Then Jairus did this. Which gives me a topical push to discuss this before the Internets move on.
I like Industrial music. I like the aggression, the speed, the way it fits with the way I like to dance, the way I move. I like the darkness in it and the edginess to it. I like the way it discusses taboo(ish) subjects like depression, oppression, kink and violence. I also like that it's got a solid stream of nerd running through it.
However.
There's a line, a fuzzy line, but still a line. A point at which it stops being edgy and dark and becomes flat out offensive and beyond "problematic", moving into "a problem". Of the two bands Jairus discusses, I have two Combichrist albums, and one Nachtmahr album. My review of Combichrist's Everybody Hates You does mention the discomfort I felt about some of the lyrics, while with Nachtmahr, I just don't have enough German to really know what they're singing about (see review).
It seems that Combichrist has gone further; somehow, I feel "I am a bitch/ How do you want me?" is just barely okay (because I can imagine consenting adults happily playing out that scene), while "You feminist cunts know you want it/ Give head if you got it" is way, way over the line. I hadn't been paying attention to the last couple releases from Combichrist, because what I'd heard on podcasts hadn't thrilled me.
After liking a few of their tracks, I picked up Mordacious's recent large album Dead Inside, and was fairly disappointed that nearly every song was about violent sex. And while I don't necessarily disapprove of violent sex, if it's all about punishing dirty whores and giving it to bitches - that shit's misogynist, yo. I sometimes wonder if the music I listen to isn't just the German equivalent to the rap music I turn my nose up at, with the popping of caps in asses, the acquisition of bling and bitches and hoes (is that the correct plural form? Why is this a thing I need to know in my life?). Is Industrial really just that plus some Depeche Mode covers? One of the few German words I can readily identify is the word for "slut", thanks to Industrial music.
Similarly, I loved Suicide Commando's "Bind, Torture, Kill" when I heard it in clubs; it's great for the aggressive way I like to dance. Sure, it's clearly a song about violence, but darkness and yes, violence is part of what I like about Industrial. When I did some reading while trying to find out who the artist was and how I could get the track, I found out about BTK, a real world serial killer who murdered at least ten people. Is that something I want to celebrate? Not really. Apparently my line is "imaginary, non-specific aggression and violence: cool" and "actual real world violence/violence against targeted social groups: not cool".
I'm going to toss in a quick reference to Hansel Und Gretyl here, but leave it at that since I've got another half-written essay on "Pop Culture Nazis" in another file.
I can happily continue to ignore Combichrist's new work, because I happen to not really like it. Nachtmahr is harder. The band is really just Thomas Rainer, who is involved in something like half the bands in the genre; IIRC, he worked on the latest Covenant album (which I loved), he's also the lead for L'Ame Immortale, and I seem to recall something about him joining up with one of the classic Industrial outfits, though I can't find a reference to refresh my memory on that one.
I'm not the only one who worries about this stuff; apparently Jairus got applause form the crowd at Kinetik, and the biggest (only?) Canadian distributor of Industrial music, Storming the Base came out with a "Misogyny Is Not A Music Genre" button. Though STB does still carry music and merch for bands like Combichrist, Nachtmahr, Mordacious, etc.
What is a poor confused fan to do? Give up on the genre entirely? Since that would more or less mean "give up on music", I hate that option. Research each band to make sure the sexism and violence are at levels I find tolerable? Better, but given how much collaboration and crossover among artists, the level of effort required to vet everything comes back to "give up on music" again. Especially once I consider clubs and podcasts, if I listen to Industrial, there's going to be problematic stuff.
On one hand, sometimes I just feel like throwing up my hands and going on a permanent culture fast; everything is problematic! Industrial music, rock music, Joss Whedon's Avengers, the kink scene, every movie, book, tv show or song I have ever like: almost certainly at least a little problematic. We live in a problematic culture and the only way to not endorse it is to opt out. Entirely. Any art created will be created by a person with kyriarchical baggage that will pollute their work. "Fine, I just won't like... things!"
Which of course, leads to the opposite extreme. At other times I feel like I have hit Peak Outrage. I just can't maintain the level of upset with all the wrong things in the world all the time. Maybe it's time to give up, stop worrying and love the Patriarchy? Go join the masses of derailing fanboys telling people to shut up because "it's just a joke!" or "that's censorship, yo!" Which I guess lets me like things, but I don't think I would really like myself much at that point.
There is also "How To Be A Fan OF Problematic Things". Which is a start, I suppose. What I am left with is pretty much the same as my approach to porn. Acknowledge that yeah, a lot of it is problematic, and icky, even though I like it. Try to avoid backing the ickier stuff, and try to endorse and back the stuff that manages to be good with less ickiness. Listen before reacting if I get called out on something I like. This is not a real, long term solution, for either porn or music (or anything else in our culture), but it's the best I can come up with.
- Mood:
pensive - Music:Cyanotic - Deface (Ad·ver·sary + Dirtybunny = Industrial Strength Mix)
- 9. Zero History by William Gibson
- Gibson continues to be amazing. Wrapping up the Bigend/Blue Ant
trilogy, Zero History focusses on the world of fashion in a very weird
way. In addition to some interesting points about men's fashion and
its relationship to the military, he covers camera drones, weird
darts, and Gurkha martial arts.
This trilogy really only gets filed as science fiction because it's
Gibson; none of the not-quite-real stuff in the books is all that
strange, and I'd have to check to confirm what is and is not
technically possible with today's tech.
The key part, though, is that Gibson is a brilliant writer. His prose
trigger synaesthetic visions of cold blue and grey and flat techno
like the Dust Brothers' Fight Club sound track. Which isn't really a
review useful to anyone but me, but there it is. - 10. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
- An ancient, corrupt aristocracy that has several gods on leashes
as a result of an ancient divine war that left One True God ruling
heaven.
Then a young girl, daughter of a princess, dark of skin and hair, gets
tossed in the middle of a battle for succession, and gets pulled into
the plans of the captive gods.
It's like Anne Bishop's Dark Jewels books, but with less rape and more
agency for the heroine. Which is really what made this book for me;
Yeine (the protag) really does drive the story by making choices. - 11. Soulless by Gail Carriger
- At first, I was afraid that this book was going to be a period
romance with werewolves, vampires, and cogs glued on to things to make
it look steampunk. And there's a bit of that going on.
What saves this book, and made it intensely enjoyable, is the sense of
humour; it doesn't take itself seriously, and is, moreover,
hilarious. I had to keep stopping in the middle of a paragraph to
laugh, and then read the line out to whoever else was in the room. - 12. Sex At Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern
Sexuality by Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jetha - Again, I have this problem with non-fiction where I worry that I
think it is brilliant and insightful in direct proportion to how much
it agrees with the ideas I had going into it.
That said, I though Sex At Dawn was brilliant and
insightful. It takes as its central idea questioning of monogamy as
the "default", "normal" or "natural" state for humans. The evidence
supporting the idea that humans are no more hard-wired to exclusive
pair-binding than bonobos or chimps is fairly compelling.
The authors devote a fair bit of time to (with some occasional snark)
examining the published works of other researchers' claims; much like
Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender, there's a lot of
researchers bending over backwards to try to force the data to support
their preconcieved ideas. In a number of cases, the researchers seem
to go as far as to say something like "but that would imply that
humans aren't monogamous, and we are, so it must be wrong".
The information on primate sexual biology and societies were new and
interesting to me (as a layperson), and the writing was clever and
entertaining. I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in sex or
relationships. - 13. The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
- I confess that I had seen this book around, and parsed the title
as "The Lay Of Loch Lamora", and hence categorized it as some possibly
Outlander-ish Kilts-and-Claymores romance.
This is not that sort of book.
The Lies of Locke Lamora is a caper book of the first order;
the titular Locke Lamora is a thief and a con man, who operates in a
magic-fueled Not!Venice. If you like White Collar and Leverage, odds
are you'll like this. - 14. The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin
- The follow-up to The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Also good,
also concerned with a mortal-god romance, but with a different god and
a different mortal.![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2)
mycrazyhair points out that she found
the ending of this a lot more bleak than I did. - 15. Pattern Scars by Caitlin Sweet
- This book reminds me of Ian Tregillis' Bitter Seeds. Both
books are concerned with knowledge of the future, and both books are
unflinchingly tragedies. In the classic Shakespearean "then everyone
is miserable or dead, the end" mode.
