Did Boards of Canada invent the Hauntology genre?

[fumi]

Yeah, I know. Just hear me out.

 

I was talking with someone recently and got trying to explain the Hauntology genre. It’s sort of weird trying to explain the appeal of something you like to someone who doesn’t really understand the appeal of whatever it is.

Basically, I gave them the whole 70s nostalgia thing, Film Idents, BBC Radiophonic Workshops, 70s & 80s Kids TV, English Folklore etc, etc.

 

Told them about all the artists working in that area (that I knew of).

And they replied “So basically it’s just Boards of Canada?”

It just got me wondering. What do you think?

[hello spiral]

[Bechuga]

Music for thin people: gauntology

[chassis]

Google says it was Jacques Derrida

[fumi]

Google says it was Jacques Derrida

 

In my ignorance, I've never heard about him. Thanks. Will look him up.

[awepittance]

i'd argue in terms of musical styles it was Zoviet France, although for some reason just like Mick Harris/Scorn's influence on dubstep it's never mentioned by anyone

from 1987

[VIII]

wasn't hauntology as a musical genre conjured up by a writer in a magazine article

 

personally i dont like the term. . .

 

no, boc didn't "invent" hauntology

[joshuatxuk]

Yeah, I know. Just hear me out.

 

I was talking with someone recently and got trying to explain the Hauntology genre. It’s sort of weird trying to explain the appeal of something you like to someone who doesn’t really understand the appeal of whatever it is.

 

Basically, I gave them the whole 70s nostalgia thing, Film Idents, BBC Radiophonic Workshops, 70s & 80s Kids TV, English Folklore etc, etc.

 

Told them about all the artists working in that area (that I knew of).

 

And they replied “So basically it’s just Boards of Canada?”

 

It just got me wondering. What do you think?

 

Invent, no. There's probably a case for them popularizing the concept. I really can't think of anyone else who is as heralded and also managed to get as much popular acclaim and success. Funnily enough someone once pointed out to me that their early stuff even had some trip-hop moments - Mo'Wax esque scratches are on tracks from MHTRTC.

 

English Folklore and Ghostbox focus a lot on the Anglo-oriented examples of it too - I kind of feel that other music that is hauntological in scope is often categorized as vaporwave or hypnagogic pop: Ariel Pink, James Ferraro, OPN, even some early chillwave guys like Memoryhouse...all that stuff is a lot more indebted to American pop culture though.

 

Also underground electronic and experimental music is ripe with hautological sci-fi and futuristic music made with retro equipment and with a retrofuturistic aesthetic. It's hardly just BoC and those with derivative music influenced by their methods and sound.

 

 

Google says it was Jacques Derrida

 

In my ignorance, I've never heard about him. Thanks. Will look him up.

 

 

Call me even more ignorant, but that's not the hauntology we're talking about, right? The music concept we discuss now seems to be a related tangent off that concept. This is the earliest source I can think of, with Simon Reynolds (retromania) Adam Harper fleshing out the concept even more.

[joshuatxuk]

 

personally i dont like the term. . .

 

 

I feel we're:

 

1. stuck with it as a term (like how we're stuck with dubstep no longer being sparse, dubby 2-step but aggressive EDM)

 

2. perpetually limiting the potential of the concept - I think too many assume music that's hauntology must be 70s and early 80s in time period, UK in origin, and perpetually ominous to a least a tiny amount

 

3. has something to do with ghosts or nostalgia of actual events...and not a more imaginative exploration of a past that never existed, which is how I interpret the concept

[tec]

The hauntology genre is difficult to define, is there a core five albums that represent it? It's tough.

[Guest jasondonervan]

[hoggy]

genre names sort of get applied to things retrospectively but they never quite fit unless something has been made to fit into a supposed genre, so maybe you could retrospectively lump in boc with this genre but it's not gonna fit really because I don't think boc make their music from the idea of making a 'style' - I think they are more sort of exploring what interests them

 

so to say they invented something is not quite right, it's putting the cart before the horse if you see what I mean - it would be more accurate to say a bunch of people ripped them off and pretended they didn't

[chim]

I think it started with musique concrete.

[hoggy]

and plus when you rip something off, it's like if you trace an image, you lose all the stuff behind the image and just get the outline

 

(the point being - the rip off and the original are in different domains)

[autopilot]

They definitely invented the "Boards of Canada & Tycho" genre.

[Candiru]

People who made old ass music back in the day were just hauntologists that were way ahead of their time and were "too future" by keeping it contemporary.

[kaini]

wasn't hauntology as a musical genre conjured up by a writer in a magazine article

 

 

 

Yes, Simon Reynolds in The Wire (in an article on early Ghost Box and some other stuff, would have to dig out the issue to tell you). I know that, for one, Jim Jupp (Belbury Poly) dislikes the term.

 

Derrida invented the term as philosophy jargon, meaning a similar but different thing.

[Nebraska]

People who made old ass music back in the day were just hauntologists that were way ahead of their time and were "too future" by keeping it contemporary.

http://youtu.be/wY-kAnvOY80

[Guest Barung]

I think it started with musique concrete.

[Rubin Farr]

Isn't most UK hauntology traced back to The Wicker Man?

[Guest]

[sweepstakes]

I think journalists "invent" genre names. No musician that really gives a shit about music would coin a genre name, especially something as stupid as "hauntology". Music is just a big messy ocean with weird pockets of migration, adaptation, and consumption all over the place.

[sweepstakes]

I would also argue that super-specific genre names like this (or vaporwave or PC music) are destructive to innovation. They encourage both listeners and (to some degree, maybe subconsciously) music-makers to think that all current music fits in these neat little folders.

[joshuatxuk]

I would also argue that super-specific genre names like this (or vaporwave or PC music) are destructive to innovation. They encourage both listeners and (to some degree, maybe subconsciously) music-makers to think that all current music fits in these neat little folders.

 

There's always a wave of blowback - starting first with numerous copy-cats and then a identity crisis among those who actually pioneered the genres/scenes

[sweepstakes]

 

I would also argue that super-specific genre names like this (or vaporwave or PC music) are destructive to innovation. They encourage both listeners and (to some degree, maybe subconsciously) music-makers to think that all current music fits in these neat little folders.

 

There's always a wave of blowback - starting first with numerous copy-cats and then a identity crisis among those who actually pioneered the genres/scenes

 

Yes, which is stupid. It's sad that these artificial cultural pressures can be enough to dissuade people from pursuing some potentially interesting sounds and ideas.