Consumers now find nothing expensive. Nevertheless, they suspect that the less anything costs, the less it is being given them… When thrown in free, the now debased works of art… are secretly rejected by the fortunate recipients, who are supposed to be satisfied by the mere fact that there is so much to be seen and heard. Everything can be obtained.
– Theodore Adorno The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception
On first listening, this recording might fool you into thinking that the release is merely a very clever, conceptual dig at the present day circumstances of the music industry.
Reading somewhat like a manifesto, the press-release hails “the collapse of music as we know it,” and describes Ubiquitous Eternal Live as an audio illustration of this collapse. The press release suggests that our relationship with music has been changed “beyond redemption” through music’s widely spreading availability and points out bitterly (and truthfully) that we “can [now] download music much faster than we can listen to it.” Ash International and Cronica are not the first people to speculate that ease of availability devalues culture; The press release openly cites Theador Adorno as a conceptual cornerstone to the ideas behind developing Ubiquitous Eternal Live, along with Guy Debord and other “conceptual cards.”
Autodigest’s first release, AUTODIGEST – A COMPRESSED HISTORY OF EVERYTHING EVER RECORDED, VOL. 1:, “proposed an aural illustration of current syndromes in digital compression which abandon fidelity, subtlety, and complexity in favour of speed, efficiency, and endless storage capabilities,” and so was exploring some of the sonic deficiencies of highly compressed music – the inevitable consequence of everything being encoded in MP3 format, so that we can have “the ability to stuff 20,000 (or whatever) songs” in our front pockets.VOL. 2 has evolved directly out of this first work, but the concepts have arguably become more complex in Ubiquitous Eternal Live. On first listening, it’s not easy to see how hearing over an hour of progressively more hysterical audience clapping and applause is a cultural investigation of our contemporary relationship to music; even less easy to see how this work interrogates how we value music in the new contexts provided by completely altered distribution systems. That is, it’s not easy to see this until you realise that you can’t use the recording as ” an endless private soundtrack for one’s earphones,” the way most music is now experienced.
As you listen to Ubiquitous Eternal Live, you realise it can’t be comfortably thrown on in the background while you do the dishes; it can’t be slung into the player while you drive somewhere; and it probably doesn’t work well in a discman either. The only way to listen to this recording, is to sit down, remove all other distractions, and envelop yourself in what is a very masterfully collaged and seamless piece of audio work. The crescendo builds increment by increment; what starts as the tense apprehension at the start of a concert, becomes the screaming, mass-hysteria of some kind of apocalyptic terror. The human voice is captured in some of its most raw and cathartic moments here, as fans scream and holler for a conspicuously absent “main act.” Then you realise, this is the main act. Perhaps it’s greatest achievement as a political statement on “the state of music at the beginning of the 21st century,” is to simply resist distribution along all the regular channels. This recording will not be put on in the background in bars for people to quietly enjoy while they discuss the results of the league football match. Banks won’t buy it to play in their branches while customers fill out their direct debits. It has, through the very nature of its own sonic language, defied the possibility of being quiet, easily disseminated audio wallpaper. It is, however, of and in itself, a very intense and enlightening listening experience.
Reading through various theorists and pages on this work, which is a joint release between Ash International (UK) and Cronica Electronica, (Portugal) one thing puzzled me: why the image of the deserted bed on the front cover of the CD? And then I remembered Guy Debord, paragraph 21, Separation Perfected, The Society of the Spectacle:
The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep.
The back cover of the CD refers to The Society of the Spectacle, and asserts that “it is the process of consumption, not its object, that we are currently enjoying.” Perhaps to interrogate this idea, to explore what eternal consumption, spectacle and expectation might sound like, is to refute the desire to “sleep.” This work is a refusal to make something that can go on the intercom of any company in between the reglar announcements of “we appreciate your call,” and so on. This music will not be played in hotel lobbies or lifts, barely there, seemingly invisible, maintaining comfortable yet false atmospheres. This work is very much awake, saying “Hey! Sit up and listen to me!” Regrettably though, this might only be noticed by the people who already know and enjoy the theories whose ideas comprise its conceptual bedrock.
Reviewed by Felicity Ford
Felicity Ford is a sound-artist and writer. Her most beloved possession is her shiny, red accordion, but her advancement on this instrument is hampered by a frequent desire to play with the internet instead of practising arpeggios.