‘Even Anti-Art Is Art … That Is Why We Reject It!’ A slogan on the opening page of The New Blockaders, which is, of course, a collective that has been doing ‘things’ since the beginning of the 80s. Forty years of ‘things’ or ‘stuff’ or ‘noise’ or whatever you want to call it and still blooming and still getting the attention of new people who admire the institution, The New Blockaders.
My experience with them is not that extensive, so it’s nice to finally get a chance to dive a bit deeper into it, and I’ll say it directly: I am not gonna write too much about the history, thoughts, concepts, background and all the knowledge that surrounds these people. For the simple reason that it is something that is in the eye of the beholder, everything you read, hear or see (or maybe even smell) is something that you as an individual have to place about what your approach to the subject of art or anti-art is. It is only fair to leave it to you to explore and give it the place or status that you think is honest or – may I say so – sensible.
In my hand a beautifully designed CD on Nihilist Records from Chicago. It contains four long soundscapish minimal noise-ambient ‘constructions’ developed by The New Blockaders and Stephen Meixner (Contrastate, track 1), Ice Yacht (Philip Sanderson of Storm Bugs, track 2 & 3) and Das Syntetische Mischgewebe (track 4). All I had as mental luggage from The New Blockaders was a performance in London several years ago where metal objects were thrown around in the venue; A festival where other performances were from Giancarlo Toniutti, Ramleh, Skullflower, Grunt, Club Moral (!) and many others… But it might be clear that ‘throwing around metal objects’ didn’t result in an ambient set.
So if I project my memories from that night back on this CD, I can only think that everything is art. It’s how you look at it, what makes sounds beautiful, what makes a noise loud or, in contradiction, soothing. This is an album that defines noise not being noise, art not being art and reviews not being reviews. Another one to end up high in the Best of 2023 list.
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