Sorry, I took a while to get back to this.
I hadn't come across that artist before—Android Lust being Shikhee D’iordna—so thank you. I'm liking what I've heard so far. Not as dark as
Antichrist maybe? (You are making me feel nostalgic though, my youngest daughter loves Von Trier, also Michael Haneke, as much as I do ... fun family movie nights).
Interesting metaphor. Also, I much prefer sparkling water, so apt.
Yes, I think so. It's interesting that some of the math-rock—like Covet—is also lyrical, while others—like Dillinger—are darkly expressionistic. To elaborate, I've used impressionist/expressionist/structuralist per their normal meanings in art history/theory. The last two are routinely applied to various media, the former to painting usually so I'm taking a bit of licence with the analogy.
So impressionism characteristically portrays overall effects instead of details, relaxes the boundary between subject and background, use asymmetrical and informal composition and so on. The effect is usually light, lyrical and captures ephemeral, incidental beauty in the fleeting moment. Nils Fram says "I’m interested in how human beings react in certain situations, and what music does to people’s emotions. How we can change people’s attitudes with tones. After I’ve played a good concert, people leave the room happy. This is something we can give back to the world. When people feel down and like it’s all going to shit, at least we can give them some music and change their attitude so people don’t think it’s all shit... That’s my religion." Not only impressionistic, but lyrical. His music reminds me of Manet, Monet, Degas, et al.
I don't have to stretch the analogy with expressionism, it is routinely applied to music (starting notably with Schoenberg) and avoids traditional forms of beauty to convey powerful feelings via dramatically increased dissonances. Contrasting with impressionism (and more so, lyricism) much of the harmonious, affirmative element of art is banished. Fear from the core of the psyche is brought into the open, demons confronted. Much of rock—familiar territory—and all of post-hardcore is expressionistic, along with a fair body of dissonant electronica.
Structuralism is interesting to me because it is less well known and understood. So it implies that elements of human culture may be understood by way of their relationship to broader systems. Ikeda is fascinated by both human and non-anthropogenic data streams and elaborates their structures in time and space. By my analysis his work precisely expresses Altisser's structuralist principles: a structure determines the position of each element of a whole; every system has a structure; structural laws deal with co-existence rather than change; and structures are the "real things" that lie beneath the surface or the appearance of meaning. I don't think Ikeda holds to the negative, abnegating aspects of nihilism, however. I think more transcendent than nihilistic, maybe.
I hope that was interesting, rather than tendentious. I'd naively expect participants in this forum to be fascinated/delighted by Ikeda's literal depictions of sound waves in physical space for example, but I'm expecting too much perhaps, the aesthetics are somewhat novel. I appreciate your thoughts after taking a look/listen.
PS: I haven't given much thought to who does post-structuralist electronic, or what it would sound like, open to suggestions
