I really like this piece and the thoughts that Moten and Harney draw out of it, an internationalism that cuts across borders to be antinational, and an authoritative voice that becomes multivocal by exploding and mutating itself.
I was thinking about how the reading of Nation Time plays against "Destroy the Nations" (1968) by the Nihilist Spasm Band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUJ2rJhddxE
The differences: the band is white, there's not much instrumental skill involved, and there's no connection to a positive political movements like Black nationalism, just a 'nihilistic' anarchism which might not be totally serious. But I think it goes to similar places as Nation Time, with the players merging into clusters and layers of sound, spontaneous temporary rhythmic grooves. The central demander disarticulates himself, loses his ability to pronounce the words and then sounds like he’s choking on his own tongue, like his voice is destroyed together with white nations. But I guess this approach is more obvious, whereas Nation Time shows us that you can get to a place of transformative dismantling by making the right sort of positive calls/demands
I really like this piece and the thoughts that Moten and Harney draw out of it, an internationalism that cuts across borders to be antinational, and an authoritative voice that becomes multivocal by exploding and mutating itself.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about how the reading of Nation Time plays against "Destroy the Nations" (1968) by the Nihilist Spasm Band https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUJ2rJhddxE
The differences: the band is white, there's not much instrumental skill involved, and there's no connection to a positive political movements like Black nationalism, just a 'nihilistic' anarchism which might not be totally serious. But I think it goes to similar places as Nation Time, with the players merging into clusters and layers of sound, spontaneous temporary rhythmic grooves. The central demander disarticulates himself, loses his ability to pronounce the words and then sounds like he’s choking on his own tongue, like his voice is destroyed together with white nations. But I guess this approach is more obvious, whereas Nation Time shows us that you can get to a place of transformative dismantling by making the right sort of positive calls/demands