Today I found myself back at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. I visited James Turrell's skyspace, Within without. As I was sitting there, considering the contrasts of light and shadow, looking up at the blue sky, a guy rode through through it on an e-scooter. Then I thought, ‘we really are doomed’. What a budget direction our world seems to be going in. As society goes, so music goes too.
It has been disappointing watching how trivial and insubstantial our discussions about electronic music have largely become. I have been reflecting on this in the context of listening to Faith, Hope and Carnage, a series of discussions between Nick Cave & Seán O’Hagan. They narrate the audiobook version, which is really wonderful to listen to. Cave’s reflections cover the full spectrum of life and human experience, and I would strongly recommend this rich and thoughtful book. One of the things that is really striking when Cave talks about music and creativity is how seriously he takes what he is doing. Music is profoundly meaningful, he treats it with genuine reverence and respect, and with good reason. Here is one representative passage:
NC: I say that with all the love in the world, but an artist does not exist to serve his or her audience. The artist exists to serve the idea. The idea is the light that leads the audience and the artist to a better place.
SO: What do you mean by ‘a better place’?
NC: A better way of being, I guess.
SO: So you believe music can actually transform people’s way of thinking, of being?
NC: Absolutely. In my opinion, that is its primary function.
SO: It’s not enough that it just moves or uplifts the listener for a time?
NC: No, I think music can have a way of influencing the heart in a righteous way that enables us to do better, to be better. Especially when the songs get played live. Collectively, we can experience the music actually improving the condition of the listener. I see it all the time. I experience it myself as well. It’s a very real thing.
SO: Yes, but surely that collective emotional experience is, by its nature, a fleeting thing. How would you possibly gauge its lasting effect in terms of it making the listener a better person – which, I think, is what you are suggesting?
NC: Well, art must have the capacity to improve matters or what is its point? I think music, especially live music, has the ability to lift us up to our higher selves. In the collective moment of a performance, people are united by the music. That, in itself, has a moral force. It can have a supremely positive influence on a person and their relation to other people. Our better selves are made up of a collection of transitory experiences that have elevated us spiritually, music being potentially the most transcendent and necessary of these shared experiences. If we are deprived of transcendent experiences, we grow smaller, harder, less tolerant.
I think Cave captures some important and powerful ideas here, things we intuitively know and recognise in relation to our experiences with electronic music. And yet… I do worry we are losing sight of this part of things. Why do we do what we do? Why does it have meaning to us? And are the ways we are now engaging with music, and with each other, helping us to achieve and support what we take to have meaning and significance? And if not???