When Robert Muso's first CD came out my felling was that it would havebeen kinder if Laswell had discouraged his sound engineer from crossingto the other side. But rather than being electronic ambience, TheMusique Concrete [sic]Ensemble—sound engineer Raphael Irisarri's project—is high-glosspost-rock ambience for Tortoise fans. At times it aims at plaintiverepeated guitar melodies and hits home in exactly the way somepost-rock does, that is, it seems to be saying that being able to writea decent melody (like, say, GBYE can) isn't important. Now, it's truethat you don't have to have much of a voice to be a great singer, butthat's a limitation of technique—it's quite another thing to usetechnique and production to try and bring life to a dead melody. It'sexactly the same problem with the rock-oriented drum machine tracks;the programmer seems not to understand what it is that makes good rockdrumming good. Stravinsky ditched his highly effective washes ofstrings fairly early, arguing that they are too easy and manipulative.Today, the same issue often applies to the not-quite-endemic washes ofreverberated guitar, synths and vocals; or the not-quite-obligatorybackground sound effects and samples folk use to fill out their music.Add to these the not-quite-ubiquitous hidden last track, the detailedlisting of archaic electronic instruments, the retro package design,and the Stockhausen, Ussachevsky and La Monte Young name drops (andmuch besides) from their web site and I think we have the clue to theproject's real intent. Normally, these elements would be entirelyirrelevant except for marketing purposes. Their overuse by both The MCEand Irisarri's label ECO, rather than being an indication of a bad caseof fashion victim syndrome, is, somewhat like the K-Foundation, apost-modern prank aimed at seeing how far they can push semiotics-basedmerchandising before their post-whatever audience catches on. Thatsaid, I admit to being entirely taken in by the cover art.Read More
