In this book Stephen Graham maps out the cultural, political and aesthetic aspects of underground and fringe music. This immediately begs the question of what is meant by ‘underground and fringe music’. As Graham acknowledges in the Preface, practitioners of many diverse types of music label what they do as ‘underground’, not least in pursuit of the distinction this label can bestow. Graham has something specific in mind, however, which centres in large part upon the noise, lo-fi and free-improv scenes but which, he hints, does extend further than this and certainly includes extreme metal – to which the final chapter of the book is devoted. He is aware that his choices are open to debate, along with his brief attempt to define the underground in more conceptual terms, but he makes his choice relatively early in the book and, having done so, delves into the details of his chosen scenes with little further equivocation.
What follows is a fascinating in-depth account of his chosen scenes, anchored in most cases around brief case studies and interviews with key players, addressing a range of themes, including digital media, festivals, venues, cultural policy and, particularly centrally, politics. A central argument of the book is that the underground is inherently political and oppositional.
I wasn't always convinced by Graham's arguments or conceptual frameworks but they are considered and consistently thought-provoking. I found myself repeatedly pausing to digest and form a view on what he was proposing. In addition, the empirical material is great and very eloquently described. Graham is an expert guide to the scenes he explores and a good writer. I found him extremely illuminating in relation to artists and practices with which I was both familiar and unfamiliar. The book would be a great introduction to the various strands of musical activity described for the uninitiated but it also has much to say to the well informed.
The domain described by Graham is conflicted in different ways and at different levels. In relation to digitalisation, for example, some underground artists feel that it devalues music whilst others embrace it and feel that the possibility of making their music costless to audiences and easily available is integral to what they are trying to achieve. On another level, whilst underground music is critical of the liberal, capitalist order, it flourishes much more successfully under these conditions than their current alternatives, benefitting from both freedom of expression and the availability and flow of resources. Exploring scenes by way of such tensions, which Graham partly does, is a useful and interesting approach, in my view, which takes us to their heart without painting an overly homogenous picture.
There are a few tensions in Graham's own position, however, which I would like to have seen more satisfactorily resolved. On a number of occasions, for example, he alludes to alternative interpretations to those which he is offering, usually with a different evaluative slant without fully exploring or dispensing with them; for example, perhaps the obscurity of underground artists is just a means of seeking cultural distinction, or perhaps the violent scenarios sometimes played out in noise are forms of macho posturing. These interpretations are left to hang in the air. Similarly, he repeatedly claims that underground music is political and oppositional but then discusses artists who claim not to be, often adding, as he says of Michael Sippings, that his overtly apolitical stance is ‘far from rare in the underground’ (p. 155). If this is so then I think that it would have been better, particularly given the book's claim to map the underground, to trace different political stances within it, including the ‘far from rare’ apolitical stance, rather than insisting, in spite of contrary evidence, that it somehow is inherently political.
Graham does address this apparent contradiction, in Sipping's case, suggesting that the latter chooses not to work with an oppositional politics which is, nevertheless, inherent in what he does. This argument isn't very convincing, however, not least as it draws uncritically upon ideas of homology to make its case, suggesting that the form of the music, or its challenge to dominant conventions of form, are inherently radical and destabilising. Such ideas are controversial, to say the least, with many critics having rejected the idea of homology, and any attempt to resurrect them must take on the criticisms. Graham does not.
Part of the problem with the homology argument, in my view, lies in its claim to offer a definitive interpretation, failing to explore the process of listening and interpretation. Graham and some of those whom he interviews hear progressive politics in noise, I suggest, because their listening is framed by far-left theories of the avant-garde. Others hear something else because their listening is framed differently. The meaning of the music is not determined by the music and neither therefore is its politics.
For similar reasons, some of the music which Graham describes, which flirts uncritically with Nazi and pornographic imagery, requires more critical engagement. Those ‘in the know’ might hear it as an ironic critique of capitalism but many, the many who must be convinced if anything is to change politically, will more likely perceive it as infantile posturing and ignore it. Of course some might take pleasure from it as pornography or propaganda for a very different type of politics to that which its creators apparently intend. Some discussion of underground audiences would have been useful in relation to this issue.
Continuing this point about politics, there is something of a performative contradiction, in my view, in forms of music which purportedly advocate democracy and communist ideals and yet which circulate in very small cliques of generally highly (and highly musically) educated individuals. Don't democracy and left-wing politics demand an attempt to engage with the many and, in turn, therefore, to make one's art accessible to them? The musics which Graham describes run very much in the opposite direction. For this reason I believe that he should more thoroughly have addressed the ideas of distinction and elitism to which he occasionally alludes.
To reiterate, however, this is a very good book which, as these comments show, is likely to provoke thought and debate. I thoroughly enjoyed engaging with its claims, was prompted to return to several artists I haven't listened to for some time and came out with a list of exciting new (to me) artists to check out – a very rewarding read.
