Well, it was back to school for me for these past ten months, and man is it great to be done! The experience only reinforced one of the many ironies central to my life: that I am jaded and suspicious of institutionalized education, even as I continue my career in this very field. It's good to be back though, and I'll try not to neglect the blog so much in the future...I still haven't gotten the Francophilia out of my system properly, so today we have another French band, Algolagnie, whose only full length was released in 2000 on the great Nabat label. French as they may have been, the music Algolagnie produced draws from the whole array of nineties (mostly) European hardcore, both the metallic and emotive varieties. At different intervals, they tickle a wide spectrum my own aural nostalgia of the preceding decade from bands as diverse as Undone, Lost World, Kimusawea, Grievance, Age, Spitboy, Farcical, Ivich, the list goes on. Regardless of the treble-heavy production, the tracks on the LP afford the band an honorable place alongside those listed above-- they are smart and challenging, without sacrificing the raw emotion and aggression prerequisite to our beloved genre. The French have a firm handle on this meshing of ugliness and beauty, and I can't help but think that the implications of this union stretch far beyond the music.
The Algolagnie LP (Nabat, 2000)
3 comments:
Good to hear it's still going, anyhow. And quality is quality. I'm pretty sure that this is the blog that got me to delve into French bands of "that period" in the first place, e.g. the unmistakable Ivich. Thanks for that, and for a lot of other bands and stuff, like ripping that Dimlaia / Swarrrm split back in, uh, 2009.
As for instituionalized education, you may have already read, for example, Ivan Illich's "Deschooling Society"... If not - it's worth the time - and I'm not really aware of earlier cases of similarly concrete critique of the very school. Because it generally seems like, no matter how good the teacher is, the institution is always "better". On the other hand, I think nobody could belittle the value of what they might have learned and accepted from all the teachers who simply aren't assholes, but it might also be very easy to overestimate.
Now that I have some free time to read what I want to read, I'll look into Illich shortly. Most of what I've gotten from my educational experiences resulted from the defensive stance I took to it. I try to model this approach with my own students via snide remarks and answering questions with questions, but many of them are so eager to digest whatever is thrown at them with no critical thought.
Well, I'm glad you're still hanging in there with the 'scope and were effected by Ivich. By way of a heads-up, the next post here will be an odds and ends grab bag of Ivich (and related) finds. Check it out.
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