est. 2023
Systems of Release is an evolving multimedia project presenting fragments of New York City's underground electronic music communities.
info
JAVI SUH
WHAT GOOD IS AN ECHO THAT FADES?
Photo: Vanya Suchan
Place: Three Dollar Bill
What good is an echo that will fade?
What good is a light that will dim?
What good is a rave that will end?
As sad as it always is, every night must come to an end. The memory of the rave that echoes in our hearts that permeates outside the night often feels unsubstantiated, like a phantom that lurks over us. The rave, as a collective experience that aims to dissimulate the simulation by simulating a dissimulated reality, is in itself another delayed and echoed replicant version of our lives. A mystical, dubbed, aquatic, lo-tech, urban, double-timed, or remixed parallel reality that renders itself larger than where it came from. As the music accumulates new layers, either rumbling below or humming above, it will inevitably dream of something entirely new; seemingly incompatible with the original experience. Those outside of the rave will say this is because what the rave dreamt of on the dancefloor is inherently impossible, hence impossible to replicate outside the function.
But everything was possible in the rave. Moisture and heat, when calculated by scientists and discussed in symposiums, presents itself as the bearers of life in this universe. But when we are wet and hot, we are just a whore. The walls are wet in the rave. The air melts off the mascara in the rave. The rave wants to live on – as a deviation, violation, and hence a deception against the current schizoid hegemony. So why can’t we be wet and hot?
The rave is meant to remind us of who and who we truly can be. The diverging gap between our reality and what should be our reality is painstakingly dark and traumatic. If the world that the rave promises is hardly compatible with the reality to which we are to return to at the end of the night, then the rave is not supposed to deny its own end. To be the reflection of a good night out, or a deflection against our bad days, cannot be a rave’s goal.
If the rave aspires to have any meaningful effect after we leave the venue, it must eclipse all the possibilities through its own movement of distorting, mixing, and echoing the present. If our world does not dissimulate itself, the club will conjure it away by any means, by a kind of irony or vengeance, to bridge the gap between what should be right amidst what is wrong. Because until we can reach a morning where we can feel as welcome as the night, we might as well indulge in the shadows instead of scorching under the sun. Because until our echo can find a wall to bounce off from, the rave must continue to shout in all directions.
Amidst all the contemporary “raves” across North America and the West that bear no resemblance to what Paul Oakenfold had dreamt of, the true underground that still yearns of articulating new potentials collectively face the same, if not worse challenges. Most alarmingly, the same name that the underground had assumed several decades ago. The decoupling of democracy from capitalism during the latter half of the century, when most authoritarian US-backed juntas put the economy first, has now deeply spread its logic across all facets of life. The most efficient way of extracting value has been merciless individualism ever since, and perhaps the older ravers are right in that they were the last generation where liberal democracy had any chance in holding some right to what is rightfully the People’s. They will usually relabel their old problems under a new name instead of fixing them. So far, the system’s favorite rebrandings of the century have been “Alternative”, “Zero”, and “Peace Mission”.
The true underground isn’t blind to the facts, just gullible to the noise. But you can only rave for so long, before the inevitable happens. You either get crushed like a bug by what you’re revolting against, you can bow out, or most likely, you will find yourself in a position of choosing yourself over someone else against the wall. Kissing or fighting, can be either or both. It shouldn’t be that hard to notice that alternative music is just the mainstream admitting that they had been too totalitarian in imposing their style, and desperately naming the same problems with words that the People want to hear: alternative, peace, zero. All shouting change while the emperor still walks naked.
Now the true rave has to reconcile with an otherness that resembles its own. It has never been enough for music to exist as a singular description, but to bear witness to its own plurality. The DJ considers the tracks past on one CDJ, reconciles the present on the mixer, and listens to the future on the next CDJ. The DJ is always engulfed in multiple instances of possibility, and they must turn the knobs at the cost of deliberately distorting the present. The mix is not an objective state, but always at a radical intersection between two or more tracks which no longer obey or command their own destiny. It is not enough for the rave to describe a single sonic reality, but the anarchic participants must be a unique event through themselves, alongside the anarchic vision the mix conjures.
But if the DJ and raver is to be a conscious actor of change, how are we to oppose a system that has assumed a different name, the names that we have coined, without the substance that gave it volume in Detroit and Chicago? Is our position then to negate the negation by affirming complacency? Is it better to dance to California Gurls before we accept any Fred Again… drop in our night? The radical limit where the underground stands is then inexorable from the two apparently divergent paths of pop conformity and niche burrowing. To rave then, is not just to embrace this ambivalence, but to be stoic and accepting of this duality within singularity.
To rave then, is to anticipate the night’s own misaligned destiny with open arms regardless of the future it holds. Because every single track must expect to be mixed out, every key has to be passed, and every light has to come on at four in the morning. The rave is born on the presumption that it will be an abrupt pause from continuity exactly because there is a need for digression. The rave roars on the presumption that it will make the People feel the otherness of their expectations real. Because from Lahore to London, from Inglewood to Itaewon, the order of things in this world does, has not, and will not feel quite right. Because while the musical score in itself is a statement about organization, the track that flows and erupts in the rave will draw a disorganized, yet chaotically constrained expression under new alternatives that at least take us into consideration.
So, until we can find the next rave, until the simulation can look and finally learn from what we have dissimulated, we must hold on to the memory of the echo. If the rave is to be a rightful, yet ephemeral deviation then the rave must seduce and add a narrative instead of replicating its past. Until then, we must articulate the crisis of contemporary life through all means necessary; be it delayed, echoed, reverbed, slip-rolled, phased, or even reversed. Until then, the rhythm’s echo will burn in our hearts as a force, not as a memory, to brave on in a world that does not feel right.
