Well, it exists..... sort of
Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2005 10:13 pm
Anyone looking for entertainment or knowing something about music is kindly requested to move on.
Neurofunk Madrigal Throat-singing Fusion
Sainkho Namtchylak's Stepmother City
(Ponderosa/Harmonia Mundi 003)
Why is this CD Neurofunk Madrigal Throat-singing Fusion?
Quotes are from review by Sari Heifetz 12/01/02
http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz/index. ... id/183.cfm
Bolding added by Cynth. Comments in brackets by Cynth.
"Sainkho Namtchylak's Stepmother City (Ponderosa/Harmonia Mundi 003) brings together the ultimate in ortherworldly-ness with modern, groove-infused electronica. A woman of the Steppes, Namtchylak is Tuva's most happening songstress, transfixing audiences with her wide seven-octave vocal range."
"This mysterious being comes from a family of nomads in the Republic of Tuva (located in the former USSR near the Mongolian border). It was there that she studied the cult music of the lamaistic and shamanistic traditions near Siberia, and practiced throat singing(1) a traditionally male-dominated form of song, which earned her outcast status [Now that's a surprise.]."
"Sainkho Namtchylak is a portal into two totally foreign realms: one that exists on the planet (her culture and land) and one that transcends this life completely. Music and spirituality are intimately entwined for the throat-singing (1) madrigal (2); the liner notes are written by a Buddhist monk."
[The usage of the word "madrigal" in this sentence is, I will admit, strange. Is it intended to apply to the entire CD? Is it intended to apply to a particular track? Who the heck knows. Personally, I doubt the reviewer had any idea of what a madrigal is. In any case there are three possible ways to look at this. First, throat-singing, as we all know, produces more than one tone at a time. So throat-singing is like unto a trecento-madrigal---secular singing, 2-3 voices---or even a later madrigal of the 16th c. with 4-6 voices depending on the number of tones produced. Secondly, judging by the sounds described in the next paragraph, this singing likely contains "madrigalisms" (word painting) as in the later madrigals. And finally, the solo singing is certainly expressive which would make it at least madrigalesque in its similarity to some 17th c. solo expressive songs.]
"Imagine a more foreign and avant-garde Bjork [Impossible!], complete with sometimes awkward notes and pitch, but with a strange quality of magnetism that can feel basically uncomfortable. Shrills, screams, squawks, moans, whispers and wails [madrigalisms (2)] sometimes get to be too much, too intense or too weird, "
"Some of the beats even have a drum 'n' basslike (3) sense of urgency to them, making this release accessible to a generation that pulses a few beats faster [That's one way of putting it.]."
[Drum and bass, whatever. But I would argue that with the basic discomfort, screams, moans, wail, that get to be "too much, too intense or too weird", that this music is NO FUN, that we have gone beyond anxiety here, that there is dread and defeat and therefore it qualifies as Neurofunk(3), a subgenre of Drum and Bass or Jungle. I believe I did hear something like "foreboding ambient drones" on a track or two. I might have hear some "chugging, curiously inhibited two-step beats" although it wasn't quite clear to me whether they did or didn't "sound like breakbeats any more". I do feel the sound is decidedly "deep". The pop-like songs do decidedly lack this "deep" quality in my opinion, showing the difficulty of being both accesible to the "generation that pulses a few beats faster" and "deep" at the same time.]
Footnotes
1.What is Throat Singing?
"Throat singing, a traditional Central Asian art similar to what is sometimes called in the western world overtone singing, harmonic singing, or harmonic chant (terms created by David Hykes in the 1970s), and many other regional names, is a type of singing that manipulates the harmonic resonances created as air travels through the human vocal folds and out the lips." [Actually, as we have learned, throat-singing exists in Sardinia, so I think to call it a "Central Asian art" is misleading.]
