Music represents at once the immediate manifestation of impulse and the locus of its taming (Adorno; 288)

We don’t sell music; we sell programming

The dissolution of the Muzak brand in 2013 brought to an end a history that stretched back over 70 years, with the brand first appearing in 1934. Although synonymous with influencing the behaviour of consumers, Muzak spent much of its formative years manipulating workers on the factory floor with vinyl transcription records.

Muzak recorded thousands of 12″ and 16″ discs, building up a large library of material. In the 1930s artists’ songs were usually recorded at Muzak studios in a single take and cut straight to a lacquer master ready for duplication. In 1934, one of the first Muzak releases to be recorded featured the ‘National Fascist Militia Band’, a touring Italian brass band. During this session over 25 songs and marches were recorded, including ‘March on Rome’ ( Anthem of the young Fascists ), and ‘To Arms’, ( Fascist Anthem ). It is unclear whether this recording of the ‘Pan American Brass band’ (as the band was later aliased for release) influenced the direction that Muzak was to take, but what is clear is that around this time Muzak saw in the disciplining function of music commercial opportunities that they argued would assist companies and factories in increasing worker productivity.

Up until the mid 1930s Muzak had been distributing music to hotels and restaurants, but in 1936 they started to target factories and offices with the idea that worker productivity could be manipulated and regulated using programmed music. Muzak began developing what it later called ‘Stimulus Progression’: background music that was played in fifteen minute blocks. Each segment was made up of five or six tunes, with particular segments timed to coincide with particular times of the day, calming or upbeat sounds were played when deemed appropriate. Muzak successfully encouraged workplaces to wire in Muzak amplifiers, backing up their marketing spiel with scientific research that claimed to show that by piping ‘functional music’ into workplaces worker fatigue could be suppressed, ‘petty grievances forgotten’, and productivity increased by up to 11%. Using vinyl records as sound sources Muzak was essentially distributing an extension to the principles of Taylorism, whereby the worker as cog was held in place and worker efficiency was kept at optimum levels using a mixture of cutting-edge technology and a crude type of what would later become known as industrial psychology.

After the US became involved in WWII in 1941 thousands of shipyards and factories were signed up to receive the benefits of Muzak on the production line. Muzak’s marketing materials from the 1940s used the reactions of labourers forced to listen to Muzak as a way of touting for new business. For example the Employee Union President is quoted as saying:

‘Muzak is an outstanding fatigue-killer, especially when they hit the slow time around 3:30. It’s the best morale builder they’ve ever had in our plants. You can notice the people on the night shift. They used to drag when they came on for their ten-hour shift. Now they practically dance up to their machines.’

Muzak carefully chose the tracks that were played to workers, avoiding those that led to workers’ active engagement with the sounds they were hearing; the focus was on music as background noise that washed over, but at the same time regulated the listener. Occasionally Muzak misjudged the tracks selected and the focus of workers attentions shifted to sounds they were hearing affecting the levels of production: for example, workers were noted as clapping to the tunes they were hearing instead of working. This worry for the Muzak programmers is captured well by a remark from one of their executives: ‘Once people start listening they stop working’. Engaged listening connoted system failure.

Technics and dialectics: vinyl as intensifier

The dialectical nature of music as both a controlling and liberatory force has a long history. Brueghel’s painting ‘Carnival’s quarrel with lent’ is used by Jacques Attali to illustrate the antagonism between the spirit of Carnival and the culture of abstinence and piety of the Catholic church. The noise and life of the carnival procession winds round, clashing with the sombre muted churchgoers. Attali suggests that:

‘“Carnival’s Quarrel with Lent” is a battle between two fundamental political strategies, two antagonistic cultural and ideological organizations’ (Attali; 21 )

This struggle was taken up some 20 years ago by the Teknival and squat-rave scenes that followed in the spirit of festival and carnival, a counter-culture that built on decades of sound-system developments. Soundsystem noise activated spaces and the gatherings of listeners therein. DJs inverted the methodology of the Muzak Corp using vinyl records to transmit radical noise that aimed to intensify the listener and the situation. Viewed in contrast to Muzak’s aims to mute workers’ desires on the assembly line, collective experience momentarily removed the atomisation of everyday life. The record in this instance was a carrier of critical noise, a consumable whose use-value was emphasised and exploited for its counter-cultural possibilities. The vinyl medium functioned as a tool that intensified sound, ideas and networks.

