Noise Music

Paul Hegarty teaches Philosophy and Visual Culture at University College Cork, in Ireland. He is the author of books on Bataille and Baudrillard. He jointly runs the experimental record label dotdotdotmusic, and occasionally performs in the noise "bands" Safe, and Working With Children.

Can silence be "noisy"? Why do punk banks downplay their musical abilities? What do 37 minutes of ceaseless feedback and squawking birds tell us about the human experience? Calling upon the work of noted cultural critics like Jean Baudrillard, George Bataille and Theodor Adorno, philosophy and visual culture professor Paul Hegarty delves into these questions while tracing the history of "noise" (defined at different times as "intrusive, unwanted," "lacking skill, not being appropriate" and "a threatening emptiness") from the beginnings of the 18th century concert hall music to avant-garde movements like musique concrete and free jazz to Japanese noise rocker Merzbow. Ironically, it is John Cage's notorious 4'33", in which an audience sits through four and a half minutes of "silence," that represents the beginning of noise music proper for Hegarty; the "music" made up entirely of incidental theater sounds (audience members coughing, the A/C's hum), represents perfectly the tension between the "desirable" sound (properly played musical notes) and undesirable "noise" that makes up all noise music, from Satie to punk. Hegarty does an admirable job unpacking diverse genres of music, and his descriptions of the most bizarre pieces can be great fun to read ("clatters and reverbed chickeny sounds...come in over low throbs"). Though his style tends toward the academic (the "dialectic of Enlightenment" and Heidegger appear frequently), Hegarty's wit and knowledge make this an engaging read.

• 1. Introduction: Noise in Music; 2. Electricity; 3. Free; 4. Industry; 5. Inept; 6. Power; 7. Japan; 8. Merzbow; 9. Electronic; 10. Quiet; 11. Conclusion.