This interview with Thomas DeAngelo (aka T.D.) was to be published some time ago, when in April 2023 the reissue of “Voiceprints & Aircuts: Sound Poetry By Other Means” was due to be published by adhuman. After a year, that long conversation finally came to a close, and I have to say that re-reading it today, it continues to hold my interest. Perhaps it is because Thomas and I have had a e-mail communication for years and I have always wanted to ask him several questions about his musical work and his perspective on issues that concern me as well.
T.D. will be touring the East Coast/Midwest of the U.S. in May with Duncan Harrison, S.Glass and Darksmith. Full list of dates/venues forthcoming. The publication of this interview also coincides with the release of “Buddha of the Bands: Vol. ∞”, with Guido Gamboa and his longtime collaborator Stewart Skinner … and I’m sure it would have motivated me to ask even more questions. But I think in the future we’ll be given a second chance to do it again.
Marios Moras: Thomas, we’ve been in email communication for several years, not only because of the “Standing Water” release that we did on Moremars but also trading cassettes from your personal music projects, most of them released on The Gift Of Music label. One of your latest releases I received was “Nothing New Under The Sun” CS. I have to say that it was one of the most inspiring cassette packaging I have ever received and intuitively I associated it aesthetically with the Mail Art movement. Can you tell us some more words about this project and do you believe that short-run labels such as The Gift Of Music have a connection with the Mail Art movement?
Thomas DeAngelo: I’m glad you liked the packaging of “Nothing New Under the Sun”. It was a huge pain in the ass to assemble but I’m happy with how it came out. The Gift of Music was my friend Stewart Skinner’s label. I contributed to many of the releases in one way or another. It is now defunct, though I’m told there may be some sort of retrospective being compiled, as improbable as that sounds. The artwork for “Nothing New…” was mostly Stew’s doing, at least the more striking features, like the fly ribbon, which I think suggests some relation to the sonic content that is hopefully not too obvious or overbearing. He has this notion of “anti-social grit” which I’m not sure I agree with, although we share an affinity for unpolished, irritating, obscure aesthetic gestures.
Mail art, as I understand it, covers a pretty wide range, cassette culture being one overlapping phenomena I guess, but certainly TGM as a whole, and that package in particular, was devised with the legacy of labels like Spagyric, Petri Supply, G.R.O.S.S., Stinky Horse Fuck etc. in mind. The intent was to make something that functioned as much as an art object as noise tape and to that end I think we succeeded.
MM: And what about your own label, Crisis of Taste? Is it still active? What was the idea behind this project?
T.D.: Crisis of Taste ran from 2015-2020, only managing five releases (2 cassettes and 3 LPs). For some of that time it was also a distro and podcast that interspersed music and interviews with other artists. I guess it was my ill-fated attempt to present a highly personalized, yet broad overview of contemporary experimental sound, which quickly became exhausting for a variety of reasons. One, as I’m sure you know, doing a distro of this sort of music is a thankless endeavor and I lost a lot of money over the brief course of its existence. More significantly, it made me start to dread engaging with new music in general, as it began to feel very transactional and utilitarian. I reviewed everything I carried and whenever new stock came in there was this nagging thought of “What am I going to say about it? How soon can I get it up on the site?” etc. It turned listening into a chore, which was obviously a bummer and took a while to get over, to be honest. So all that, coupled with the increasingly byzantine nature of our beleaguered U.S. postal service, somewhat shifting interests (the label name proved to be accurate) and changing life responsibilities led to throwing in the towel. No regrets though, still stand behind pretty much all of it.
MM: In 2023 you had a release under your real name on the adhuman label. For this time you contribute a complete Sound Poetry album. You wrote a text accompanying the release, which mentions “the failure of the Avant Garde to realize itself” & “… to reinforce the cart-before-horse nature of producing art indifferent to, nay, incapable of commodification within a cratering Marketplace of Ideas”. Do you believe that today we are experiencing the consequences of a “social defeat” and by extension, we are witnessing an art scene determined by the “autocratic reign of the market economy”?
T.D.: I’m not sure how much interest there is in my pseudo-intellectual analysis of political economy among fans of dillentate tape music, so I’ll try not to belabor the point. Our experience of the world is shaped not only by the internal contradictions and volatility of global capitalism, but also by the deeply sensed failure at establishing a viable alternative (hopefully you don’t have a robust neo-Stalinist readership). Whether you want to place this defeat, and its ramifications, in 1848, 1871,1914, 1936, 1968, 1973, 1991, 2008, 2020…or express skepticism towards any sort of emancipatory project on whatever grounds, this “autocratic reign”, as Debord described it, that permeates the superstructural elements of culture, media etc. seems undeniable to me. It’s the weather, we can complain, but it is simply out of our control, like the oft-quoted Fisher line, “It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end of capitalism.”
