kodwo-eshun-more-brilliant-than-the-sun-adventures-in-sonic-fiction

06[078]PROGRRMMINGRHYTHMRTICFREQUENCIES06[079]hope of emulating drums, and instead programs rhythms from electricity,rhythmatic intensities which are unrecognizable as drums. There are nosnares - just waveforms being altered. There are no bass drums - justattack velocities.Posthuman RhythmaticsWith Man Parrish, Cybotron, Haashim, Soul Sonic Force and Jonzun Crew,the Roland 808 rhythm composer opens a new threshold, theprogramming of posthuman rhythmatics as predicted in '36 by composerEdgard Varese: ' I need an entirely new medium of expression: a soundproducingmachine. And here are the advantages I anticipate from such amachine: crossrhythms unrelated to each other, treated simultaneously;the machine would be able to beat any number of desired notes, anysubdivision of them, omission or fraction of them, all these in a givenunit of measure or time which is humanly impossible to attain.'This 'humanly impossible' time, this automatization of rhythm which isrhythmatics, opens up the posthuman multiplication of rhythm: the rhythmsynthesizer's spastic pulses seize the body, rewiring the sensorium in akinaesthetic of shockcuts and stutters, a voluptuous epilepsy.Migration Paths across the vocoder Spectrum:Cybotron, lapp, DrexciyaIt is the rationalizing and ordering imposed bytechnology that makes us forget that machines havetheir origins in the irrationalGeorges Canguilhem[R]earview HearingThere are no drum-machines, only rhythm synthesizers programmingnew intensities from white noise, frequencies , waveforms, alteringsampled drum sounds into unrecognizable pitches. The drum-machinehas never sounded like drums because it isn 't percussion: it's electroniccurrent, synthe ti c percussion, syncussion. The sampler is at first termedan 'emulator', as if it does nothing but imitate existing sounds. Callingthe rhythm synthesize r a drum-machine is yet one more example of[rlearview hearing. Every time decelerated media writes about snares,hihats, kickdrums, it faithfully hears backwards. Electro ignores this vainMan plusWith Mantronix, this massive augmentation of rhythm capabilitybecomes an Electronic Energy, a super sonotronic power. Man + Electron+ [ics =l ix = Mantronix, the Rhythmachine cyborg. The 'cs' in 'tronics' iscompressed to 'x', so that it transmits the PhonoCurrent of theMandroid. Electro is electricity fictionalized into full-force fantasies offrequencies , rhythms programmed to capture and compel, trap andtrigger wetware motion.Futurhythmachines turn the extended capability of machines intosupersensory powers. Electro is this crossfire of 'unrelatedcrossrhythms', rhythms treated simultaneously into paradoxical sound -angular accents, zapp-kicks, palmless claps, rigid bounces. In RyuichiSakamoto's Riot in Lagos, unrelated cross rhythms refract into a maze ofmirrors refracting cicada creaks and cricket croaks. Electronic rhythmsrun in phase but out of synch, repeatedly overlap split seconds apart,creating a stratum of seething, prehensile tension. Signals interlock in aweb of pulsations, a rhythm forest shower of screams and rustletime.The beat becomes a staccato pulsation, the twitchshrug-stopmotionpoplock-wavecutMotion Capture of electric boogaloo. Electro is the