Experimental Sound
Since our earliest days, human kind has been attracted to certain rhythmic repetitions. Over 42,000 years ago when our people found they could create small flutes if they bore crude holes in mammoth bone. The early people came upon this discovery not by luck, but by trial and error. Playing with the sound, they were discovering ways to control sound in a way that has some meaning or pleasing effect. In all the subsequent years, we have not stopped searching for new sources of acoustic art.
Experimental Sound has always existed, but it was not until the mid-20th century that the acoustic explorations found their way into a singular and recognizable genre. Composers like Pierre Schaffer from France, pushed the limits of sound in an academic setting. He started by playing selections backwards, changing their tempo, adding effects. This is a simple start to the distortion of existing music steadily evolved into Schaffer using his own equipment to create new, unique and original pieces.
Schaffer created an effect on mainstream music, which has been reproduced and adapted many times over. In rap and hip-hop this can be seen in the form of Experimental Hip Hop, a subgenre, which is less, recognized as a genre itself and more recognized by its particular artists such as De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest. This infusion of experimental aspects was further adapted by the inclusion of Afrocentric sounds and political thought, exemplified by Public Enemy. Further, rappers like Kanye West have incorporated Experimental Hip Hop with performance art as evidenced by the Yeezus tour, which had Kanye West performing the first half of the show wearing a studded mask to express his frustration with celebrity. West’s album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy incorporated a semi-linear narrative with juxtaposed sounds, alternating tempo and razor sharp transitions between tracks. His follow up The Life of Pablo, further incorporates experimental sound and lyrics, taking a step away from tradition Hip Hop. To many, The Life of Pablo is too abstract and his halting repetitive verse loses the audiences attention as his personal/public life spirals out of control.
Earlier, Schaffer’s effect can be felt in the emergence of the Psychedelic sound. The Beatles, arguably the time periods most well-known performers, incorporated the use of repetitive verse, as exhibited in Revolution Number 9, in which a piano theme and the words “Number 9” are looped over and over, creating a unique soundscape. This can also be seen in selections such as Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band, which can almost be heard as multiple separate songs, yet transition between them so seamlessly that it would a disservice to do so.
Experimental Sound, it can be argued, is the essence of music itself. Often relegated to the category of artsy noise, without artists taking the time to explore new soundscapes, popular music itself would dry up like a deprived riverbed and while many artists will take only what works, without this exploration we’d all be severely deprived.
Department of Fabrication 