BIFTF isn’t a State and it’s not your typical insurgency; it’s much more interesting than that – it is a freewheeling bazaar of violence. It is a collective action that only exists when active. BIFTF is a becoming, with nothing to command its allegiance beyond the moment of its own violence on its own behalf. BIFTF… Continue Reading
“You must know that blood has no value or splendor unless it has been freed from the prison of the arteries by iron or fire.” – F.T. Marinetti[1] In the early days of July 1923, a heroic and blasphemous storm blew across the Carso plain and down into the Po river valley. Its high… Continue Reading
Abandoned Silence Willits + Sakamoto from Ancient Future (12k, 2012)
A few weeks ago, Achim Szepanski, the legendary founder of the Force, Inc. family of record labels – including Mille Plateaux – noted on his Facebook page that Gilles Deleuze was particularly fond of “Textuell,” a track from Oval’s Systemisch album (MP CD 9, 1994). This immediately set me in motion toward my vast collection… Continue Reading
I once wrote a paper for a professor whose work on the anthropology of the imagination I found both inspiring but also compromised by its uncritical use of the Cartesian subject. Although I hate having lost every paper I wrote in grad school to hard drive failure and indifference, this one is probably better off… Continue Reading
Mille Plateaux became my grad school soundtrack while in NYC. I had previously been into drum and bass, and then the Warp label mates Aphex Twin and Squarepusher. One day I happened into Other Music when SND’s Stdio album was playing. It’s minimal pulses and crystalline beats were the sirens I’d wanted to hear my… Continue Reading
My plan to upload the greatest tracks from Mille Plateaux hit a snag when I discovered that wordpress does not support AAC files. I suppose I could re-load a few CD’s as MP3, but for now I’m going to give you what I can. For all practical purposes, Mille Plateaux has been dead since 2004. It… Continue Reading
For those inclined to join me on this journey of bourgeois self-discovery and self-destruction, I’ve posted 8 songs to which I’ve been listening while reading Deleuze and Guattari. They help me to think about things machinically, to think about flow, and to feel engulfed in pure purposeless rhythm. While each of them has its own… Continue Reading
Having discussed the hardcore scene’s ethic of violence that puts it at odds with the bourgeois prohibition against interpersonal violence, I must say that not all bands or fans adhere to such an ethic. In fact, the slightly rightist politics I presented above cannot even be assumed for the bands used as examples. None of… Continue Reading
Death Before Dishonor is a Boston band. They champion what I call “muscular hardcore,” more metal than punk, and utilize breakdowns and even verse-chorus song structures. Politically, the band, and others like them (Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, Terror, Palehorse, Lionheart, Death Threat, etc.) are hard to categorize in an American context. This… Continue Reading