Of course records as commodities have exchange-value, hide a fetish character, and are fetishised. As distribution networks moved the releases around, micro-cultures were generated around the stores and sellers of vinyl. The DJs were consuming audio objects, but they were also part of a concrete network that reproduced itself through the flow of tangible objects. For a short period these networks were self-sustaining drawing resources into a counter-cultural situation.

The strange loop

In 1999 it was rumoured that more turntables were sold than guitars (Collins;2003). True or not the turntable was by this point an acknowledged performance tool and for decades had been an important part of sound system culture. 1999 was also the year that Napster launched as a crude software tool that allowed peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing of digital copies of MP3s. MP3 compression was a standard developed by and for the culture industry, and together with the transmission potential of the internet and the advances in digital audio recording appeared to enable a ‘democratisation’ of the means for distribution. The possibilities for the distribution of audio were emphasised by those interested in self-organising at the time. As Douglas Kellner and Steven Best pointed out in an essay written in the late 90s:

‘In the case of new MP3 technologies, both known and unknown artists can directly release their music to a listening audience without the mediation of the record industries that exploit artists, control artistic expression, and often enforce a bland homogeneity of available music. MP3 also allows any person with a computer, the right software, and a little technical savvy to be their own DJ and radio station.’ (Best, Kellner;1999)

Thrown into crisis by Napster’s rise, the RIAA (Recording Industry of America) acting on behalf of major labels, and a number of ‘stars’ passed intellectual property court cases against Napster that effectively resulted in the company closing down in 2001. However, the two teenagers that had coded Napster had set in motion a short-circuiting of the distribution model of the wider music industry, a feedback-loop between technical reason and experience. The demise of the first incarnation of Napster was quickly followed by the development of more advanced, fully P2P clients such as Kazaa and Gnutella that decentralized traffic flow. Andrew Feenberg makes use of the concept of the ‘strange loop’ to describe the way in which ‘technologically mediated groups influence technical design through their choices and protests’. The ‘strange loop’ or ‘entangled hierarchy’ describes actor and the object being acted on. Feenberg uses MC Escher’s famous image of a pair of hands simultaneously drawing each other to illustrate the entanglement and continuous interaction of society and technology. For him:

‘[..]feedback from society to technology constitutes the democratic paradox: the public is constituted by the technologies that bind it together but in turn it transforms the technologies that constitute it.’ (Feenberg;2010)

The mainstream music industry was subsequently forced into a restructuring that re-purposed physical audio commodities as intangible objects; part of a wider strategy to recapture the market from the free-flow of digital copies, and to adapt to changes in the way that audio and visual commodities were expected to be exchanged in an increasingly networked society. Now a decade and a half later it is clear that the entire media-ecology that existed around tangible sound objects experienced a major shift in moving toward intangible recordings, shifting first to a phase of file downloads, and then to the inevitability of streaming content. For the majority of consumers music has moved from ownership of audio objects to access as a service: from ‘being in having’, to ‘being in appearing’.

Exterior design

While the wider music industry had by the 90s already transitioned to tangible digital objects (CDs), dance music and DJ culture continued to revolve around (and evolve the production of) vinyl records. Recorded music is of course not a pure transmission of the original signal, the mastering and cutting process greatly adds to the character of the object, and the entangling of these processes with the artists intentions can amplify or mute those intentions. Audio mastering must carefully work with the limitations of the sound container to exploit its potential. In the case of the vinyl record, a ‘strange loop’ developed whereby artists brought productions to mastering engineers, and engineers used the tools available and the character of the record to intensify the artists’ productions. When pressed, these objects moved through networks, and DJs in turn used them in the dance to create situations of intensity. Digital formats often skip these stages of post-production by releasing unmastered tracks, removing the power and reach of the sound object, in what seems to be a regressive step.

If one is to achieve the most effective sound object, Musical carriers/containers matter. This is not to say that the digital container will never be as effective, but that that moment hasn’t yet arrived.

