboarding.
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With the expression “Audio-Philosophical Dwellings” you refer to every symbolic support of Sonic Belligerency, whatever its nature and importance. For example: a turntable with modified pitch, a record covered with bits of sellotape to indicate concrete sounds to be scratched, a particularly creative gunk and, more generally, every site in which Extraordinary Sonic Happenings (E.S.H.) favor the suspension of dominant behaviour codes. You can distinguish “permanent” audio-philosophical dwellings in which the E.S.H. is endless, and “temporary” audio-philosophical dwellings in which the E.S.H. strikes and runs away.
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