I recently received a reply to our survey which included a thoughful commentary in the comments section. This reply was critical to the philosophies espoused on our writings page. In interest of equal time, I here present both this message and my reply. Both messages appear in their entirety. Names have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.


Point
this site seems very pretentious. i see myself as very musically open minded. and i am familiar with noise. a form of it in japan called scum particularly intrigued me, but one thing i see is a problem with noise is that it is a thing with good intentions but is wrong nonetheless. an idea undeveloped or poorly executed is worthless. i can take a shit and loop it and whatever and it may sound great. or it can sound horrible. and guess what, a lot of noise sounds horrible. guess what, putting piss in a stew may break some boundaries but hey it still tastes bad. i can identify with a lot of the ideas you present so dont think im all "this sucks". i too think that music can use some change. but you need a good idea, not just some old idea of shit. i can mic anything i want. i can feedback all day. but is it worth it? are you better for having done that? did you enhance your life experience? i think noise music is something of a bullshit art in which people can talk about how awesome they are and how much everyone else sucks and is soooooo below them. that was a bit harsh, i know. its just i see too many people content to make background listening and think they are superior to those who create sounds in a different way. the ideas presented here are ones which many can agree with but the means by which you intend to achieve them is limited at best. thank you, and i am sorry for having insulted you. however, you have insulted me by essentially saying that my musical mind is undeveloped. good day, and good luck with this project. )

Counter Point
I was curious as to what aspects of our site you found pretentious, as well as how you're using pretentious. If you're using it to mean excessively showy then, sweet Jesus, we sure are pretentious. I make no contest to that claim. In fact, I would embrace it. We put effort into making a big spectacle out of our nothing. Maybe it's a statement, but I start to get hives whenever people talk about art having meaning. Art is art. It's pretty, ugly, soothing, jarring, or whatever, but it's just a bunch of lines or tones. Now, if you mean pretentious in the sense that we think our lines and tones are more important than other lines and tones, I would be forced to raise an objection. I personally don't feel any sort of art is important, at least not in the sense that air or water are important. The "important" in art is all politics. Would a Picasso be a better or worse painting if my 6-year old cousin painted it? Would Bach be more or less pleasing if he composed by taking a shit and looping it? I agree with you that a lot of noise sounds horrible, but it doesn't sound horrible because of philosophy. It sounds horrible because it sounds horrible. I'm guessing that you would categorize i, apparatus in this horrible category, but is that because we have "some old idea of shit" or because we're a bunch of talentless hacks who can't play their instruments? (In the interest of self-defense, this last claim is not true. All the members of i, apparatus play in side projects that require more traditional use of instruments.)

Is making noise music worth it? That's something only you can answer for yourself. It's worth it for me. And I am better for having done it. I enjoy the fluid dynamics of noise and find it to be a valid form of self-expression. How is playing the same chord progession night after night artistic? You're free to think that noise is a "bullshit art," but I would like to know where we say that we're so much better than everyone else. If we actually did think this, it would be hard to explain the multitude of genres that all the members of i, apparatus enjoy. I listen to punk, I listen to jazz, I listen to rock, I listen to elecronic music. There are valid expressions in every form of music, but likewise there are shameless rip-offs and imitations. This unthinking aping is what we're against.

I would like to know how our "means... to acheive" our goals are limited. The whole idea is that we are unlimited in both our means and our ends. We don't have to have mohawks, or play on the upbeat, or put a hook in the chorus.

Finally, I'd like to apologize if we did insult you. I'm not sure what gave you the impression that we feel your "musical mind is undeveloped," but seeing as we don't know you (or at least, I don't) I'm not sure how we could make such a judgement. However, if it turns out that your musical mind isn't thinking for itself, then it would be fair to call it undeveloped. From what little I know of you, this does not seem to be the case. Thanks for taking the time to write and I hope this letter straightens out some things.