Space Folk Manifesto.

I have been using the phrase “space folk” ever since I first discovered the album, “Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles” by the Tower Recordings. It seemed logical to grab these words in an attempt to describe the meeting of electric feedback and post-psychedelia noise with acoustic folk instrumentation and Eastern dissonant harmonies. Later delving into other groups in a recent wave of experimental music, my listening attuned to a trend of post-rock electric takes on traditional folk styles or rhythms (eg, noise jamborees, tribal beat accompaniment, and colorful stabs at eastern and near-eastern folk instrumentation). However, it seemed that there were a handful of groups focused more on the ambient-noise free/space element of modern experimentalism than borrowing from traditional folk styles. I had an intuition that there was some sort of confluence of mental-wiring that evoked similar emotions in these diverse styles, (before I came across any propaganda tying these groups together; mind you, in my lonely adventure towards counter-culturalism I still have yet to meet a person independently in the flesh that enjoys the same music as I). My favorite in silico music files are heaped into three folders: post-rock, space, and space folk. While I consider the genre “post-rock” to be nebulous in definition, I keep musics there that are highly evocative and use rock instrumentation compositionally, more in the manner of painters and poets. Yet, the boundary between “space” and “space folk” is quite arbitrary.

I intend with this plate of words not to categorize music, but instead to sharpen the blades of readers by encouraging them to embark on an adventure in music. This is not to say that any genre of music is superior, and I am well aware that experimentalism is esoteric. What is uniting about folk music – and much of experimentalism – is that it is latent in every person. Experimentalism breaks the rails of directionality and convention, but folk music dampens the need for proficiency and technical skill. For some, folk music is just past-time (in which case, quality of performance is unimportant so long as the musician is sufficiently amusing theirself), and for others it is a community event. For many, all music is folk music because they are not concerned with the outcome but solely with the act of releasing the swirls of passion (that is, the artistic act). So you see, much of non-erudite experimental music is indeed folk music. And because there are no traditions nor rules in this field, no one need fear they might perform poorly. Surely, the great American folk singers had terrible voices, and rock was more about sex appeal than ingenuity.

Now, what is troubling to me is that we still treat experimental music like rock music. Records are released as items to covet and collect, with spontaneous melodies we might memorize. I often wonder how I would nourish my spirit if the power went out for days, and I am befallen by woe when the batteries end on my portable music player as I ride upon my twenty-minute bicycle commute (the perfect length for the ebb-and-flow of a long, developing jam). It is these moments without our technology that embark me on the cultivation of my personal muse, who has sat huddled in my toychest ever since I first learned about embarassment. I tend to hum a repetitive melody to myself and slowly embellish on the theme. What is lacking is contrast and external input to respond to, and also community. I still lack the confidence to go out and seek musical rendezvous, but I no longer think I’m incompetent. (On the contrary, I feel my outlet to evoke my passions is fragile, and I fear expectations of audience may rupture the delicate flow).

The other great tragedy of modern folk music is the lack of community involvement. I recently was at a musical gathering in the backyard of a fellow, opened freely to strangers to share a certain musical moment. What was remarkable was the first intonations of the performance: scattered throughout the corners of the yard, each musician invoked the quadrophonic toppling of place-sensation, with the tones mingling like musk and fog. Okay, no poetry – the music surrounded you in every direction but you could not tell where it was coming from, nor who was playing what. No longer did it matter in what direction the stage was, nor the countenance/identity of the musicians. Music was an envelope for your mind at that moment, incontrovertibly. I felt faint as an individual person, attacked in the most splendid way. Unfortunately, this did not last long and the musicians soon converged upon an edifice containing amplifiers and troves of instruments, commencing a standard posture of musician performing towards audience (rather than around them). In the end, the audience dealt the final blow and applauded.

I always imagined that the great hippy drum-circles that hide among dim firelight (where no one could identify you anyway if you played a foul note) would lend a hand to modern artistic music (which still behaves similar to rock with its merchandise tables and situations in pub establishments). How glorious it will be to rid ourselves of the lingering stench of John Cage, finally settling the problem of reflexivity in performance art (artist is influenced by beholders who are influenced by the art). We must strive to gather in dynamic, musical activity as a transcendent community act, rather than passively allow ourselves to be molded by only what some unreachable, external person plays for us. While the current paradigm of performance and artistry crystallizes scenes and new genres, it deepens the mote between human beings by carving insular monuments of artistic preference. (Conspiracy Theory: In such a fractured world, “experimentalism” will always remain fringe and thus pop music can maintain its role as a method of sociopolitical control).

May we tear down the walls to music, or must we learn to scale them?