The record as container of soundwaves is a pregnant tangible object, what Evan Eisenberg calls a ‘sculpted block of time’. The passage of sound through time is carved into an oil byproduct and mass produced. Unmistakably physical, its vibrations are reactivated when contact is made with a stylus. Eisenberg describes how the record ‘shatters a public architecture of time’, modularising moments that the individual can use to construct an ‘interior design’ (Eisenberg;2005). Eisenberg’s sense is that the listener withdraws with a captured moment that can be re-experienced and re-contextualised; an experience that negates communal ritual. These oil rich blocks of time are of course encountered differently by DJs; they are used rather than listened to. DJs create an external sonic architecture that is intended to be consumed communally. For the vinyl DJ, interaction with the record object is direct and active. In a recent interview Jeff Mills explained his preference for vinyl as:

‘[..]the physical aspect of connecting with this motion, this clockwise motion of this disc, information, the frailty of it all. The needle is just tracking on the surface of this record. And that any jolt would totally disorient it, and everyone else, and myself.’ (The Wire November 2011)

The record is the result of a complex process, and like any commodity it hides more than it shows: ideas, social-relations, networks and intentions. Mills emphasises the physicality of the object, but also what it hides and its fixing of time. Just over a hundred years ago the phonograph solidified as commodity and gave music permanence and fixity, music’s thingness has in the last two decades, however, been unravelling.

[..]this is the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by “intangible as well as tangible things”

Post millennium, with the rapid rise of P2P sharing and the growth in the popularity of MP3s, independent labels that used physical sound carriers to distribute new releases saw a gradual decline which only became clear retrospectively. Consumption of the record-object became largely replaced by degraded digital audio characterised by low bitrates that were poorly reproduced in increasingly solitary ways (ipods, phones etc). So too tangible networks fell away with intangible objects becoming mediated by virtual networks: the web, social networking etc. With streaming usurping downloads, we see a double regression: a degrading of the audio object and a distancing of use-value.

For a long time vinyl was the primary format that DJs chose to use, but now it’s one of many sound containers; vinyl, CDs, lossy (MP3s, AAC), or lossless (WAV, FLAC, OGG) formats. Many of these options attempt to mirror the physical experience of DJing vinyl. The tactile action is recreated in systems like Serato where timecoded vinyl is played on a turntable, but is linked to a laptop holding a library of data files.

The virtual sound object promised much in the way of democratisation (bypassing the mechanisms of production), but a decade after file downloads began to solidify as commodities, it is clear that the mainstream music industry benefited most from this time of flux. The move to intangible commodities has been part of a wider restructuring of the music industry, and its accompanying media-ecology. While the Muzak Corp had decades earlier atempted to remove any possibility of engagement by workers’ to what they were hearing, here intangibility reveals itself in streaming as a move towards a more contemplative interaction, and a denial of power of the radical audio object. Paradoxically the democratisation of technology that enabled the removal of barriers to musical production, and made possible self-directed distribution, also has the potential to degrade and dilute audio production and auditory experience, directly and indirectly contributing to an increase in pacification and alienation.

‘That is the trap. The trap of false liberation through the distribution to each individual of the instruments of his own alienation, tools for self-sacrifice.’ (Attali;1985)

In the wider mainstream music industry vinyl sales have for the last five years seen year on year increases, peaking this year (2014) with a 40% increase on 2013 (US figures) (Nielson;2014). Looking at the list of top sellers, it’s clear that the majority of those consuming and contributing to this rise in sales of vinyl are uninterested in radical noise; the renewed interest in vinyl is not about acquiring fresh sounds. Independents have seen a negligible rise in sales with those wishing to buy new sounds looking first to digital formats. The reversion to physical commodities is an industry of nostalgia: a misguided attempt to recover ‘being in having’ rather than ‘being in appearing’. The virtual sound object has largely degraded and abstracted the recording into a lesser representation.

