after the after

It’s all base and superstructure again these days in the group chat: the material versus the discursive, the economic versus the cultural, whether a clear delineation between them is ever actually possible, or if either can ever be understood without the other. I think we can all agree that there’s a link there – an extent to which social forms will always be determined by and reflective of the economic structure of a given society – but it also seems to me that the capacity for agency emerges precisely at the moment that the latter starts to exert some autonomy from the former. That is, if we care at all about the actions of human beings, it can’t just be a mechanical determination of one by the other. Even just strategically, we can’t dismiss politics and culture as simply a sideshow: there’s got to be some way for us to meaningfully intervene.

But if we can indeed speak of a cultural logic appropriate to a dominant mode of production, we’re still in postmodernism, right? We’re still stuck in this endless present (the late Fredric Jameson’s “inverted millenarianism”), knee deep in pastiche, content collapsed into form and eternally returning as little bits of decontextualized aesthetic gesture and fucking Avengers movies, always reacting and reacting and reacting. 

As I understand it, the great post-war compromise ran out of steam around the early 1970s, setting the stage for the rise of neoliberalism, which has become the dominant ideological force in global political economy in the decades since. Financialization has replaced commodity production as the primary locus of profit-making, and the last half-century of Western hegemony was paid for with fossil fuels and credit. It’s landed us facing down the existential time-bomb that is the climate catastrophe without any kind of political infrastructure capable of pulling us back from that brink. And yet for all that bleating about “small government,” what we’ve actually seen is a massive expansion of the carceral and bordering and military infrastructures of the state and its proxies. Where does that leave us culturally, if, as Jameson has it, “This whole global, yet American, postmodern culture is the internal and superstructural expression of a whole new wave of American military and economic domination throughout the world; in this sense, as throughout class history, the underside of culture is blood, torture, death and terror”?

If one of the principal casualties of late capitalist culture has indeed been the whole concept of master narratives and universality, there’s no denying the genuinely liberatory promise held by the wild proliferation of particularism and specificity that has flourished in its place, even if they’re so often still expressed using the master’s busted tools. Is it such a bad thing if that heroic modernist yearning for the sublime, for pure unadulterated experience, has been displaced by endless discourse, by self-reference and mediation – if what we once called the work of art has indeed been eclipsed by “the text” – when the former was always an artefact of a white supremacist bourgeois hegemony? Modernity, surely, earned itself a painful death.

In any case, there’s no denying that these are indeed the last days of something, though it’s not entirely clear what we’re witnessing the end of: neoliberalism? US empire? the fossil fuel era? capitalism as such? One wonders if, as we keep hearing, the hydra is indeed on its last legs – even with the astounding violence of its death throes still on the rise – or if it’s about to sprout another head. How can you recognize the scale of a transitional period while you’re in it? How much distance is needed to really apprehend the temporal boundaries of a particular era? Of course there will arrive discrete moments during which particular buttons are pushed or levers pulled, but as good historians know, wherever there’s rupture there’s also always continuity, and authentic beginnings and endings are usually at best illusory.

But if they’re still writing history books in 50 years, it’ll be because we’ll have managed to emerge from what we’ll have come to know as some great darkness. What are we going to call it, then, and when will we start to place the commencement of its demise? If Brezhnev’s tanks rolling into Prague sounded the death knell of modernism, and if the exigencies of late-20th century globalization kneecapped Fordism, and if video killed radio, and the internet killed television, and the rock song killed the symphony, what will we say slew the postmodern? What comes after this perpetual after? Can we still believe in the power of culture when we’ve seen what we’ve seen?

We can, of course: we don’t really have much of a choice. More than ever, what we need to do is build genuine constituency, to create forms of consensus that are worth the word itself, if we ever hope to marshal the power to challenge the looming polycrisis. And I’m not saying indie rock mixtapes are the most efficient way to do it, but, if we can allow ourselves to dream a little, I’d like to think that these little gestures might yet add up to something worth saving.

Lately I’ve found myself listening a little more than usual to stuff that’s probably most efficiently described, various hyphenations in tow, as a bit jazzy – perhaps even “ambient jazz,” if you’ll allow it. There’s been a lot of saxophone, at any rate.

This mix kicks off with a splash of cold water from London-based French composer Pascal Bideau, who records under the name Akusmi. The initial frenetic stutter of “Obscure I” slides before long into something much warmer, a densely emotional suite that flirts with a kind of baroque pop sensibility (you can almost hear a Sufjan Stevens-style chorus swelling up). Then it’s a clip from Endlessness, the just-released double LP from Nala Sinephro, another Londoner (with Caribbean and Belgian roots) who’s been getting a good bit of attention for her blend of minimalist discipline and intuitive, gestural grain. The album is best listened to as a dynamic longform work, built around some repeating arpeggiated themes that morph and phase in and out of focus, giving the whole thing an organic, exploratory collective spirit.