As for what that might generally mean for art, the problem with this mode of production isn’t just that, in its fully idealized abstraction, it’s an irrational, crisis-prone system, or that in practice it leads to all the horrors of imperialism, the curtailing of civil liberties and rise of an unaccountable surveillance state, a disregard for pesky externalities like a habitable environment etc., but also the imposition (through alienated labor, commodity fetishism, control of our time) of immense fetters on creativity and subjectivity. The character of how this gets expressed changes with all the complexity of historical circumstance and is by no means monolithic, which is kind of what the quotes from the CD description are getting at. Somewhere in there is Fredric Jameson’s notion of contemporary culture’s “flattening of time” and historicizing pastiche as well.
Of course art can never be “radical”, in the sense of changing the economic basis of society, which even the most self-important artist recognizes. It can be sensational, propagandistic (“cogs and wheels in the whole revolutionary machine”, to quote Mao quoting Lenin, though our machine broke down sometime ago), try to turn the Spectacle against itself, but that’s all easily metabolized (the notion of “Spectacle” itself eventually becoming a defanged proto-meme). It’s been awhile since I’ve read him, but I believe something along these lines accounts for much of Debord’s deeply pessimistic tone, particularly after May 68. Hanging in the background of all this is Trotskyism, the historic avant-garde’s tortured relationship with official Communist parties, critical aesthetic theory contra affirmative socialist realism, which recurs in the New Left with this hopped up Guerilla Action Group, “Stockhausen Serves Imperialism”-type nonsense. I think Debord is correct in that all art, in its commodity form, can’t be realized (negated? transcended?) given the contradiction of formal bourgeois rights constituted through the wage relation, private property etc. (and the post-1960s turn towards actionism/adventurism simply skirts the issue), but you could say that about a lot of things. Maybe it’s true that “Art for art’s sake” is reactionary mystification, idealistic cover for a moribund ruling class, Western chauvinism (as the Tankie dogmatists so vociferously claim), but attempts to “raise consciousness” often make for poor art and activism alike, especially in the absence of an organized Left in which to contribute (e.g. the infantilizing didacticism of so much mainstream or institutionally-backed art/entertainment over the last decade often fueling resentment for a cultural elite perceived as at best hypocritical, at worst openly hostile to the practical concerns of anyone insufficiently indoctrinated in the latest iteration of their po-faced mores).
MM: There are still today vibrant communities, artistic networks, etc. in the US, that … let’s say … they interact with each other & move within an underground network. Is it still an underground scene that produces new ideas or are we now talking about something completely different, an artistic community with different principles and goals?
T.D: The underground is a funny thing. Certainly a lot of what I value from the last several decades comes out of this willfully obscure, DIY hobbyist milieu, especially music-wise, which has such a low overhead. It’s not an everyday occurrence, but I love sitting down with a stack of homemade, sparsely-credited tapes, taking in the weird shit people get up to in their free time with little concern for audience. There is something to be said for pragmatism, in making due with what you have. But I also think, in relation to your last question, that part of why this kind of street level anti-institutionalism, the “actionism” referenced above, takes hold when it does is the necessity of recasting the thwarted ambitions of earlier movements onto more manageable terrain. That energy had to go somewhere, but it was always bound for recuperation. It’s like that old Canadian label, “Freedom in a Vacuum”; I know it’s more complicated than this, there are all sorts of ideologies, a lot of nihilism, substance abuse, mental health issues, technological developments with huge impacts on media dissemination and even the interminable debate about “authenticity”, but if looking for a pithy phrase to sum the whole dilemma up, there you go.
On the question of community, I’d hesitate to label anything I’m aware of, or actively participate in as such, just because I think we’re all pretty atomized and have wildly different ideas about what we’re doing. I have trouble identifying my own principles and goals, let alone anyone else’s. All that said, I think there is a lot of exciting work being made, just within my limited purview, and it’s great to see names both old and new continue to crop up as Father Time spins his cruel yarn. I was exchanging emails a while back with someone I recently became aware of (uœrhe, a newer project from the Czech Republic) about this kind of “anti-music that’s not noise” thing of the last 10-15 years, and whether much could be said about it as a unified sound or aesthetic beyond superficial generalizations. On one hand sure, there are trends that come and go, big fish in small ponds who cast a recognizable influence, but again, everyone has their own motivations. I’m not always the best at this, but I think it’s good to communicate, give honest, substantial feedback, encourage what you feel is worthwhile, and most who make this kind of stuff are happy to share their thoughts about it, as it’s not like many of our inboxes are overflowing with fan mail. Of course there are always going to be some who want nothing to do with that, which is fine too. For my part I just try not to be an asshole. I really don’t think I’ve got anything figured out.