The virtual sound object can share some of the record’s thing characteristics, however, the supporting media-ecology is lacking. Although it’s possible to bring abstracted sound back to a physical manifestation, eg burning audio to CDs, using Serato or using Ableton as DJ tools, the commodity experiences a loss. Networked society opened virtual connections and virtual space, however virtual connections and virtual space can only supplement not substitute actual connections and actual spaces of possibility. Here is not to lament the passing of a format, but to bring into focus the urgent need to adapt critical processes and concepts immanent to the current configuration.

References

Adorno, Theodor W. “On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening.” The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. New York: Continuum, 1982. 288-317. Print.
Attali, Jacques. Noise: The Political Economy of Music. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1985. Print.
Best, Steven and Kellner, Douglas – “Debord, Cybersituations, and the Interactive Spectacle”, SubStance, Vol. 28, No. 3, Issue 90: Special Issue: Guy Debord (1999), pp. 129-156. Article
Nicolas Collins, “Groove, Pit and Wave” Leonardo Music Journal, Volume 13, (2003), pp. 1-3. Article
Eisenberg, Evan – The Recording Angel. Yale University Press, 2005. Print
Feenberg, Andrew “Ten Paradoxes”, Techne 14:1 Winter 2010. Article
“Consider This | Straight to Plate.” Consider This | Straight to Plate. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Oct. 2013. http://www.muzakblog.com/.
Nielson Entertainment and Billboard’s 2014 Mid-Year Music Industry Report. Web. 03October 2014 https://www.scribd.com/doc/232506898/Nielsen-Music-2014-Mid-Year-US-Report

Originally published in two parts in Datacide Thirteen and Fourteen. Re-edited by the author for this publication in July 2015.

Story by Dan Hekate from Almanac for Noise & Politics 2015

An array of lights blinked across the gleaming hard black plastic of MooD’s head as slinky welcoming music box sounds came from his hidden speakers. Seth Lindstrum waved his hand in front of the sensor and the door slammed closed.
“What fuck brain ordered me a MooD.” Said the hulking figure of Seth as he strode into the middle of his own welcome home party.
“Are we gonna spend the whole night arguing over whose go it is to load a new tune or let MooD handle the whole shebang?” Said Vince who had served with Seth in the battlegrounds of the Basque country.
“I thought you boys liked toys?” Said Zanda, Seth’s petite fiancé, as she waved her hand in front of the door. MooD entered exuding an Afrobeat and strutting a slow moonwalk.
“I hate those things and now I’ve got one in my pod, it’s like Marky died for nothing.”
“Shouldn’t you be petitioning on MeMe or shining holoboards out in Westminster with the other Ludds?” Said Zanda.

“Babe, you’re a great piece of ass but you should keep your mouth closed.”

Sensing the collective emotions of the crowd through a combination of olfactory systems and facial signals MooD worked the floor emitting a mix of glitch hop and grime, lasers from his head bounced around the room; his moves a mutated breakdance. Amongst the boogying crowd Seth sat slumped on the sofa downing energy drinks and giving Zanda evils.

Zanda fiddled with her Iph and got MooD to home in on Seth, hardcore metal sung out. Finally a smile crossed Seth’s lips but only momentarily; he realised what was happening and replaced it with a grimace, he wouldn’t let himself be played.
“What’s your issue with MooD? It might not have feelings but it’s quasi intelligent” Asked Zanda perching on the armrest of Seth’s chair.
“Sentience is a right reserved for those of flesh and blood. What is this pile of junk but plastic wires and the embedded code of socially inadequate geeks? And I should trust my life to this thing? Bullshit, AIs can’t be trusted.”
“And humans can? This isn’t a killing machine it’s a piece of entertainment equipment programmed by some of the best musicians on the planet.”
“I don’t need a droid to play me what it thinks I want to hear.” Said Seth aggressively jutting his head forward towards Zanda, who got up and wandered over to MooD draping her arms around it and leading the bot into a slow dance.
“Are you a DJ?”
“It wont be long before a robot takes my place.”
“In the bedroom or the workplace?” Said Zanda as she rubbed herself seductively against the machine.
Seth sprang from his seat, slapped her round the face and threw her and the MooD into his bedroom while the rest of the party stood and watched.
“Aren’t you fuckers going to do anything?” Screamed Zanda.
“Stop winding him up, it’s his party.” Imparted Vince as the door closed.