"The harmonic frequencies created by the human vocal apparatus are harnessed in throat singing to select overtones (An overtone is a sinusoidal component of a waveform, of greater frequency than its fundamental frequency. Usually the first overtone is the second harmonic, the second overtone is the third harmonic, etc.) by tuning the resonance in the mouth. The result of tuning allows the singer to create more than one pitch at the same time, with the capability of creating six pitches at once [N.B. the similarity to the 4-6 singers in madrigals (2) of late 16th c.]. Generally the sounds created by throat singing are low droning hums [N.B. the possibility of the "foreboding ambient drone" of Neurofunk (3)] and high pitched flutelike melodies. Some styles of throat singing may be likened to a Theremin."http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.c ... %20singing
2. What is Madigral?
a. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Dale might have meant Madrigal. Because Google now changes its spelling to match the mispelled words one types in (an excellent idea which will be of great benefit to our society I'm sure), you might think that "Madigral" was a word. But it isn't. So....
b.What is a Madrigal?
"A madrigal is a setting for 4–6 voices of a secular text, often in Italian. The madrigal has its origins in the frottola, and was also influenced by the motet and the French chanson of the Renaissance. It is related mostly by name alone to the Italian trecento-madrigal of the late 13th and 14th centuries; those madrigals were settings for 2 or 3 voices without accompaniment, or with instruments possibly doubling the vocal lines."
"The madrigal was the most important secular form of music of its time. It bloomed especially in the second half of the 16th century, losing its importance by the third decade of the 17th century, when it vanished through the rise of newer secular forms as the opera and merged with the cantata and the dialogue."
"Late madrigalists were particularly ingenious with so-called "madrigalisms" — passages in which the music assigned to a particular word expresses its meaning, for example, setting riso (smile) to a passage of quick, running notes which imitate laughter, or sospiro (sigh) to a note which falls to the note below. This technique is also known as "word-painting" and can be found not only in madrigals but in other vocal music of the period." http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jse ... sbid=lc01a
"In the 17th cent. madrigal was used to designate certain expressive solo songs. In England the polyphonic madrigal had a late flowering in the Elizabethan era." http://www.answers.com/topic/madrigal
c. So What is a Madrigal? Anything secular sung by 6 or fewer voices apparently.
3. What is Neurofunk?
a. I hope Dale did indeed mean "Neurofunk" and not "Eurofunk" as Google kept insisting. It's too late to change now, dude.
b.A Little Background and a Definition
"Jungle's [also known as Drum and Bass] sound-world constitutes a sort of abstract social realism; when I listen to techstep, the beats sound like collapsing (new) buildings and the bass feels like the social fabric shredding [Excellent descripton, I feel the same way.]. Jungle's treacherous rhythms offer its audience an education in anxiety (and anxiety, according to Freud, is an essential defence mechanism, without which you'd be vulnerable to trauma). 'It is defeat that you must learn to prepare for', runs the martial arts movie sample in Source Direct's 'the Cult', a track that pioneered the post-techstep style I call 'neurofunk' (clinical and obsessively nuanced production, foreboding ambient drones, blips 'n' blurts of electronic noise, and chugging, curiously inhibited two-step beats that don't even sound like breakbeats any more). Neurofunk is the fun-free culmination of jungle's strategy of 'cultural resistance': the eroticization of anxiety. Immerse yourself in the phobic, and you make dread your element."
http://www.descendingangel.com/nou-turn ... _srey.html
c. "Neurofunk is a sub-genre of the electronic music style of Drum and Bass. Sometimes referred to as "Future Funk" or "Next-Level DnB", the genre has a cult-like global following spreading quickly through the world [God help us.].
A progression of the "Techstep" subgenre, Neurofunk draws its main influences from Techno and places more focus on the complexity of basslines and instrumentation than in other styles of Drum and Bass. Described by some as "clinical" and "obsessively precise", this style draws heavily from the latest in music technology. Neurofunk generally has a sci-fi or futuristic theme to its melodies and sounds. Rather then focusing on the percussion or gained midrange filling the space of a song (as with other drum & bass genres as techstep or clownstep), atmosphere and spacial orientation take precedence. Emphasis on precision and intricacy have allowed for a maturity of sound that has become completely tangential from the mainstream [I have no doubt.], offering a soundtrack to the futurists of drum & bass, a sound that can best be described as "deep" [Well, you can only do your best.]."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofunk
P.S. Sainkho Namtchylak sounds as though she is a remarkable person and no disrespect is intended to be shown toward her or her music in my attempt to fit it into this particular category.
