MEMORABILIA. COLLECTING SOUNDS WITH…
William Bennett. Part II
Music selected by William Bennett and Mimsy DeBlois
There’s something particularly intoxicating about sheer physiological functionality in music. About being acted upon to the extent where granted permission and forceful imperative become giddily indistinguishable. Not that you’re worrying over the distinction anyway when a sound takes you whipsawing around into juddering surrender bordering on then slipping into ecstasy. There just isn’t any need to worry about responsible agency, who or what is answerable for the sudden tyranny of basest autonomy. You’re a character, very nonfiction.
The height of aural power is when a piece you’ve never heard and can’t place finds you more wantonly suggestible than you’d readily volunteer. And manifests its hold physically. Experienced outside and beyond their original context these specially mixed African and Haitian percussion pieces evince an extra-intentional intent, a rhythmic seizure of rational faculties. Timidity of the permeable body, rigid abhorrence of the ass, are not long for this world. Too much won’t be enough.
Merciless non-judgmental ambiguity: your balled-up two-fisted convictions defer to a point of gravity somewhere lower, tag team target of relentless djembe and doun-doun polyrhythms. Best let it exercise full reign, best allow yourself a suspension of the bounds of good sense, an equivocal lapse into that unsafe territory where content is subservient to effect. Sublime indulgence in existential power-play.
William Bennett. Teaser
This music selection was used as a teaser for the MEMORABILIA. Collecting sounds with... William Bennett lecture, which took place on April 1st, 2011 at the MACBA, and features some of the highlights of William Bennett’s collection.
Transcript of William Bennett's lecture: "Musical homeostasis: music not just to be heard".
Conversation with William Bennett on his sound collection.
This is a conversation by email with William Bennett (Whitehouse), which took place on March 2011, to prepare a monograph on his sound collection.
William Bennett. Part I
International noise music legend William Bennett is also an avid record collector. Both critical and eclectic in his selective accumulation, the British artist’s record collection comprises a singular labyrinth of sounds that make it possible to chart different paths through the musical preferences of its owner.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of the interview with sound collector William Bennett that we were unable to include the first time around.