MooD played discordant melodies and abrasive noise. Seth slammed his foot into it.
“Maybe this thing is more intelligent than you.” Observed Zanda as Seth hit her again. He then turned to the MooD.
“Shut the fuck up or I’ll garrote you with your own power lead.” It seemed to power down and went silent.
“Maybe you were responsible for Marky’s death, maybe you try and blame it on the machine but it’s only your failure to understand how to program that led to your friend’s death.” Spat Zanda.
Seth pummeled her with punches hitting her again and again; at the end of the barrage he took her by her hair and threw her onto the balcony. A savage wind tore around her as she lay on the floor.
Seth searched the room for his laser pistol.
“I’m gonna fucking murder you.” He said as he put his mitts around the weapon, raised it and took aim.
MooD exuded a six hertz sound wave and Seth’s insides disintegrated, the splatter of his blood a rhythmic end to the pulsing bass.
Zanda managed to raise her head to smile at the machine that had saved her but the MooD had gone into shutdown. The confusion of breaking the first rule of robotics (that you should never harm a human) to uphold that same first law had sent it into a corrupted circuit of confusion, the death waltz it’s last tune. The billowing wind that threw Zanda’s hair into the air was the only accompaniment to an air of silence and a scent of death.

Fundraiser for the Scheffi on Saturday with a talk by Christoph Fringeli of Datacide as well as Fabian Frenzel (Institut für Nomadologie), then party with:

Organized by: panda!
Location: Librería Utopía – radical bookstore vienna, Preysinggasse 26-28, 1150 Wien
Facebook Event

Datacide ist eine Zeitschrift, die von den Schnittmengen von experimenteller elektronischer Musik und radikaler Politik ausgehend Möglichkeiten und Momente von Subversion, Gegenkultur und Revolution untersucht und formuliert. Gegründet wurde Datacide 1997 in London quasi als schriftliches Pendant des Musik-Labels Praxis, das von Christoph Fringeli seit 1992 betrieben wird, und das mit seinen Veröffentlichungen im Bereich von Noise, Breakcore und experimenteller Tanzmusik einen internationalen Ruf genießt. Nun sind die ersten 10 Ausgaben von Datacide in einem Band erschienen und präsentieren auf 364 Seiten eine einzigartige Geschichte der Gegenkulturen, die mit elektronischer Musik und Teknivals assoziiert sind.

Christoph Fringeli wird über die Wurzeln und Inspirationen von Datacide berichten und diskutieren.

Link zum Buch: http://datacide-magazine.com/datacide-books-for-2015/

Die Veranstaltung ist kostenlos (Spenden erbeten) und wird von unserem Kulturverein “Assoziation Panda – Verein zur Förderung des kritischen literarischen Diskurses” organisiert.

And on Saturday 27-02-2016, there will be a Praxis floor at the yearly Cyberrise Free Party at EKH, feat. 2/5 BZ, Ari Nev, Christoph Fringeli,  Crash 0.1 a.k.a. Mr. Damned, Eiterherd, Franz Rasputin, Johnny Weissbrot, Lynx, and Zombieflesheater.

Silvia Biagioni’s documentary on Praxis will be shown this Friday as a part of the Program of the Globale Film Festival. The Festival is taking place at Kino Movimento from Thursday 28th to Sunday 31st, “Nothing Essential Happens in the Absence of Noise” will be screened Friday night at 21.30. Both Silvia as well as Christoph Fringeli will be there for questions/discussion.

FESTIVAL PAGE FOR THE MOVIE

Best new music released between Datacide 14 and 15 (November 2014-February 2016).
These are some of the tracks and releases of 2015 played out frequently by Datacide contributors!
(no order)

JoeFarr: Longanimity EP (Leisure System 014)

Ripit: Lvnar Xtorxion (Thirdtypetapes 16)

Room 506: Drop Out/Red Embers

M.E.S.H.: Piteous Gate (Pan 66)

The Sprawl: E.P.1 (The Death Of Rave 13)

Shapednoise: Different Selves (Type 127)

Abelcain & Alexandra von Bolz’n: Heart Blood Steel (self-release)

In the Mouth of the Wolf: Need of Angels (Diagonal 028)

