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Whitehouse, Merzbow, Maurizio Bianchi, the Haters, Hanatarash, the Gerogerigege, Massona, Prurient, John Wiese…

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Whitehouse, Merzbow, Maurizio Bianchi, the Haters, Hanatarash, the Gerogerigege, Massona, Prurient, John Wiese… As Loud as Possible As Loud as Possible Concert de Hanatarash, Toritsu Kasei Loft, Tokyo, 1985 (Photos : Gin Satoh) Concert de Hanatarash, Toritsu Kasei Loft, Tokyo, 1985 (Photos : Gin Satoh) Whitehouse, Merzbow, Maurizio Bianchi, The Haters, Hanatarash, The Gerogerigege, Massona, Prurient, John Wiese… Un parcours parmi les grandes figures du harsh noise, au sein de l’internationale du bruit sale de ses origines à nos jours. AS LOUD AS 48 POSSi- 49 bLe. Whitehouse, Merzbow, Maurizio Bianchi, The Haters, Hanatarash, The Gerogerigege, Massona, Prurient, John Wiese… A tour among the major figures in harsh noise, within dirty Noise International—from its inception to the present day. Fenêtre ouverte. Le bruit, c’est ce son fronde, indompta- juste une main pour sculpter, une intention pour guider, Mais comment la musique a-t-elle osé muter en ça ? ble, discordant, une puanteur dans l’oreille, comme l’a écrit à peine une idée pour le conceptualiser. Il n’est pas une Objectivement, si on regarde la tête du harsh noise, son Ambrose Bierce dans son Devil’s Dictionary, ce que tout musique bruyante mais une musique-bruit taillée, pas un nom, il faut tout de même se pencher un peu en arrière, le oppose et tout interdit à la musique. Le bruit sévère, le bruit genre, encore moins un mélange, car s’il est né d’amonts XXe siècle brouhaha, pour comprendre cette « birth-death dur, le harsh noise, c’est, pire encore, le chaos volontaire, la lisibles dans l’histoire de la musique, dans l’histoire du XXe experience », si l’on m’autorise à citer le titre d’un disque de crasse en liberté, même pas la musique de son-bruits rêvée siècle, il n’a dans sa pratique et sa nature d’autre horizon Whitehouse, le premier de surcroît. Jacques Attali écrit dans par Luigi Russolo dès 1913, même pas le bruit des machines que ses propres vertus terminales, il n’a d’autre filiation que son Bruits de 1977 (hors-sujet, quand même, n’en déplaise ou un miroir sale, mais plutôt le vide exagéré par la violence le petit paradoxe technologique qui lui permet d’exister. Il aux universitaires du noise qui adorent venir y piocher des électrique. Il n’est pas moderne, il n’est pas industriel, il est convient à cet effet de ne pas se perdre dans les méandres explications), que « la vie est bruyante, bruits du travail, eLectrOPhiLiA pire. Russolo voyait l’art des bruits des machines comme le des mélodies sculptées, éventuellement mises à mal par le bruits des hommes, bruits des bêtes », mais ce qui est sur- Black Noise Practitioner possible dans le creux de l’oreille nouvelle : le harsh noise, bruit, l’électricité, les logiciels, de la musique produite, en tout arrivé en même temps que les machines et les véhicules, (Skul, 2004) terminal, envisage juste détruire jusqu’à cette oreille-là. Le cherchant désespérément le harsh noise, puisqu’il n’est lié à la c’est la musique qui a envahi la vie, qui est devenue ce bruit En 1997, Steven Parrino concevait ce qui harsh noise est un trou noir. Le harsh noise asservit ses technologie que dans ses mésusages, la violence qu’il inflige de fond total sans filiation avec l’art, quand les supports de devait devenir sa nouvelle tendance musi- praticiens servants, ses militants. Le harsh noise est, dans aux machines en les dérivant avec elles-mêmes, en lacérant stockage eux-mêmes (disques, bandes, ondes et fréquences cale : un son électrique et brutal. Après la musique, l’ennemi sensible, une extrémité horrible. Le membranes par le volume, en forçant les épousailles avec dématérialisées dans les airs, dans les mémoires virtuelles, quelques obscurs concerts, Electrophilia était né. En 2002, Jutta Koether, elle- harsh noise n’est pas anxiogène, mais, pire encore, un assaut les pires artefacts de junk technologique récupéré dans la dans les réseaux) sont devenus sources supplémentaires. même artiste noise et performeuse de volontaire, une menace littérale pour le corps, un marteau poubelle du voisin puis branché tel, ou un peu éventré, dans Dans l’art, le parcours est un éclat dans toutes les directions longue date, rejoignait le groupe. Avec piqueur, un livre sans narrateur ni personnages, un cylindre la mixette épuisée ; il convient de comprendre que le harsh du monde, l’invasion progressive des glissandi et des tessi- Koether et Parrino comme agitateurs de douleur, une aberration au monde à moudre du signe, ce noise est né au bout du siècle de l’information, en essayant tures dans l’orchestre, Henri Barzun et la simultanéité dans d’idées et de sons, Electrophilia s’est imposé et a marqué de sa présence divers qui n’aurait jamais dû s’incarner, en quelque sorte. Le harsh de faire sans elle, en s’incarnant en poussière exagérée des la poésie pour « boucaner », Dada, ses bruits de tambour et shows new-yorkais. Ces concerts ont été noise, c’est un bruit volontairement libéré, un labyrinthe de musiques électriques, en cendre de mort de musique sacri- ses monceaux d’ordures, Russolo et ses machines de musi- enregistrés, et quatre d’entre eux rassem- feedbacks autogénéré, autodévorant en même temps, avec fiée, annulation saturée. que de guerre, Schwitters et « la pensée dans la bouche », blés sur un nouvel album : Black Noise Practitioner. Le son d’ Electrophilia s’ap- Varèse et ses sirènes, Varèse et ses tambours, les radios parente à un mélange de la densité sonore et les platines sur la scène de l’auditorium avec Milhaud, du Metal Machine Music de Lou Reed, avec Cowell, avec Cage, l’interlude de la musique de bruits de la stridence libératrice d’Albert Ayler, enregistrés (et, c’est hors-sujet, organisés) de Schaeffer, le des intrusions radicales de Merzbow et de la brutalité obscène des Stooges. Noise Le harsh noise, c’est le chaos volontaire, la crasse en psychédélique radical, Electrophilia mêle la manipulation brutale des basses électri- liberté, le vide exagéré par la violence électrique. ques aux textures glaçantes des synthés. Le harsh noise est un trou noir...une extrémité horrible. In 1997 Parrino conceptualized what was to be his new musical focus, a sound 50 Texte / Text : Olivier Lamm electric and brutal, and after a few small 51 obscure shows, Electrophilia was born. In 2002 Jutta Koether, long time noise & per- Harsh noise is deliberate chaos, filth set free, the void formance artist in her own right, joined the band. With Koether and Parrrino mashing exaggerated by electric violence. But how did music dare to change into that? ideas and sounds Electrophilia has expan- ded and made its presence felt in shows Harsh noise is a blak hole... a horrible extreme. Objectively, if we look at the first feature of harsh noise, around NYC. These shows have been docu- its name, we need to turn back a little, to the 20th-century mented, and four have been collected and hubbub, to understand this “birth-death experience,” if I turned into this double LP release: Black may quote the title of a record by Whitehouse, their first Noise Practitioner. The sound of Electro- philia evokes a mix of the sonic denseness what’s more. Jacques Attali wrote in Noise, published in of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, the An open window. Noise is that rebellious, uncontrol- sculpt it, an intention to guide it, barely an idea to concep- 1977 (irrelevant, even so, whatever university academics of free screech of Albert Ayler, the extreme lable, discordant sound, “a stench in the ear,” as Ambrose tualise it. It is not noisy music but hewn noise-music, not “noise” who love digging around in it for explanations may attack of Merzbow and the raw dirt of the Stooges. Electrophilia is extreme psychede- Bierce wrote in his Devil’s Dictionary, what everything a genre, still less a mixture, because it is born of sources think), that “life is noisy, work noises, human noises, ani- lic noise; brutal electric bass manipulations opposes to music and forbids music from being. Loud detectable farther back in the history of music, in the his- mal noises,” but above all what happened at the same time interwoven with freezing synth textures. noise, hard noise, “harsh noise” is worse still: it is delibe- tory of the 20th century, in its practice and its nature it as machines and vehicles was the invasion of our lives by rate chaos, filth set free, not even the noise-sound music has no horizon other than its own terminal virtue, it has music, which became that total background noise with no dreamt up by Luigi Russolo as early as 1913, not even the no filiation other than the little technological paradox that relation to art, when the very means of storing it (records, noise of machines or a dirty mirror, but rather the void allows it to exist. It is therefore appropriate not to get lost tapes, waves and frequencies dematerialised in the air, in exaggerated by electric violence. It isn’t modern, it isn’t in the meanders of sculpted melodies, possibly undermined virtual memories, in networks) became supplementary sour- industrial, it’s worse. Russolo saw the art of the noises by noise, electricity, software, music produced searching ces of noise. In art, the path taken was an explosion to all made by machines as the potential in the hollow of the desperately for harsh noise, since it is linked to technology corners of the world, the gradual invasion of the orchestra new ear: terminal harsh noise envisages only destroying only in its misuses, the violence it inflicts on machines by by glissandi and tessituras, Henri Barzun and simultaneity that selfsame ear.
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