xx:xx / xx:xx
◔̯◔

Hauntological Mixtape

In his new “Hauntological Mixtape“, Grischa Lichtenberger confronts his own music with pop songs of the past. Elliot Smith, Jeff Buckley, Cat Power and others are dubbing Lichtenberger’s idiosyncratic electronic sounds.

“The disaster is the time when one can no longer – by desire, ruse or violence – risk the life which one seeks, through this risk, to prolong. It is the time when the negative falls silent and when in place of men comes the infinite calm which does not embody itself or make itself intelligible.”

M. Blanchot, The Writing of Disaster Peculiar that in the German language a word can “fall”. Not in the sense of it falling from grace, (falling from its supposed status to a lower value) or like a charge that can be withdrawn (“Die Anklage fallen lassen”). But rather it falls in the sense of something that falls into place. But its being is then, with it falling, in a certain way abject, detached but still uncannily present, undead, still emitting a significance (even though the necessary subject that said it is no longer the responsible author of this word). A word is fallen, „Ein Wort ist gefallen“ – similar to the Latin „Alea iacta est!“ (The die is cast!). But the abjection of the word that is fallen, of the being-in-place is like a magnetic lock, intangible from two sides (the author/sender and its recipient), locked in a vibrating invisible field of divergent forces (not like the die that is forced to commit to its simple configuration in relation to the ground). The word of the turning of times is fallen/Das Wort von der Zeitenwende ist gefallen. It not only is fallen (away) from the authority of someone who has said it, it is also fallen from itself, from its own interchangeable usage. It has fallen into (a) place where its significance strangly exceeds it‘s function. Its reference to itself is at the same time a title, a declaration and also an implosion – its sign is not only that of an indication, but its referentiality goes beyond to a vacuum of retentive ghosts. In that regard the word of the Turning of Time is fallen, but the place in which it has fallen into, its time is out of joint. In contrast to the End of Times, the End of History – the Zeitenwende (and its falling into place) is almost a relieve it would seem. Like a romantic notion, the Turning of Times look like a promise of repairability in the future: at that time a future dies a new one emerges. Revolution and Turning of Times are relatives. But inside the force of the turning a repetition also takes place: the turning has fallen into (a) place (Das Wort ist gefallen) – the Turning of Times works like an inversion of future. If the word of the Turning of Times has been fallen, there are no times to turn to, except those out of which the place still emanates meaning, when it is already fallen. It’s falling down. The turning of times as a failure, a collapse. Collapse of contingency (which without any possibility still holds somehow diplomatic relations to time in its unsuspendible directionality). Now, it seems (with the Turning of Times falling into place), there is no way further than back. Nuclear weapons and nation states reemerge, the New Internationality, the same as the neoliberal globalized economy are forced to bow to a mass of mourning ghosts reemerging from a past long thought forgotten. From this turning point they are shouting “turn the lights off, close the door!” – we are piloting towards a chattering graveyard, on which not even the grandeur of the complexity of meaningless dust would appear, but only haunting mithering voices. (The one or the other withering of ghosts seems out of the question in this regard.) The Turning of Times that has (somehow again) fallen into place. And as we feel we would somehow still remember that the violence inside the revolution (not after it, not before it) has a non-directional generosity in applying its forces, burning up aimlessly (until it gets reorganized by greed, needs and constant powers recolouring their flags), we feel that now, maybe now, we are not confronted with another superlative – the biggest threat, the most grand crisis – but we are faced, with the voices we tried to ignore during the way towards this violence: as if every single thing that we disregarded now looks on us from above, laughing at our big gestures and little concerns, we stay unable to answer the traumatic chatter of the forgotten.

track list:

00:00 0120_19_kt ns vs. john j. niles – brother’s revenge
03:05 0420_10 lisafem porn glt vs. perfume genius – moonbend
05:11 0919_03_ gran dr loop vs. perfume genius – moonbend
08:47 0621_04_re 0820_18_re 0717_26 vs. jeff buckley – mojo pin
11:20 1008_18_lv 2 ss1 vs. cat power – crossbone style
14:44 0122_16 git re 1015_25 vs. elliot smith – twilight
17:54 0820_19_re 0916_23_re 0916_02 lv1b vs. the van pelt – you are
22:02 0921_05_feedback 2_0921_13 vs. fiona apple at lago
26:13 0220_16_spnt 1d ostranenie parasite vs. 0222_windows screenreader
30:03 0621_17_vcv recsd dub 2 vs. bob marley – war
35:14 0921_13 lv 1 0220_28 ostr vs. aldous harding – horizon all music by grischa lichtenberger, except all vocals by the artists as stated above, machine-isolated.