Mumdance & Logos: Proto (Tectonic 82)

Savier_BFC: Porks Is Porks (Bloody Funny Clown 02)

Ascion and D.Carbone: Substructures (3TH005)

GRMMSK: One World – Nowhere To Hide (Sozialistischer Plattenbau 12026)

Ansome & Ossian: PLS.UK001 (PLS.UK001)

Umwelt: When Past and Future Collapse (New Flesh 16)

8Cylinder: Pour The Poison Out And Let Them Play Until The End (Unmapped North 03)

Also check out Diskore’s mixes Best of 2015 Part 1 and Best of 2015 Part 2 where some of these tracks are played.

THIS FRIDAY @ ShowBarlang
Radical Suburban Folkmusic
DAVOR!A!
Base Force One (Praxis, Datacide, Berlin)
Lynx (Praxis, Datacide, Portland Oregon)
Telesport
Thalium
R2D2
Log:n
BARLANG
Almond Lama
Isu
Zefyr
Kontrast
Brnwrx
Maks
Also tune into Davoria show on https://tilos.hu/ from 3am. Next day we meet Christoph Fringeli, the editor of Datacide Magazine, and founder of Praxis Records.

SATURDAY
Szombaton 18h-tól a Müsziben Christoph Fringelivel, a Datacide szerkesztőjével és a Praxis Records alapítójával beszélgetünk.

A helyszínen Datacide kiadványok kaphatóak!

Az esemény ingyenes!

Szombaton 18h-tól a Müsziben Christoph Fringelivel, a Datacide szerkesztőjével és a Praxis Records alapítójával beszélgetünk.

A helyszínen Datacide kiadványok kaphatóak!

Az esemény ingyenes!

Az eredetileg londoni székhelyű Datacide magazin először 1997-ben jelent meg, és továbbra is működik de azóta már Berlinben. Ezidáig két könyvet adtak ki, amiket a szerkesztő Christoph Fringeli mutat majd be egy beszélgetés keretében a Datacide történetéről az underground kiadványok találkozásáról az experimentális elektronikus zene, a radikális politika, fesztivál kultúra és autonóm nyomdai kiadványok határmezsgyéjén haladva.

Jóideje az egyik kiemelkedő jelentőségű projekt az “EVERYTHING IS EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS” néven futó első könyv, ami teljes Datacide kiadványokat tartalmaz 1997 és 2008 között. Ez egy egyedi gyűjtemény ami első sorban az elektronikus zene és free fesztiválok által képviselt ellenkultúrával foglalkozik, manapság már nehezen hozzáférhető anyagokat tartalmaz.

A második egy zsebkönyv méretű almanac ami irányvonalat mutat a Datacide univerzum megismeréséhez, a kapcsolódó lemezkiadó a Praxis records és
a bővebb underground hálózathoz aminek részesei.

A könyvek az esemény alatt megvásárolhatóak.

Datacide, the Magazine for Noise & Politics first appeared in 1997, originally based in London and continues today operating from Berlin.
Now Datacide have published two books, and editor Christoph Fringeli will present them with a talk about the history of Datacide and underground publishing in the intersections of experimental electronic music, radical politics, festival culture and autonomous print creations.

A major project in the works for quite some time, the first book contains the complete issues 1-10 of datacide, which originally appeared from 1997-2008. Titled “EVERYTHING ELSE IS EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS”, the 364 page volume collects unique material, most of which has been out of print for many years, charting a one-of-a-kind history of the counter-cultures associated with electronic music and free festivals.

The second book is a pocket sized almanac providing entry points into the universe of Datacide, the associated record label Praxis and the extended underground network they are a part of.

FACEBOOK EVENT for Saturday

VERMIN edition #14

Party s : ! : ! ! : ::
Lynx (Praxis, Datacide, Portland Oregon)
Base Force One (Praxis, Datacide, Berlin)
urbanfailure (urbsounds.sk)
BassTom (gabber.sk)
dskg (noise Bratislava)

… a prezentacia Knihy vydanej: Praxis & Datacide
Book release “EVERYTHING ELSE IS EVEN MORE RIDICULOUS – Datacide Magazine 1-10 in one Volume”

Talk by editor Christoph Fringeli about counter-cultural and underground publishing, the history of Datacide and new projects.

