On sonic intolerance

This is not a perfect world.

Since the onslaught of affordable Digital audio
I have noticed a certain breed expounding new
convictions on sonic acceptability.
Intolerant to any audio experience which does
not conform to their new standards they negate
5000 years of human experience in exchange for
an extra 20 DB of signal to noise ratio.

This is not consumer fetishism, this is consumer fascism.

Digital-Aryans begin the new inquisition.

A new crusade promises to save the world from its
past sins of tape hiss, wow and flutter, and record
surface noice. Scratchy old records must be 'cleansed'
and 're-mastered' (or simply discarded).
Field recordings are considered unusable. Masses flock
with great alarm to expect new standards of audio
conformity. Preprogrammed factory presets seduce
users into convenience oriented approaches. Sounds
become controlled by marketing committees and are
spoon-fed to eager audio sheep. Under the aegis of
multi-national electronic corporations, music produced
is little more than brand endorsements which have
nothing to do with feelings and everything to do the
disassociation. Human experience (and expression)
is intirely ignored. The frency of indigenous chants
echo no more.

Studios become an Auschwitz for sounds. A cold sterile
laboratory where nothing lives. Souls are reduced to
binary data. The heart is discarded,  its wonderfully
irregular beat simply doesn't live up to click tracks.

...

At this very moment scores of living, breathing human
beings plot the revolution. An underground subculture
of non-believers quietly stock-pile noicy vacuum tubes,
over-sized reel to reels, spring reverbs and tape delays.
They use razor blades to edit with. They smile when the
meter goes into the red. They not only tolerate human error,
they leave it in the mix. They strive for a value system
which places the mundane material world in a healthy context.

When the smoke clears and the digital bunker is searched
the world will not mourn the charred carcasses found.
A new Humanity will send out distorted cries which will be
barely discernible but no avail because every one will
know that they are simply saying 'digital sucks'.

Larry Thrasher '96.

Ovenstående er liner-notes fra The Brian Jonestown Massacre's
Take It From the man! CD fra 1996. Jeg fik gåsehud da jeg læste
det første gang .

__________________
Med venlig hilsen

"There are more love songs than anything else.
If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another."
- Frank Zappa