My brain kept wanting to read Pattern Scars as a standard
heroic epic fantasy; it has the markers, a young girl with magic
powers (ability to see the future, in this case), a sneering villain,
warring kingdoms. But Sweet doesn't follow the heroic model.
The protagonist, Nola, starts out dirt poor and miserable, until her
powers manifest, and she's taken to a better place and finds people
who care for her. Then all of that is taken from her, and we get to
watch her being abused for eight years. I kept waiting for her to find
a way to use her power to fight back and free herself, defeat the
villain and get a happy ending. This does not occur. There is even a
moment where, reading, I saw an opening for her to use her power
against her abuser, hoping for a "and then she realised that hers was
the greater power!" moment. A few pages later, Nola berates herself,
having missed her chance, not having seen the opening until it was too
late. She never really gets a chance to fight back. She never really
has any choice or ability to affect the outcome of events.
Pattern Scars is certainly a well-written book, and one that is
aware of the tropes of the genre while playing with them. It is also a
bleak tragedy that never extends hope without then crushing it. - 16. Tiassa by Steven Brust
- Vlad! Now with alternate POVs, including the ever-lovable Paarfi
of Roundwood. I even liked the Cawti section.
Food
Curried red snapper with rice, spinach and green beans. Our classic "one pot" meal - toast the rice, pour on stock, then layer spinach and green beans on top of the rice. Set the fish on top of that, and douse liberally with curry powder. My only regret with this leftover lunch is that I forgot to spice it up to my preferred level before taking it. Instead, I added hot sauce, which wasn't quite the same.
Music
Album: Unter Null's Moving On
Genre: Electro Industrial
Similar Bands: See 2/3 of the other bands I've picked up in the past 23 weeks.
Review: Much like the Failure Epiphany, I found myself listening to this on repeat for days. Most of the music buys get at most a day of devoted listening time before I go back to the random shuffle. Unter Null has branched out a bit here - while she's still clearly hard Electro-Industrial, there are more melodic notes, and the occasional 8-bit-ish elements. Some time in the next couple weeks I suspect I will be picking up the companion album, Moved On. Her cover of Nick Cave's The Mercy Seat was especially nice.
Playlist Potential: Possible Workout and Driving Mix contenders.
- 24. Dzur by Steven Brust
- Foodie Vlad is a foodie. Also, there's something in there about him interfering in Cawti's life again, allowing him to save her while being a douche. But the primary focus of the novel is clearly dinner at Valabar's.
- 25. Jhegaala by Steven Brust
- Ass-kicked Vlad is ass-kicked. Vlad gets beat up a lot in this book. It's like someone pointed out that Vlad seems to get away with risky stuff without consequence too often to be believable, and this book was the answer to said criticism. Even by the end, when things are resolved, it's not really cathartic.
- 26. Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
- Book one of the epic, ten book long "Malazan, Book of the Fallen" series. This grew out of a shared RPG setting that Erikson and his co-GM wrote years ago, first for D&D and then for GURPS. As often happens with GMs who love world building, they realised that players would never explore the setting satisfactorily, and became authors. I myself have a strong urge in this direction. So, there was a decent chance of me enjoying this book on those grounds. My coworker had been urging me to read it for some time, as he's a big fan of the series.
Unfortunately, I didn't really like it. It feels too much like an RPG setting in a lot of places - the place names and character names and randomly looted from real world sounding names. Kruppe (who I assume pronounces his name like a German) lives in Darujistan, where one of the major noble families has a French last name.
The other, more distracting issue I had with it is that it felt like being in a 90s comic book. Like being trapped in Wolverine's sideburns. *Everything* is grim, gritty, dark and dire. People only smile blackly, ironically or cruelly. I keep imagining the characters as drawn by Rob Liefeld, making that 90s Liefeld shouty-face. There are multiple obese wizards whose movement is surprisingly graceful for their bulk. I prefer my miserable fiction to at least have some humour and self-awareness in it. This is nearly as bleak as China Mieville, but without the awareness and genius that he puts into his books.
