12 expressions about noise music (2004).
by Dave Skipper

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“Noise is a term for working freely with sounds.”
– Lasse Marhaug

“Music is… listening to any sound with dedication or with passion… The only thing you need is to take a decision.”
– Francisco López

“My composition is just making a limit for the improvisation.”
– Otomo Yoshihide

There you go, I just distilled this 2-hour documentary into three short quotes. The technical quality of the video is pretty low, and why oh why are the subtitles in yellow?! But I really enjoyed watching all the way through. The interviews give a good flavour of different approaches to noise and improvisatory/experimental music, and it includes a few particularly influential artists (Merzbow, Lasse Marhaug, Francisco López, Otomo Yoshihide).

The best way to learn about noise is to listen to lots of recordings and (if possible) live performances from diverse artists; next, reading album sleeve notes, zines, and interviews is very enlightening depending on what you can get your hands on; and then watching documentaries and video footage probably comes in third place just because the quantity and quality of what is readily available is disappointingly low. Or maybe I just haven’t looked in the right places yet. But with low expectations in mind, I think that documentaries like this are worth the trouble.

Nor Noise: 12 Expressions About Noise Music (2004) (Dir. Tom Hovinbole) from Hipermédula Cultura Arte on Vimeo.

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