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ecoculture, geophilosophy, mediapolitics

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[Circle with an X through it]

March 8, 2015 by Adrian J Ivakhiv

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about music here. But as I’ve gotten thinking and writing about it again, under the “ecomusicology” rubric, expect more of it on this blog. It’s a satisfying return for me (I studied music theory, composition, and performance as an undergrad and continued it semi-professionally for a little while afterward). This post can be considered the first in a series of tastes from work that is slowly churning into progress.

Digging into Prehistory
I used to love this album — a long EP, or short LP, called Prehistory — though I knew nothing about the band except that they were from France and, from the liner notes, appeared to be students of alchemy and hermeticism. Only years later did I find out that they started in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s and only relocated to France for 9 months, but went on to maintain a marginal existence well into the 1990s (try looking for their LPs anywhere).

 

About their name — a circle with an X through it — former member Rik Letendre has said:

“We were on the Lower East Side [of Manhattan]; there were a lot of burned-out buildings. One symbol that was painted on buildings was a box with an “X” through it. That was a symbol for the firemen. If there was a fire on the block, they’d let that building burn because it was abandoned. The circle would, of course, represent the world with an “X” through it – let it burn. This was another one of Circle X’s concepts: If everything burns down and is blown away and swept clean, something new and beautiful can grow out of the champ pourri, the rotting field, the ashes. [. . .]

“We were never nihilists. We were, dare I say it, champions. We wanted to wave banners, to let a thousand flowers blossom. […] Circle X was a provocation, but it was also a rebirth. It’s like things have suddenly been wiped clean. If the rug has been pulled out from under you, what do you do? Well, you dance, you become joyful, you create. You build new things.”

 

In the typology I’m developing in the manuscript I am starting to write, tentatively called Ecocriticism Across the Arts, Circle X falls into the trope of “Contact” (closely related to the sublime). Their desire to cut through the detritus of the everyday to the naked essence of reality — akin to Thoreau’s hissy fit on Ktaadn where he blares out “Contact! Contact! who are we? where are we?” — is palpable in the music, with its deconstruction of the elements of rock (itself a fairly primitive from, as industrial era music goes) into their primal essence.

All of this came some 15 years before Simon Reynolds coughed up the term “post-rock” or before Godspeed You Black Emperor! ever played a single screeching chord together. (Both came in 1994.) The band finally dissolved the following year with the death of guitarist Bruce Witsiepe. Like some alchemical ecologists, they seemed to believe in leaving nothing behind save for a few cryptic footprints in the ashes.

They deserve some sort of resurrection — which, given digital media’s forgiving nature about such things, will no doubt surely come.

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Posted in Music & soundscape | Tagged alchemy, Circle X, ecomusicology, music, No Wave, post-rock | 4 Comments

4 Responses

  1. on March 9, 2015 at 6:28 pm Anon Y Mousse

    Not sure if by “try looking for their LPs anywhere” you were simply noting how obscure they are, but if you’re trying to hunt down physical copies of their records, this website is your source: http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?artist_id=585580&ev=ab


    • on March 10, 2015 at 1:41 pm Adrian J Ivakhiv

      Yes, their obscurity was what I had in mind there. But they can be hunted down; thanks for the link to one place where you can find them.


  2. on March 11, 2015 at 2:30 pm Movietube

    But they can be hunted down; thanks for the link to one place where you can find them.


  3. on September 18, 2015 at 8:59 am Putlocker

    great prehistory post, really enjoyed the post



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