Also, the world has drow. And I hate drow.
On the plus side, the world is very racially diverse, and you can't pick out good or bad guys by the colour of their skin, or even their race. It even passes the Bechdel test, though it might be a technicality based on one of the conversants being possessed by a male diety at the time. Women in the setting are free to be damned by their terrible choices and ground into powder by the relentless misery that is existence.
Additionally, the setting is very detailed, and I'm told that even small details in the first book are still having impacts by the tenth. The series also really does actually end in the 10th book, though Erikson and the other guy who writes in the world have other books in the same world on the go. So, it avoids the Wheel Of Time problem and the Song of Fire and Ice problem - the series does have a solid end, and book ten is written if not yet published.
Which is to say, I can see why the books are popular, and why some people enjoy the, I just don't think that I will ever be one of those people. - 27. Misframing Men by Michael Kimmel
- The basic theme of this collection of essays is that feminism is good for men, too, and that we should be allies for the feminist cause. Kimmel examines various social constructions of masculinity, and looks at how they're breaking down, how thier at odds with how a lot of men are living thier lives, and how they constrain and cripple us. This includes looking at the sense of entitlement that is a part of traditional masculinity, and the reactions that are drawn from that. This was a fascinating book, and I spent a lot of my time reading through it saying "Ooh, yeah, that, that exactly!" to myself. I can't really do justice to the content in a review this short, but I stronlgy recommend it to my feminist and feminist ally friends. northbard, lemme know if you want to borrow it; I'm giving you first dibs.
- 28. For The Win by Cory Doctorow (ebook)
- Doctorow did a really fantastic job here. The book is, essentially, a near future YA book about MMPORG enconomies and global labour. It avoids the "What These People Need Is a Honky" trope while having well-developed characters from multiple countries. Also, I really like that the global gamer union got called the IWWWW, aka the Webblies. Doctorow's growing as a writer in just the right ways for me - there's an ever-increasing realism to his optimism, and his charcter continue to be better and better developed. It'd make an interesting counterpoint against Stross' Halting State, in some ways, if anyone knows kids looking for books to do essays on.
- 29. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
- Neuromancer, grown up and moved to Thailand. I'm working my way through the Hugo nominees, starting here. TWG is set in a nearish future where peak oil has come and gone, global warming has raised the sea levels, and GMO food products and custom plagues have wiped out the world's food supply. The only food crops are those purchased annually from the big food corporations. Except in Thailand... Bacigalupi paints a believable and unsettling future, with the kind of accelerating future shock that reminds me of William Gibson. It's not a cheerful book, but it is wonderfully written.
Food
SO MUCH BACON!
We fried up a pile of thick cut bacon with onions. Half of that got fried up with perogies. The other half with green beans, green chard and red chard. So, there were definite healthy *parts* of the meal. We just covered those parts in bacon. This lunch was leftovers from the dinner of severe baconing.
Music
Album: NeoCaine compiled by D.J. Edoardo.
Genre: Trance? Not quite enough "noises that sound good on the right drugs" to qualify as PsyTrance, I think.
Similar Bands: Astrix and MFG, sort of.
Review: Random compilation of electronic music that itunes reccommended. It's... okay. Nothing to complain about, but nothing really stood out as awesome.
Playlist Potential: Meh.
The Gender Stereotype Game is an awesome game.
Gendered Food. "Ever wondered why chocolate is for girls, and steak is for boys? (Ever wondered whether chocolate is for girls and steak is for boys?) "
Food
Last day of Kaleidoscope Gathering meals. One last vegetarian sausage onna bun. I confess that I was, by this point, a touch sick of them.
Music
Album: Johnny Hollow's Dirty Hands
Genre: Darkwave...ish? Strings and synth and goths oh my.
Similar Bands: Early Rasputina, Emilie Autumn, selected Voltaire.
Review:
misslynx was right - this JH album is even closer to the early Rasputina stuff I love than their previous album. It did, in fact, at least partially scratch that itch for me. Floaty, string heavy music that hits one square in the goth. Good cover of "People Are Strange."Playlist Potential: I again lament that I have yet to make a "goth music" playlist.