What good is a light that will dim?
What good is a rave that will end?
As sad as it always is, every night must come to an end. The memory of the rave that echoes in our hearts that permeates outside the night often feels unsubstantiated, like a phantom that lurks over us. The rave, as a collective experience that aims to dissimulate the simulation by simulating a dissimulated reality, is in itself another delayed and echoed replicant version of our lives. A mystical, dubbed, aquatic, lo-tech, urban, double-timed, or remixed parallel reality that renders itself larger than where it came from. As the music accumulates new layers, either rumbling below or humming above, it will inevitably dream of something entirely new; seemingly incompatible with the original experience. Those outside of the rave will say this is because what the rave dreamt of on the dancefloor is inherently impossible, hence impossible to replicate outside the function.
But everything was possible in the rave. Moisture and heat, when calculated by scientists and discussed in symposiums, presents itself as the bearers of life in this universe. But when we are wet and hot, we are just a whore. The walls are wet in the rave. The air melts off the mascara in the rave. The rave wants to live on – as a deviation, violation, and hence a deception against the current schizoid hegemony. So why can’t we be wet and hot?
The rave is meant to remind us of who and who we truly can be. The diverging gap between our reality and what should be our reality is painstakingly dark and traumatic. If the world that the rave promises is hardly compatible with the reality to which we are to return to at the end of the night, then the rave is not supposed to deny its own end. To be the reflection of a good night out, or a deflection against our bad days, cannot be a rave’s goal.
If the rave aspires to have any meaningful effect after we leave the venue, it must eclipse all the possibilities through its own movement of distorting, mixing, and echoing the present. If our world does not dissimulate itself, the club will conjure it away by any means, by a kind of irony or vengeance, to bridge the gap between what should be right amidst what is wrong. Because until we can reach a morning where we can feel as welcome as the night, we might as well indulge in the shadows instead of scorching under the sun. Because until our echo can find a wall to bounce off from, the rave must continue to shout in all directions.
Amidst all the contemporary “raves” across North America and the West that bear no resemblance to what Paul Oakenfold had dreamt of, the true underground that still yearns of articulating new potentials collectively face the same, if not worse challenges. Most alarmingly, the same name that the underground had assumed several decades ago. The decoupling of democracy from capitalism during the latter half of the century, when most authoritarian US-backed juntas put the economy first, has now deeply spread its logic across all facets of life. The most efficient way of extracting value has been merciless individualism ever since, and perhaps the older ravers are right in that they were the last generation where liberal democracy had any chance in holding some right to what is rightfully the People’s. They will usually relabel their old problems under a new name instead of fixing them. So far, the system’s favorite rebrandings of the century have been “Alternative”, “Zero”, and “Peace Mission”.
The true underground isn’t blind to the facts, just gullible to the noise. But you can only rave for so long, before the inevitable happens. You either get crushed like a bug by what you’re revolting against, you can bow out, or most likely, you will find yourself in a position of choosing yourself over someone else against the wall. Kissing or fighting, can be either or both. It shouldn’t be that hard to notice that alternative music is just the mainstream admitting that they had been too totalitarian in imposing their style, and desperately naming the same problems with words that the People want to hear: alternative, peace, zero. All shouting change while the emperor still walks naked.
Now the true rave has to reconcile with an otherness that resembles its own. It has never been enough for music to exist as a singular description, but to bear witness to its own plurality. The DJ considers the tracks past on one CDJ, reconciles the present on the mixer, and listens to the future on the next CDJ. The DJ is always engulfed in multiple instances of possibility, and they must turn the knobs at the cost of deliberately distorting the present. The mix is not an objective state, but always at a radical intersection between two or more tracks which no longer obey or command their own destiny. It is not enough for the rave to describe a single sonic reality, but the anarchic participants must be a unique event through themselves, alongside the anarchic vision the mix conjures.
But if the DJ and raver is to be a conscious actor of change, how are we to oppose a system that has assumed a different name, the names that we have coined, without the substance that gave it volume in Detroit and Chicago? Is our position then to negate the negation by affirming complacency? Is it better to dance to California Gurls before we accept any Fred Again… drop in our night? The radical limit where the underground stands is then inexorable from the two apparently divergent paths of pop conformity and niche burrowing. To rave then, is not just to embrace this ambivalence, but to be stoic and accepting of this duality within singularity.
To rave then, is to anticipate the night’s own misaligned destiny with open arms regardless of the future it holds. Because every single track must expect to be mixed out, every key has to be passed, and every light has to come on at four in the morning. The rave is born on the presumption that it will be an abrupt pause from continuity exactly because there is a need for digression. The rave roars on the presumption that it will make the People feel the otherness of their expectations real. Because from Lahore to London, from Inglewood to Itaewon, the order of things in this world does, has not, and will not feel quite right. Because while the musical score in itself is a statement about organization, the track that flows and erupts in the rave will draw a disorganized, yet chaotically constrained expression under new alternatives that at least take us into consideration.
So, until we can find the next rave, until the simulation can look and finally learn from what we have dissimulated, we must hold on to the memory of the echo. If the rave is to be a rightful, yet ephemeral deviation then the rave must seduce and add a narrative instead of replicating its past. Until then, we must articulate the crisis of contemporary life through all means necessary; be it delayed, echoed, reverbed, slip-rolled, phased, or even reversed. Until then, the rhythm’s echo will burn in our hearts as a force, not as a memory, to brave on in a world that does not feel right.