Neurofunk Madrigal Throat-singing Fusion
Sainkho Namtchylak's Stepmother City
(Ponderosa/Harmonia Mundi 003)
Why is this CD Neurofunk Madrigal Throat-singing Fusion?
Quotes are from review by Sari Heifetz 12/01/02
http://www.rockpaperscissors.biz/index. ... id/183.cfm
Bolding added by Cynth. Comments in brackets by Cynth.
"Sainkho Namtchylak's Stepmother City (Ponderosa/Harmonia Mundi 003) brings together the ultimate in ortherworldly-ness with modern, groove-infused electronica. A woman of the Steppes, Namtchylak is Tuva's most happening songstress, transfixing audiences with her wide seven-octave vocal range."
"This mysterious being comes from a family of nomads in the Republic of Tuva (located in the former USSR near the Mongolian border). It was there that she studied the cult music of the lamaistic and shamanistic traditions near Siberia, and practiced throat singing(1) a traditionally male-dominated form of song, which earned her outcast status [Now that's a surprise.]."
"Sainkho Namtchylak is a portal into two totally foreign realms: one that exists on the planet (her culture and land) and one that transcends this life completely. Music and spirituality are intimately entwined for the throat-singing (1) madrigal (2); the liner notes are written by a Buddhist monk."
[The usage of the word "madrigal" in this sentence is, I will admit, strange. Is it intended to apply to the entire CD? Is it intended to apply to a particular track? Who the heck knows. Personally, I doubt the reviewer had any idea of what a madrigal is. In any case there are three possible ways to look at this. First, throat-singing, as we all know, produces more than one tone at a time. So throat-singing is like unto a trecento-madrigal---secular singing, 2-3 voices---or even a later madrigal of the 16th c. with 4-6 voices depending on the number of tones produced. Secondly, judging by the sounds described in the next paragraph, this singing likely contains "madrigalisms" (word painting) as in the later madrigals. And finally, the solo singing is certainly expressive which would make it at least madrigalesque in its similarity to some 17th c. solo expressive songs.]
"Imagine a more foreign and avant-garde Bjork [Impossible!], complete with sometimes awkward notes and pitch, but with a strange quality of magnetism that can feel basically uncomfortable. Shrills, screams, squawks, moans, whispers and wails [madrigalisms (2)] sometimes get to be too much, too intense or too weird, "
"Some of the beats even have a drum 'n' basslike (3) sense of urgency to them, making this release accessible to a generation that pulses a few beats faster [That's one way of putting it.]."
[Drum and bass, whatever. But I would argue that with the basic discomfort, screams, moans, wail, that get to be "too much, too intense or too weird", that this music is NO FUN, that we have gone beyond anxiety here, that there is dread and defeat and therefore it qualifies as Neurofunk(3), a subgenre of Drum and Bass or Jungle. I believe I did hear something like "foreboding ambient drones" on a track or two. I might have hear some "chugging, curiously inhibited two-step beats" although it wasn't quite clear to me whether they did or didn't "sound like breakbeats any more". I do feel the sound is decidedly "deep". The pop-like songs do decidedly lack this "deep" quality in my opinion, showing the difficulty of being both accesible to the "generation that pulses a few beats faster" and "deep" at the same time.]
Footnotes
1.What is Throat Singing?
"Throat singing, a traditional Central Asian art similar to what is sometimes called in the western world overtone singing, harmonic singing, or harmonic chant (terms created by David Hykes in the 1970s), and many other regional names, is a type of singing that manipulates the harmonic resonances created as air travels through the human vocal folds and out the lips." [Actually, as we have learned, throat-singing exists in Sardinia, so I think to call it a "Central Asian art" is misleading.]
"The harmonic frequencies created by the human vocal apparatus are harnessed in throat singing to select overtones (An overtone is a sinusoidal component of a waveform, of greater frequency than its fundamental frequency. Usually the first overtone is the second harmonic, the second overtone is the third harmonic, etc.) by tuning the resonance in the mouth. The result of tuning allows the singer to create more than one pitch at the same time, with the capability of creating six pitches at once [N.B. the similarity to the 4-6 singers in madrigals (2) of late 16th c.]. Generally the sounds created by throat singing are low droning hums [N.B. the possibility of the "foreboding ambient drone" of Neurofunk (3)] and high pitched flutelike melodies. Some styles of throat singing may be likened to a Theremin."http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.c ... %20singing
2. What is Madigral?
a. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that Dale might have meant Madrigal. Because Google now changes its spelling to match the mispelled words one types in (an excellent idea which will be of great benefit to our society I'm sure), you might think that "Madigral" was a word. But it isn't. So....
b.What is a Madrigal?
