Musical Philosophy

"Music, for me, is neither something that I create, nor a form of self-expression. All kinds of sounds exist everywhere around us, and my performances solely consist of picking up these sounds, like a radio tuner, and playing them so that people can hear them." -- Kawabata Makoto, founding member of Acid Mothers Temple and subsequent variants.

What is music? What makes it different from other sounds we hear in the course of our daily life? The world has a rhythm, whether you realize it or not. The rattling of a pipe, the ringing in your ears or the incessant banging coming from the little brats upstairs.
The question is; when is a sound actually considered to differentiate from other sounds, when does it become music? when people start listening to it? or maybe when people take an interest in it; gaining pleasure from listening to it?

Personally, I look for the strange, the odd and the out of the ordinary in my music. Bands that try and differ from the other run of the mill groups by truly expressing themselves in their work. For me, Acid Mothers Temple is a prime example of such a band, because their music doesn't consist of a ordinary ' get 'r' done ' recording session. From listening to their albums, with songs such as "La Le Lo", the listener is immediately assaulted by almost a dozen different layers of sound, each one playing a slightly different effect on the brain. I sit here listening to it for the seventh time in two days, and it still all sounds new to me, because my brain can't get a grip on the music, and I have to work to understand it.
And that's the magic of experimental music, while on the outside it may seem like half an hour of constant noise assaulting the eardrums, your brain is constantly working, examining the different algorithms hidden in the sound and trying to interpret them into a meaning that you can understand. While I don't believe in Moon cycles, the Zodiac and Spiritual Journeys, I believe that this music can provoke an intellectual journey, and helps to expand your mind and your underlying level of consciousness, so that you can better understand the rhythm of the world. You don't need mind-altering drugs for this, if a certain type of music can replace said drugs, then you're sorted. Fuck LSD, fuck pot, fuck all of it. If you're looking for something to alter your state of mind try goddamn music!
From listening to such music, I feel better about myself, and I've gathered my own personal meaning from it. This meaning evolves each time I listen to it, and it is never the same for two different people.

Mediocre rock bands such as Avenged Sevenfold, Dragonforce and various other acronymical tightwad cock-rockers that shall remain un-named do play music... but they have so much potential that is going wasted. They're not trying to make their audience work to understand their music, they simply want them to stand around waving lighters in the air. They may be succesful, but they're so goddamn puerile.