{"id":8062,"date":"2015-03-08T07:47:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T12:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=8062"},"modified":"2016-11-01T05:06:13","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T10:06:13","slug":"circle-with-an-x-through-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/03\/08\/circle-with-an-x-through-it\/","title":{"rendered":"[Circle with an X through it]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>It&#8217;s been a while since I&#8217;ve posted anything about music here. But as I&#8217;ve gotten\u00a0thinking and writing about it\u00a0again, under the &#8220;ecomusicology&#8221; rubric, expect more of it on this blog. It&#8217;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).\u00a0<\/em><em>This post can be considered the first in a series of tastes from work that is slowly churning into progress.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"_5pbx userContent\">\n<div id=\"id_54fbb4fecbae29791941150\" class=\"text_exposed_root text_exposed\">\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Digging into <em>Prehistory<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\nI used to love this album &#8212; a long EP, or short LP, called <em>Prehistory<\/em>\u00a0&#8212; 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\u00a0later did I find out that they started in Louisville, Kentucky, in the 1970s and only relocated to\u00a0France for 9 months, but went on to maintain a marginal existence well into the 1990s (try looking for their LPs anywhere).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AIg_KjuAYas?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>About their name &#8212; a circle with an X through it &#8212; former member Rik Letendre <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dustedmagazine.com\/features\/846\">has said<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">&#8220;We were on the Lower East Side [of Manhattan]; there were a lot<span class=\"text_exposed_show\"> of burned-out buildings. One symbol that was painted on buildings was a box with an \u201cX\u201d through it. That was a symbol for the firemen. If there was a fire on the block, they\u2019d let that building burn because it was abandoned. The circle would, of course, represent the world with an \u201cX\u201d through it \u2013 let it burn. This was another one of Circle X\u2019s 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. [. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><span class=\"text_exposed_show\">&#8220;We were never nihilists. We were, dare I say it, champions. We wanted to wave banners, to let a thousand flowers blossom. [&#8230;] Circle X was a provocation, but it was also a rebirth. It\u2019s 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.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p9vpu2q4rHU?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"lfloat _ohe\">In the typology I&#8217;m developing in the manuscript I am starting to write, tentatively called <em>Ecocriticism Across the Arts<\/em>, Circle X falls into the trope of &#8220;Contact&#8221; (closely related to the sublime). Their desire to cut through the detritus of the everyday to the naked\u00a0essence of reality &#8212; akin to Thoreau&#8217;s hissy fit on <a href=\"http:\/\/thoreau.eserver.org\/ktaadn06.html\">Ktaadn<\/a> where he blares out &#8220;Contact! Contact! <em>who<\/em> are we? <em>where<\/em> are we?&#8221; &#8212;\u00a0is 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.<\/div>\n<div class=\"_5pbx userContent\">\n<p>All of this came some 15 years before Simon Reynolds\u00a0coughed up the term &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Post-rock\">post-rock<\/a>&#8221; or\u00a0before\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Godspeed_You!_Black_Emperor\">Godspeed You Black Emperor!<\/a> ever played a single screeching chord together. (Both came in 1994.) The band finally dissolved the following year with the death of guitarist\u00a0Bruce Witsiepe. Like some alchemical\u00a0ecologists, they seemed to believe in leaving nothing behind save for a few cryptic footprints in the ashes.<\/p>\n<p>They deserve some sort of resurrection &#8212; which, given digital media&#8217;s forgiving nature about such things, will no doubt surely come.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"lfloat _ohe\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FhL_QZ7sNro?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a while since I&#8217;ve posted anything about music here. But as I&#8217;ve gotten\u00a0thinking and writing about it\u00a0again, under the &#8220;ecomusicology&#8221; rubric, expect more of it on this blog. It&#8217;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).\u00a0This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[692399],"tags":[123586,123587,123527,501,123585,207],"class_list":["post-8062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-soundscape","tag-alchemy","tag-circle-x","tag-ecomusicology","tag-music","tag-no-wave","tag-post-rock"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-262","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7806,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2014\/09\/30\/upcoming-ecomusics-climate-change-culture-etc\/","url_meta":{"origin":8062,"position":0},"title":"Upcoming: ecomusics, climate change culture, etc.","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I am about to travel to Asheville, North Carolina, for\u00a0the\u00a0Ecomusics and Ecomusicologies\u00a0conference, to be held from Thursday through Monday at the University of North Carolina Asheville.\u00a0The international conference, which has become an annual event (it met previously in Brisbane, Australia, and in New Orleans), brings together\u00a0theorists and researchers with performers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music &amp; soundscape&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music &amp; soundscape","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/music-soundscape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8913,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/07\/18\/world-listening-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":8062,"position":1},"title":"World Listening Day","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Today is World Listening Day, a global event held annually to Celebrate the listening practices of the world and the ecology of its acoustic environments; Raise awareness about the growing number of individual and group efforts that creatively explore Acoustic Ecology based on the pioneering efforts of the World Soundscape\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Eco-culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"may_sonic_warfaremain","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2016\/07\/may_sonic_warfaremain-275x207.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8081,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2015\/03\/12\/a-7-year-musical-itch\/","url_meta":{"origin":8062,"position":2},"title":"A 7-year musical itch","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"One of my pet musicological theories is that the years 1967-74 were the most creative 7-year period in the history of musical humanity. Why those years? The social and technological revolutions of the 1960s -- civil rights, the women's movement, the counterculture and anti-Vietnam War movements, the sudden unifying singularity\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music &amp; soundscape&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music &amp; soundscape","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/music-soundscape\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/LpHgG4jILa0\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1097,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/06\/30\/earth-songs-michael-jacksons-cultural-ecologies\/","url_meta":{"origin":8062,"position":3},"title":"earth songs: Michael Jackson&#8217;s cultural ecologies","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=f8muMo0fw_M&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1 The death of Michael Jackson has prompted eco-bloggers to take another look at Jackson's 1995 \"Earth Song\", which some consider the most popular environmentally themed song ever produced. The song remains Jackson's biggest seller in the U.K, having sold over a million copies there -- more than either \"Thriller\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Eco-culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/f8muMo0fw_M\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11530,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/01\/21\/ecologizing-radiohead\/","url_meta":{"origin":8062,"position":4},"title":"Ecologizing Radiohead","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"What better way to understand ecological perception than by applying it to a study of the music of Radiohead, right? Okay, I'll explain. \"Ecological perception\" is not what you might think. (And it isn't what I, in my writing, call \"perceptual ecology.\") It is a psychological theory that studies the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Eco-culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2021\/01\/9780190629236.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3156,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/03\/30\/ilands-perceptual-alchemy\/","url_meta":{"origin":8062,"position":5},"title":"iLAND&#8217;s perceptual alchemy","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Some of today's most important eco-artists -- people like Patricia Johanson, Betsy Damon, and others -- work on a landscape scale with interdisciplinary groups of participants to render socio-ecological change into aesthetically tangible and artistically significant forms. Experimental dancer and choreographer Jennifer Monson's work falls into this category as well,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Eco-culture&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8062"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8169,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8062\/revisions\/8169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}