"A madrigal is a setting for 4–6 voices of a secular text, often in Italian. The madrigal has its origins in the frottola, and was also influenced by the motet and the French chanson of the Renaissance. It is related mostly by name alone to the Italian trecento-madrigal of the late 13th and 14th centuries; those madrigals were settings for 2 or 3 voices without accompaniment, or with instruments possibly doubling the vocal lines."
"The madrigal was the most important secular form of music of its time. It bloomed especially in the second half of the 16th century, losing its importance by the third decade of the 17th century, when it vanished through the rise of newer secular forms as the opera and merged with the cantata and the dialogue."
"Late madrigalists were particularly ingenious with so-called "madrigalisms" — passages in which the music assigned to a particular word expresses its meaning, for example, setting riso (smile) to a passage of quick, running notes which imitate laughter, or sospiro (sigh) to a note which falls to the note below. This technique is also known as "word-painting" and can be found not only in madrigals but in other vocal music of the period." http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jse ... sbid=lc01a
"In the 17th cent. madrigal was used to designate certain expressive solo songs. In England the polyphonic madrigal had a late flowering in the Elizabethan era." http://www.answers.com/topic/madrigal
c. So What is a Madrigal? Anything secular sung by 6 or fewer voices apparently.
3. What is Neurofunk?
a. I hope Dale did indeed mean "Neurofunk" and not "Eurofunk" as Google kept insisting. It's too late to change now, dude.
b.A Little Background and a Definition
"Jungle's [also known as Drum and Bass] sound-world constitutes a sort of abstract social realism; when I listen to techstep, the beats sound like collapsing (new) buildings and the bass feels like the social fabric shredding [Excellent descripton, I feel the same way.]. Jungle's treacherous rhythms offer its audience an education in anxiety (and anxiety, according to Freud, is an essential defence mechanism, without which you'd be vulnerable to trauma). 'It is defeat that you must learn to prepare for', runs the martial arts movie sample in Source Direct's 'the Cult', a track that pioneered the post-techstep style I call 'neurofunk' (clinical and obsessively nuanced production, foreboding ambient drones, blips 'n' blurts of electronic noise, and chugging, curiously inhibited two-step beats that don't even sound like breakbeats any more). Neurofunk is the fun-free culmination of jungle's strategy of 'cultural resistance': the eroticization of anxiety. Immerse yourself in the phobic, and you make dread your element."
http://www.descendingangel.com/nou-turn ... _srey.html
c. "Neurofunk is a sub-genre of the electronic music style of Drum and Bass. Sometimes referred to as "Future Funk" or "Next-Level DnB", the genre has a cult-like global following spreading quickly through the world [God help us.].
A progression of the "Techstep" subgenre, Neurofunk draws its main influences from Techno and places more focus on the complexity of basslines and instrumentation than in other styles of Drum and Bass. Described by some as "clinical" and "obsessively precise", this style draws heavily from the latest in music technology. Neurofunk generally has a sci-fi or futuristic theme to its melodies and sounds. Rather then focusing on the percussion or gained midrange filling the space of a song (as with other drum & bass genres as techstep or clownstep), atmosphere and spacial orientation take precedence. Emphasis on precision and intricacy have allowed for a maturity of sound that has become completely tangential from the mainstream [I have no doubt.], offering a soundtrack to the futurists of drum & bass, a sound that can best be described as "deep" [Well, you can only do your best.]."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurofunk
P.S. Sainkho Namtchylak sounds as though she is a remarkable person and no disrespect is intended to be shown toward her or her music in my attempt to fit it into this particular category.
Thanks, Eldarion. I listened to all of them. I had wondered what her vocalizations over 7 octaves would sound like. It seems as though it would be very hard on the vocal apparatus. I doubt that it is an experience I would seek out again, but it was interesting to hear something so strange to me.