Slovakian announcement text:

Začiatok 90tych rokov je obdobie, kedy sa časť rozmáhajúcej sa elektronickej hudobnej scény vzďaľuje od mainstreamu a miesto populárnych klubov si svoje miesto hľadá v opustených skladoch, squatoch, verejných priestranstvách a vďaka pirátskym vysielačom aj v éteri veľkomiest. Toto vymknutie sa spod kontroly má za následok zvýšený záujem polície a v UK ústi až do prípravy zákona Criminal Justice Act, ktorý je namierený hlavne proti ilegálnym parties a teknivalom organizovaných potulnými soundsystémami.
V tejto atmosfére v roku 1994 vychádza nulté číslo časopisu (vtedy ešte pod názvom Alien Underground) s podtitulom Techno Theory for Juvenile Deliquents (teória techna pre mladistvých delikventov). Okrem recenzii nahrávok (hlavne techno, industrial a core všetkých druhov), DJ chartov a rozhovorov s hudobníkmi obsahuje články ako Bojuj proti Criminal Justice Bill alebo Nič podstatné sa neudeje pokiaľ pri tom nie je hluk (akýsi antikomerčný techno manifest), čím vyjadruje ambíciu stať sa niečím viac, než len hudobným fanzinom.
Neskôr sa časopis premenováva na DATACIDE a nepravideľne vychádza až do dnes pokrývajúc široké spektrum tém.
Štrnáste špeciálne štvrtkové vydanie párty Vermin je venované tomuto magazínu a to práve pri príležitosti knižného vydania prvých desiatich čísel pod názvom Everything Else Is Even More Ridiculous.
Knihu, časopis ale aj iné svoje projekty a aktivity (ako napríklad renomovaný label Praxis s viac ako 50 vydanými platňami na konte), príde osobne predstaviť človek v pozadí, sám Christoph Fringeli.
Jeho hudobné alterego BASE FORCE ONE bude zároveň headlinerom tohoto vydania Verminu. Očakávame, že vo svojom sete predstaví experimentálnejší ale úderný breakcore typický pre Praxis releasy. V podobnom štýle mu bude sekundovať DJka LYNX z amerického Portlandu.
Domácu stranu zastúpia: živým technotrashom URBANFAILURE z Urbsounds, DSKG noisovou power elektronikou a BASSTOM z Gabba team Pressburg Hard&Break core DJ setom.
Štvrtok, 21.1.2016 @FUGA, Vstupné 5 EUR

Facebook event

As always in the first days of the new year we publish a list of the most read articles on datacide (online) during the previous year:

1. You’re Too Young to Remember the Eighties – Dancing in a Different Time by DJ Controlled Weirdness. This nice piece on the 80′s dance underground in London is from Datacide Ten, published in 2008 and already the most read article for the last two years! And since last year it also has become the most read piece on this site, overtaking the Coil Interview from 1986, which was still the second most read piece in 2015:

2. COIL – Interview from 1986 plus Introduction. Classic interview with John Balance – originally published in the Zine “turn to crime” (Vision 2). Vision was of course the predecessor of Praxis/Datacide. Reprinted in Datacide Nine (2006/2014)

3. Anti-Semitism from Beyond the Grave – Muslimgauze’s Jihad by Christoph Fringeli. Getting read more and more – and predictably STILL getting the usual flak from fanboys and apologists… Originally from Datacide Nine (2006)

4. Dope Smuggling, LSD Manufacture, Organised Crime & the Law in 1960s London by Stewart Home from Datacide Eleven, based on his talk at the 2008 datacide conference in Berlin, and in each top 10 since then… Originally published in Datacide Eleven (2011).

5. From Subculture to Hegemony: Transversal Strategies of the New Right in Neofolk and Martial Industrial by Christoph Fringeli from Datacide Eleven (2011). This was the most read article in 2011, number 5 in 2012, number 3 in 2013 and 5 in 2014 as well as this year.

6. What the Fuck? – Operation Spanner by Jo Burzynska – always in this chart since 2011, this is the oldest Datacide article here – from Datacide Two, 1997.