MM: Are there any new releases that came out over the last few years that still have a positive impact on you?
T.D.: One of these days I’m gonna write something on “the decade of post-noise” that was 2010-19, using Darksmith Total Vacuum and Shots Private Hate as bookends (Tom drew the insert for the Shots LP, so there’s some symmetry, despite the two sounding nothing alike). That goes back further back than the last few years, and I don’t want to just “shout out my homies”, but there was a brief window where there really did seem to be some people taking chances, not so worried about adhering to genre signifiers or making something “good” (while still having a strong sense of taste). A lot of what I have in mind also subtly captured the despondent atmosphere of the time, the uneasy calm before the inevitable geopolitical fall out currently underway, though I’m undoubtedly projecting with this interpretation. Of course these things ebb and flow, I’m not trying to say that was a golden age for anything, and I realize individual originality is a myth, but I think there is value in trying to develop some sort of personal idiom within a wider social context.
There are definitely more recent things that have resonated with me as well. Probably the most exciting package I got last year was a box of five self-released, dubbed to recycled tapes by the elusive Catalonian project Ruda Vera. Surely the lack of info., personalized touch, arcane graphics etc. add to the allure, but the crud-encrusted, pitch black audio-verité that emanates from each release is truly a cut above no matter how you dress it up (I imagine few were made and are only available direct from the source, so get in touch if you’re curious of their charms). My brother in Melk, Jim Strong, released his debut LP a few months ago, which counts as a big event in my tiny world. One of the most talented artists I’ve ever met, across multiple fields, it is great to see him get some recognition for his truly unique work. “The Last Great Man”, Scott Foust, is a perennial source of inspiration, and the demos I’ve heard of the most recent Idea Fire Company recordings are up there with the band’s best, unlike much else in their discography, or really anything I can think of in the contemporary underground at all. The fact that Karla, Scott & co. continue, after decades of activity, to chart their own course with such obstinance and integrity is extremely admirable. And not to butter you up Marios, but I was floored by your Non Living Nature cassette, a real highlight of fringe sound in ’24 for me!
MM: Let’s focus now more on the creative procedure that you follow. How do you approach creating a piece of music or a new album and what kind of equipment do you use for this purpose?
T.D.: It varies according to circumstance. Obviously collaborations are different, and tend to go a lot faster than solo, which I’m constantly revising and second guessing. Working with Jim is great, I’ll go over to his strange house on the outskirts of town and we’ll bang on shit for hours, then I’ll take the tapes, edit them in semi-coherent fashion, send them back and he’ll make further edits or suggestions. He’s an adept musician, improviser, instrument builder etc., so there’s never any shortage of material. With long distance collaborations, say with Stew or Erik Nystrand, it’s usually a lot of sources going back/forth, emails about concepts, titles, stupid jokes, until we polish our diamond and present it to the world. Stew possesses a beautiful mind, he will often have some very odd or funny compositional directive, such as “record yourself digging a hole”, “play something loudly through a portable amp into a bayou for natural echo”, “light so much incense while performing it becomes physically unbearable to be in the room” and so on.
Working alone is a different process and, as suggested, can be pretty laborious. I guess due to my record collecting habit I tend to conceptualize at the level of a release, taking the format, how tracks fit together etc., into consideration even before recording. It often changes a lot through the process of making it though, or sharing rough versions with “confidants”. My gear is a mess, mostly a bunch of cheap tape players in various stages of disrepair, or some piece of junk that makes a couple weird sounds I’ll use a few times then toss. I have a decent mixer and microphones though, don’t wanna skimp on those. I always try to start with sources that have an immediate sonic appeal for me and don’t require much processing (aside from maybe bouncing to a tinny Maxwell and/or played through a walkman with dying batteries), whether it’s a field recording or something more performed.
The use outmoded, audibly deteriorating equipment lends itself to this conceit of malaise running through a lot of the material, the Decadent hangover (the orgy disbanded long ago and the bejeweled tortoise has finally been put out to pasture), as well as suggesting the loss of hope in technology as a progressive force (obviously the tools have more so come to dominate us in recent years) but mostly I just like the way they sound. I have a lot of problems with Cage et al. (what Leonard B. Meyer refers to as “transcendental particularism”) and the faux-humble “art of the everyday” but I think the insight of treating sound as pure sense experience was invaluable. While I do have a soft spot for the whole Musique Brut-influenced low skill thing, rough, “pause button editing” and the like, I don’t consider that more “real” than someone who knows what they’re doing. I’ve picked up enough simple tape/recording techniques over the years to get by, but I’m not opposed to more technically, or even musically, informed approaches. Just depends on what the aim is. One of my favorite reactions that experimental sound can produce, other than the obvious “What am I hearing?”, “Do I even like it?” etc. is “Why am I bothering to listen?” That question of duration, pacing, some things overstaying their welcome, maybe something that sounds “good” not staying around long enough. Since it’s a time-based medium, that is a unique experience, even given the long-established “End of Art” pluralism it awkwardly intersects. Whether a particular recording elicits such a feeling is debatable of course, but it’s often in the back of my mind while working on my own stuff.