Next it’s another clip from Fuubutsushi, another Patrick Shiroishi initiative, this one a through-the-mail pandemic project now blossomed into a folky, life-affirming avant-jazz quartet with a first proper full-length, Meridians, out earlier this year. As Chicago’s incredible Cached Media label put it, “Fuubutsushi’s tendencies reflect a continued kind of farm-to-table, grassroots approach. Though they play sweetly, melodically, triumphantly, sorrowfully, Fuubutsushi have a strident Punk sensibility in their ethos. They aren’t simply a band, they are a brotherhood.” “Distance Learner” delivers an apt snapshot of what makes Meridians so compelling: it’s layered and complex, studied and serious, intent and intentional, yet animated throughout by a quiet joy and spontaneity which makes it all feel effortless and warm, conveying a sense that perhaps the passage of time needn’t simply be a source of anxiety and dread.

Then it’s “San Anto,” from Chicago improv hero Joshua Abrams’ 2012 stunner Represencing, a trance-inducing burst of communal post-jazz built around Abram’s playing of the Moroccan guimbri (something like a three-stringed lute) and a clatter of aux percussion. The piece dives right into a droning holding pattern, taut but not stiff, from which soon emerges a swirl of skronky saxophone, ecstatic but not show-stealing. Up next is legendary Sydney-based experimental trio The Necks, who’ve been churning out sprawling, genre-defying improv swoons for more than three decades. While their drums/bass/piano setup may betray a certain jazz foundation, The Necks pull from all over the place aesthetically, a rare case of a band making genuinely “unclassifiable” music. “Signal,” from 2023's Travel is at once meditative and nervy, in the pocket rhythmically while a sprinkling of sparse, pensive keys suggests something perhaps a little sinister hiding around a shadowy corner.

Then it’s “Surfaces,” the denouement to Brooklyn-based composer Elori Saxl’s latest Drifts and Surfaces 12,” which Grayson Haver Currin (one of my favourite music writers) calls “a six-minute state of total grace rendered by glass marimba, saxophone, and strings.” Saxl’s combination of organic instrumentation and extensive digital processing offers a vortex of peaceful reflection, a bit like staring at one’s reflection on the surface of a lake as ripples distort and morph the image. Next it’s Chicagoan Lia Kohl, who with cello and hand recorder teases out melody from the sonic accretions of everyday objects. In this case, footsteps on snow and the nagging buzz of a tennis court light are cast in a warmer light, articulating a deep stillness and an intimacy between the listener and the quiet scene it evokes.

Out of that stillness comes Mind Over Mirrors, solo project of Durham, NC experimentalist Jaime Fennelly – who’s also one third of Setting, whose Shone A Rainbow Light On was one of my favourite records of last year. As with Setting, Fennelly’s work as Mind Over Mirrors delves into a sort of folk-drone trance, washes of tone and percussive clicks conjured mainly out of synth and harmonium; it brings to mind Asa Osborne’s Zomes project, if that rings any bells. “Sulfur Firedots” is a journey, taking the listener through an otherworldly landscape of dusky valleys and sparkling peaks before landing at the foot of the towering wall of Blade Runner synth that is “Genetic,” an oldie courtesy of Cleveland’s Emeralds. Once, a thousand years ago in the warehouse at Constellation, Nick Scribner said that Emeralds sounds like an auction hall on the surface Mars, and I’ve never been able to think of any other way to describe them.

Back down to Earth, next we have NPNP Trio – local comrades James, Jackson, and Eve – with “Mirage of an Elastic,” which they released last year on their Isolated Plastic Bag EP. Huge synth drones meet the very tactile sounds of James’ mbira, while Eve’s drumming gives the otherwise kind-of-dreamy expedition a skeleton, keeping the group’s feet on the ground for a while before James switches to the sax and they go for a chaotic lift-off. Finally, it’s the mighty Hangedup, Eric and Gen’s viola and drums combo from the golden age of the Mile End, punk for fucking adults, and here joined by minimalist legend Tony Conrad for a collaborative LP released on Constellation in 2012. “Flying Fast and Furious” lumbers into view like a disoriented Frankenstein’s monster in a china shop before the trio lock into a woozy and exhilarating drone rock workout to take us out.

• Mixcloud: after the after (oct 2024)

• MP3: 24/10 - after the after.zip

NB: Same as last time, I've included a single hour-long MP3 of the whole mix in the zip file linked above (along with the individual MP3s).

I know it's too much work, trying to be a participant, but you've gotta try, right?

Thanks for reading, friends (and many thanks to DPW for editorial assistance).

xo, graham