7. The Brain of Ulrike Meinhof by CF is another text with a a steady readership, both previous years at number 8, in 2014 it dropped out of the “top 10″ only to re-appear again this year. Originally from Datacide Nine.

8. For the first time in this list is a short article about the text “Der Waldgang” by the writer Ernst Jünger, originally published as an appendix to “From Subculture to Hegemony” (see number 5 in this list).

9. When I landed at Gatwick Airport a couple of months ago the HSBC advertising campaign which served as the launching pad for this article by Split Horizon was still running (as it probably was elsewhere). The question remains: What is this future?. From Datacide Twelve, 2012.

10. The most read article from Datacide Fourteen in 2015 is John Eden’s account of the Hackney police’s “community relations”: “They Hate Us, We Hate Them” – Resisting Police Corruption and Violence in Hackney in the 1980s and 1990s.

11. Walter Marchetti was the subject of an essay by Howard Slater written in 2000 titled All Was Music (published in Datacide Eight in 2002). Many people read it following Marchetti’s death in May 2015.

12. Spiral Tribe interview with Mark Harrison from issue Thirteen by Neil Transpontine. Essential for those interested in the history of the 23 tribe and free party culture!

13. “Long Live Death!” – On Pasolini’s Salò, one of Howard Slater’s excellent writing on film (from Datacide Eight, 2002)

14. DJ Controlled Weirdness on the old New York and its nightlife before gentrification took hold (Datacide Fourteen, 2014): Journeys in the Naked City – Adventures in New York Before the Rain, a great sequel to his You’re Too Young to Remember the Eighties.

15. Shaking The Foundations: Reggae soundsystem meets ‘Big Ben British values’ downtown – one of the articles that appeared in Datacide (this one in issue Eleven, 2011) dealing with the reggae soundsystem culture and its history, by John Eden.

16. Also by John Eden is this interview: The Dog’s Bollocks – Vagina Dentata Organ and The Valls Brothers which gives great insight into some of the more interesting industrial culture.

17. Dancing with Death: The Excremental, the Sacred & Ecstatic Community in Free Party Culture by Hannah Lammin

18. Revolt of the Ravers – The Movement against the Criminal Justice Act in Britain 1993-95 by Neil Transponine.

19. This online-only article Repression and the Riot Situation in Kamagasaki (Osaka) related to G8 Meeting by JR from 2008 had a steep surge of readership in spring 2014 and was still read often enough in the following year to make it into this “top 20″.

20. François Genoud – The life of a Swiss banker and fascist anti-Imperialist by CF, originally published in Datacide Ten.

Rather than making it a “top ten” as in previous years, we decided to enlarge it to include the 20 most read pieces. After all we don’t necessarily want people to keep reading the same articles, as interesting as they are, but hopefully discover new ones as well. For this reason we add three more (more or less randomly chosen) articles which for some reason haven’t nearly received the attention they deserve.

-3: Book review of Die Revolution war für mich ein grosses Abenteuer – Paul Mattick im Gespräch mit Michael Buckmiller by CF from Datacide Fourteen. Revolution & Left Communism!

-2: Submission Soundtracking by Robert Old – Electronica, X-Files, Information War… Auto-Toxicity! …from Datacide Eight.

-1: Howard Slater on The Western, more writing on film from Datacide Four (1998)!

Enjoy!

We are doing a launch event for our two new books at Housmans Bookshop this Friday and will have a stall at the London Anarchist Bookfair this Saturday!

Hope to see you there!

Details:

Friday, 23-10-2015, from 7.30pm (until ca. 9pm) at Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian Road, King’s Cross, London N1 9DX
Entry is £ 3.00 Redeemable towards any purchase in the store.
With speakers Stewart Home, Neil Transpontine and Christoph Fringeli
Please spread the word and invite your friends!
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Saturday 24-10-2015 from 10am-7pm Anarchist Bookfair
This year it’s at: Central Saint Martin’s, University of the Arts London, Granary Building, 1 Granary Square, London N1C 4AA
closest tube/train station King’s Cross/St.Pancras.
http://anarchistbookfair.org.uk/
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