His theory on why my ankles keep swelling is sodium intake. Which sounds hinky to me, but I can use the motivation to cut out salt anyway. I go back in a month to see how the ankles are doing.
All in all, I'm feeling somewhat positive for once.
I confess that I am most excited about the book form of Hitherby Dragons.
Food
Chicken sandwich with spinach salad
Music
Album: Straftanz's Forward Ever - Backward Never
Genre: Aggrotech
Similar Bands: See all the freaking Aggrotech acts I've posted about already.
Review: Simple, angry, dancey. "Straftanz", according to google, translates to "criminal dance". German lyrics, or short, repetitive English, with the requisite movie samples. This is pure, basic Aggrotech. I like it.
Playlist Potential: Workout, Driving.
Food
Bread, cheese and cold cuts.
Music
Album: Rasputina's Sister Kinderhook
Genre: In iTunes I have the band tagged as "Gothic cello rock".
Similar Bands: Uh... Nothing, quite. Sort of Emilie Autumn, Zoe Keating, Abney Park and even sort of Vernian Process.
Review: I had an epiphany while listening to this album. I have been disappointed with everything Rasputina has done since How We Quit the Forest. Really, what I wanted was the same sort of goth cello rock that lead me to genre tag them. However, since HWQtF, what Rasputina has been doing is more sort of Steampunk, ahead of the masses like me picking it up. It's an American Steampunk, a sort of Cherie Priest's Boneshaker kind of Steampunk, but there it is. This album is the least cello-driven. There's a lot of banjo.
I think it's going to take some time to adjust to the Rasputina we have from the Rasputina I fell for in the late 90s, but I think I will learn to appreciate it.
Playlist Potential: Possibly my Nano-Victorian playlist for some of it.
Food
PC basmati rice with red pepper and edamame. From a line of bagged frozen vegetarian things. This one is pretty good, though "heat" and "tomato" are the only dominant tastes. Could use a little more rounding out flavourwise. Still, I should see if this is still available for the next time I am too lazy to make dinner - this batch had been in the freezer for something like 6 months, and it was still fine.
Music
Album: Emilie Autumn's Enchant
Genre: Darkwave? Folkwave? Or is "spooky women with orchestral string instruments" now its own genre?
Similar Bands: Vaguely speaking, Birthday Massacre, early Rasputina, Zoe Keating
Review: Emilie Autumn's earliest album in iTunes. You can see the Emilie Autumn responsible for Opheliac peeking out occasionally, but the differences are clear from the cover photo. Opheliac has her with red hair dressed all in black with heavy makeup. Enchant has her with lavendar hair wearing fairy wings. Enchant has a strong Renn Faire/Enya feel mixed in with the harder gothy/darkwave stuff that later comes out on Opheliac. She even borrows several bars from Greensleeves at one point. Given how much I liked her later album, I was a little disappointed with this one, but better that than the other way 'round.
Playlist Potential: I don't think it really matches any of my current playlists.
Food
The entire week of meals at camp at Kaleidoscope Gathering. Though
mycrazyhair's quinoa and chickpea salad was my favourite.Music
Album: Memmaker's How To Remix A Robot Uprising
Genre: Electro-Industrial
Similar Bands: Valium Era, Skylight Glare, etc.
Review: I bought this because it has the remix of Energon3 with the Optimus Prime sample in that I liked. It manages to stand on its own as a good album, though, which is rare in remix albums. If you liked How To Enlist in a Robot Uprising, it's definitely worth your time and money to pick up this one, too.
Bonus
I also picked up 4 Heather Dale CDs at Kscope; The Road To Santiago, The Green Knight, The Gabriel Hounds and The Trial of Lancelot. Itunes can't decide if Heather's World music or Folk, but that tells you most of what you need to know genre-wise. I've seen Heather and Ben play a few times at Kaleidoscope, and gotten enough of the songs half-lodged in my head that I figured I should give them some money. It's Celtic-y, pagan-y, Arthurianish folky type stuff. I'm particularly fond of Mordred's Lullaby and the Green Knight. Black Fox is a great track, but the album version isn't nearly as great as it was live, with Ben growl-whispering the Devil's lines under Heather's lyrics. Which is just to say, if you get a chance, go see them live.
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