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Hearing the Cloud: Can Music Help Reimagine The Future?
Can music be a curse? Here is an alternate history of online politics and new technology from the perspective of listening, typing, composing, and shared hearing. Emile Frankel presents a rigorous account of a world felt to be in crisis. The aesthetic and tonal ramifications for such feelings are twisted within the oppressive online structures mediating new music. The legacies of Silicon Valley digitalism, 4chan, Less Wrong, and Chaos Magic are compared to the magical thinking which underlies stochastic composition, and the aesthetics of deconstructed club music. Despite a pessimistic account of Accelerationism and reactionary philosophy, Frankel's spirited writing is full of hope. Hearing the Cloud considers the communal online conversations we engage in daily as profound acts of defiance. Sweet, lithe, oily, and honest music is shown to be an important source of togetherness.
- GenresMusic
241 pages, Paperback
Published November 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 21, 2023
I keep returning to this book. I read it when it came out and loved its originality, insight and philosophical and literary breadth. It has proved to be ahead of its time, foreshadowing the trajectory of machine learning in contemporary music and media culture. It raises questions about the act of making new music in the face of technological and environmental crises. It is so relevant to current debates about AI, ChatGPT and what these developments may mean for the composer/writer/creator and for music. As the blurb says, it takes us through the soundscapes of neoliberal capitalism and collective listening. I really recommend it.
September 2, 2021
A detailed analysis of online subcultures, irony as "critique", cyberpunk literature, the deconstruction of artistic mediums as protest and many other facets of hyper-online life - and unlike a lot of critical theory, is very clear in its message of optimism. The central idea that sincerity is the greatest weapon in the arts is a very needed message, and Frankel uses more than enough examples justify this well-considered optimism.
Whether it's Hatsune Miku's audience of crushed capitalist subjects, Vaporwave fans gushing in Youtube comments over the emotionality of the music or the uniting futurism of 90s jungle ravers, it seems very clear that there is some raw human connection missing from our modern lives and yet these fractured groups do not further separate us as is commonly said. Instead Frankel paints an image of people yearning desperately for these connections, however ephemeral they may be.
'Hearing the Cloud' gives equal credit to ironic 2010s dystopian rave aesthetics as to the dank corners of 4chan, and wherever people can unite seemingly free from the weight of late capitalism there is a touching moment that must be held dearly.
If you aren't familiar with names like Orange Milk Records, Amnesia Scanner, Holly Herndon etc then I would still recommend reading this. Musical references and their significance are explained fully and are used to examine broader cultural ideas. Great pains seem to have been made to fully illustrate these artists in the text, but of course the best experience will be had by those already familiar.
There is something hilarious about a discussion of supposed irony that starts by interrogating the politics of Oneohtrix Point Never's vaporwave forays and then on the same page discussing Clive Palmer shutting down the irony party by posting unflattering memes of himself.
Though I would say, there are a lot of cultural references but the best moments are these sparks of originality where seemingly impossibly disparate references are woven together and the author injects their own personality. There is a generous amount of poetic prose too which serves as a nice break from the usual academic format, again this is where the author really shines.
Another great text for any Zer0 readers, and I'll be looking out for anything else by Emile Frankel in the future, certainly one to watch!
Whether it's Hatsune Miku's audience of crushed capitalist subjects, Vaporwave fans gushing in Youtube comments over the emotionality of the music or the uniting futurism of 90s jungle ravers, it seems very clear that there is some raw human connection missing from our modern lives and yet these fractured groups do not further separate us as is commonly said. Instead Frankel paints an image of people yearning desperately for these connections, however ephemeral they may be.
'Hearing the Cloud' gives equal credit to ironic 2010s dystopian rave aesthetics as to the dank corners of 4chan, and wherever people can unite seemingly free from the weight of late capitalism there is a touching moment that must be held dearly.
If you aren't familiar with names like Orange Milk Records, Amnesia Scanner, Holly Herndon etc then I would still recommend reading this. Musical references and their significance are explained fully and are used to examine broader cultural ideas. Great pains seem to have been made to fully illustrate these artists in the text, but of course the best experience will be had by those already familiar.
There is something hilarious about a discussion of supposed irony that starts by interrogating the politics of Oneohtrix Point Never's vaporwave forays and then on the same page discussing Clive Palmer shutting down the irony party by posting unflattering memes of himself.
Though I would say, there are a lot of cultural references but the best moments are these sparks of originality where seemingly impossibly disparate references are woven together and the author injects their own personality. There is a generous amount of poetic prose too which serves as a nice break from the usual academic format, again this is where the author really shines.
Another great text for any Zer0 readers, and I'll be looking out for anything else by Emile Frankel in the future, certainly one to watch!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews