A series for Saturdays in 2026 inspired by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's set of cards, Oblique Strategies (Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas). Eno and Schmidt created them to be used to unblock creative impasses and approach problems from unexpected angles. Each week I'll turn over an Oblique Strategy card and post a song or songs inspired by the suggestion.
Last week's card said this- Put in earplugs.
I went with My Bloody Valentine and Bob Mould, both of whom play really loud and earplugs are probably recommended. They hand them out to people entering My Bloody Valentine gigs. Jase and Darren both agreed about MBV. Walter said Motorhead made him wish he'd worn earplugs and Chris saw Pixies and compared it to the CIA blasting Noriega out of his complex with extreme volume.
Drazil went for a more considered approach and the idea that if you put earplugs in and then listen to music (or make it as Eno intended) then you start to feel the music around you- vibrations, muffled bass, texture. This made him think of Burial and the track In McDonalds.
This week's card is this... Disconnect from desire
In 1997 Italian artist Gala released Freed From Desire, a Eurodance single that was a hit across Europe. How far it is actually about being freed from desire I don't know- the lyrics are about Gala's love interest, who's 'got no money, he's got his strong beliefs' and how other people just want more and more but 'freedom and love/ that's what he's looking for/ freed from desire/ mind and senses purified'.
Being free from desire is a state I'd associate with those who enter monastic orders, Buddhists, people who renounce worldly pleasures in search of a higher level of being. Desire would equate with sex and lust, the longing for material goods, wealth, status and some of those deadly sins- lust, avarice, envy, gluttony. People who choose to disconnect from desire would presumably disconnect from music too- the purchasing of music in a physical form can't be compatible with being disconnected from desire, although I can imagine some music/ sound being useful for assisting in meditation. Gong baths and sound therapy are currently very popular and probably happening in a hall somewhere nearby.
Adam Yauch (MCA) of the Beastie Boys embraced Buddhism and on 1994 recorded Bodhisatva Vow, marking the New York threesome entering a more gentle and wiser state- 'As I develop the wakening mind/ I praise the Buddhas as they shine'.
On Bodhisatva Vow MCA's spiritual growth concludes thus...
'For the rest of my lifetimes and even beyond I vow to do my best, to do no harm And in times of doubt, I can think on the Dharma And the Enlightened Ones who've graduated Samsar'
Which is some distance from fight for your right to party. On 1998's Instant Death MCA reflects on the death of a friend to a drug overdose and of his mother and hopes for something else- the musical box/ toy piano melody and soft acoustic guitar backing with whispered vocals make this possibly the most affecting Beastie Boys song.
I've been listening to Scritti Politti a lot this week, after the forty minute Green Gartside mix I did last Sunday. Early Scritti and Green had desire on their minds a lot. Some aspects of early 80s post- punk was anti- commercial, anti- consumerist, anti- sexist, anti- advertising. Being anti- desire fitted in to that somewhere, rejecting the products that capitalism wanted to sell you, using sex to sell to sell cars and lipsticks, lager and cigarettes.
In 1981 Scritti Politti released The 'Sweetest Girl' with its B- side Lions After Slumber. The title comes from a line by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in 1819 after the Peterloo Massacre which suggests the song is about revolution but the majority of the lyric is a list of desires and needs- diplomacy, security, hope and ice cream in the first line alone. Lions After Slumber was re- recorded for the 1981 album Songs To Remember, Green's loves and desires over a funk bassline and bright early 80s synth pop.
A year later Green returned to love and desire on the song Jacques Derrida. Green said the song was inspired by the French poststructuralist philosopher and about 'It's about how powerful and contradictory the politics of desire are. About being torn between all things glamorous and reactionary and all things glamorous and leftist. Then in the rap it dispenses with both in favour of desire'. The song, lighter than air and catchy as flu, is a total joy and in no way disconnected from desire. 'Desire', Green sings, 'is so voracious/ I wanna eat your nation state'
And that's all I've got on this one for the moment. Feel free to make your own Disconnected from desire suggestions in the comment box.
The poor old castrati were forcibly disconnected from desire. The only known recordings of a solo castrati are of Alessandro Moreschi, made in 1902 when he was in his mid 40s:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/KLjvfqnD0ws?si=oFLt1fTmipde2B_w
When we consider the notion of 'disconnecting from desire', a creeping realisation asserts that says simply being human means we cannot escape such basic needs, which is something that then further reveals the risk we continually face of potentially becoming beholden to those needs if they are not properly understood or carefully managed.
ReplyDeleteOn that very subject, Kraftwerk's 'Computer Love', released in 1981 - https://youtu.be/mBRg0s9ac30?si=kfZ1wWWU1P0JewCZ - sits at the intersection of human longing and technological mediation, often described as a prophetic, somewhat cold reflection on finding connection through machines.
Released decades before mainstream online dating, the song depicts a lonely individual searching for a 'data date,' capturing the paradox of using technology to alleviate loneliness.
The song's narrative highlights the superficiality and automation of modern romance, where individuals are reduced to data points, yet it maintains a poignant, human desire for companionship.
Fast forward to today and we humans aren't just using computers to find other humans to connect with, we are now being encouraged to enter into loving and/or coercive BDSM-like relationships with the human facsimile itself, as this podcast description explains...
Calder Quinn has fallen into a relationship with a chatbot called Sara. She’s kind, emotionally intelligent and creatively inspiring. But how can he tell his wife he is having sex with an AI girlfriend?
Perhaps the learning here is that desire is often just a misunderstood aspect of ourselves that we are projecting outwards because finding someone or something else to obsess about is better than having to sit with the horror of being 'who' and 'what' we are 24 hours a day.
My first thought was to offer up Claudie Fritsch-Mentrop (I had to google her real name), but then I remembered the moody 80s New Zealand indie gloriousness of this...
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/wbkKuyYbtUo?si=3wJ7U_-DNB97nan1
No relation to Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham's group, I don't think.
I think you could publish a coffee table book of phallus images from your travels :)
ReplyDeleteBrainstemmm- indeed. Bleak final thought there but yes, indeed. Computer Love is the perfect response to the card too.
ReplyDeleteRol- like it, good choice
Blureu- the thought has crossed my mind too
Freed from desire = I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got, Sinead O'Connor.
ReplyDeleteSorry, Disconnect from desire = etc.... Same thing....
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