MM: I know that the cover photo for your “VoicePrints & Aircuts: Sound Poetry By Other Means” was inspired by Henri Chopin’s cover of “Audiopoems” (CD reissue on ?Records). In older conversations that we had, you have mentioned as a reference to your soundwork, names like Jeph Jerman and Art Brut artists, such as Milan Knizak and Wolf Vostell. Who else can complete this list?
The cover reference to Chopin was more so related to the theme (i.e. “the post avant-garde conundrum”) than any direct sonic influence, although I do find his work endlessly fascinating. Certainly the lo-fi immediacy of someone like Jerman, or the primitivism of “Broken Music”-style artist records are frequent influences as well, but it all depends on the nature of the piece. I try to keep an open ear, sometimes things just catch your attention, it can come from unexpected places. Jerman talks about that, his sort of meditative approach, which is not far off from an Oliveroes-esque “deep listening”, and ultimately all leads back to Cage. There are still plenty of interesting ways, however, that sound can signify something beyond its immediate sensuous qualities. I often think of Roman Opalka’s life project of writing the numbers 0 to infinity. He has recordings that are simply collages of him reciting numbers as he painted them on canvas, certainly not the most captivating thing if heard blind, but knowing it’s relation to this larger project gives it depth and dimension, draws the import from outside the audio document (not to mention the impossibility of arriving at a finished work, all you can ever hear or see are details). I find this highly affecting, even given how ridiculous and patience testing it is, and the fact you need to know what you’re hearing to get anything out of it doesn’t cheapen it in any way. This isn’t to say it’s any better or worse than music, it’s just an altogether different experience, which I guess is the core of what the overly-broad term “sound art” suggests.
It can be tacky to bring up art history, aesthetics, critical theory etc. (my eyes glaze over whenever I come across phrases like “rhizomatic praxis” or “haptic gestures” in those kind of semi-pro artist statements aimed at securing grant funding table scraps), I know some people just get off on “the riffs” and that’s fine, but ideas are there to draw from if you’re interested in them. By this I don’t necessarily mean conceptual art, and I have my doubts as to whether flogging the corpse of heterodox Marxism in the way I have for the past several years serves any purpose, it all seems pretty inactionable at this point, but gotta think about something I suppose. I mentioned Peter Burger’s Theory of the Avant-Garde in a White Centipede Noise interview last year, and that really does elucidate the distinction between the earlier notion of “anti-art” as a critique of the secularized institualization of art happening throughout the latter 19th/early 20th centuries and the more depoliticized, aestheticized focus that emerges post-WWII Pax Americana. Something else I can’t get out of my head since reading it about a year ago is Edmund Burke’s essay “On the Sublime and Beautiful”. While his characterization of aesthetic beauty as essentially anything reminiscent of a nice rack is no doubt reductive, his theorizing on the Sublime articulated so much of what had been hovering around the periphery of my consciousness for a long time.
Much of it concerns the ability of art to replicate the intoxicating sense of terror and magnitude of nature through techniques like the “artificial infinite”, or obscure poetics, how the open-ended language employed by Milton, Dante, Virgil et al. gave it so much power (“A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea”, ho ho!), but there is a quote from Thomas Hardy in the introduction of the edition I have that really hit on so much of what I value in all sorts of art/eras: “The whole secret of a living style and the difference between it and a dead style, lies in not having too much style–being, in fact, a little careless, or rather seeming to be, here and there.” Huxley is also quoted: “I have a taste for the lively, the mixed and incomplete in art, preferring it to the universal and chemically pure.” Elsewhere Faulkner said similar in praise of Moby Dick,how it was “an attempt that didn’t quite come off, not a complete controlled effort”, meaning, I think, that the faults in it, like the jarring transitions between naturalistic descriptions of whaling minutiae to Romantic, supernatural plot devices, provide this kind of humanizing charge to what could otherwise spiral into overblown tedium. I don’t know, I’ve always been drawn to stuff that’s rough around the edges, that retains some sort of “organic” imprint (regardless of how abstracted it is, I think this is why I like stuff that uses voice, for instance, and why I’m skeptical of technology as an end in and of itself), so seeing such sentiments expressed by “authoritative sources” was reassuring in a sense. Obviously they are citing some of most revered works of the Western canon, but I don’t see why their reasoning can’t be extended to a ltd. to 25 cassette covered in dead leaves and jizz.
More music by Thomas DeAngelo:
