I ought to just say at this point that, as usual, I like this music on possibly the shallowest of levels: it's pretty and it's quite atmospheric (or, at least, it should be).

However, I couldn't give a toss about the politics behind it all. (Not how I feel about all music - just this stuff.) It also never occured to me that people could 'get hauntological' about any period other than the 60s and early 70s. Any earlier and it's proper retro; any later and it's 80s revivalism. I think it's to do with a certain generation of 'educators' who not only saw the potential of TV ad an educational tool, but were determined that it should broaden children's horizons and not be 'dumbed down'. That's what happened in the 80s, of course, with deregulation, and that's why I think it's impossible to 'get hauntological' about the 80s. It's that programming from the late 60s through to the late 70s that represents the 'zenith' of the, errr... 'feeling'.

Whoever it was (I could only name Oliver Postgate - I'm not a TV Ark addict, having only just discovered it) who decided to approach children's television in this way, they managed to create genuinely spooky TV - sometimes deliberately ('The Children Of The Stones') and sometimes accidentally (schools programming with lots of awkward lecturers with scary beard/hair combinations).

I almost feel, though, that conventional politics should be kept out of it. The politics of the 60s, 70s and early 80s are almost too important for that. It would itself almost be a 'dumbing down' of the serious issues in play then for them to be viewed through the rose-tinted spectacles of a whimsical musical movement.

As it is, I can see that 'Hauntology' as a musical genre is following the same arc - though maybe slower - as Trip Hop did in the 90s: just a convenient stylistic gimmick to generate a minor hit single or two. It's already happened to straight-up electropop, obviously.

To follow up on evilC's point there about "awkward lecturers with scary beard/hair combinations," working at a certain well-known distance-learning university and living right on the rural fringes of OTF's least-favourite new town probably impacts upon how I view this sort of thing, too.

In a way the whole scene was undermined (amusingly, though) ages ago by this.

Lucia Lanigan wrote:

The music makers aren't really at fault, but this is one of the first musical movements where you have to wade through more comment than there is content.

Which is a problem, and I think highlights the issues I raised re: the recorded output.

I'd agree entirely with the points raised about St Etienne (Finisterre springs to mind particularly, as well as the earlier stuff) and Boards of Canada too. I still think Modern Life Is Rubbish had a similar attitude behind it, obviously minus the 'ghosting' element, but I'm pretty sure it's not a popular opinion.

The very idea of 'pop' however is not really something that hauntology has addressed at all, not that it wants to.

Furtho wrote:

I've only heard a couple of things on Ghost Box and, even if the ideas themselves are certainly intriguing, in fact the music seemed to me rather tedious....if the music is that unimportant when compared to the overall idea, then you're buggered before you start, basically.

Again, this is precisely my point. Fantastic artwork though.

evilC wrote:

It also never occured to me that people could 'get hauntological' about any period other than the 60s and early 70s.

But why can't the idea of haunted audio be divorced from the specific reference points already associated with the genre? As I said before, there's no hint of The Wicker Man or obsolete BBCtv holding slides about Burial's stuff, nor are the records housed in musty Pelican-esque sleeves. I really think that's a total misnomer.

I think it's to do with a certain generation of 'educators' who not only saw the potential of TV as an educational tool, but were determined that it should broaden children's horizons and not be 'dumbed down'.

That's something seperate, and Taylor's review of Trunk's Life On Earth soundtrack can tell you more about that than any record. Distilling the whole thing down into a slightly strange sounding sub-radiophonic hum doesn't really do what is essentially a study topic (there's another mock title) any kind of justice. I'm as keen on the subject as you are, but I'm nowhere near as convinced by its funnelling into a serious musical movement.

I almost feel, though, that conventional politics should be kept out of it. The politics of the 60s, 70s and early 80s are almost too important for that. It would itself almost be a 'dumbing down' of the serious issues in play then for them to be viewed through the rose-tinted spectacles of a whimsical musical movement.

But then you could argue that these issues are trivialised just as much by the woozy atmospheric stuff. Otherwise, if La Roux waded in with a big crossover hit then yes, the whole thing would disentegrate and the wider political/social & broadcasting history angle would be co-opted by the colour supplements, you'd get a shot of someone from The Focus Group in bed with Daphne Oram under a union jack eiderdown on the front cover of Vanity Fair, and it'd be Powder & Menswear all over again. I don't think that will happen though.

As it is, I can see that 'Hauntology' as a musical genre is following the same arc - though maybe slower - as Trip Hop did in the 90s: just a convenient stylistic gimmick to generate a minor hit single or two.

Possibly true, though there's no sign of that surely very minor hit single yet.

I'm a little bit late to this, but Taylor and Lucia are being a little harsh on July Skies; he's been making music using that schtick for 10 years plus. And it's bloody good music too: "like Vini Reilly falling in love with Jenny Agutter", as someone once put it. I did chuckle at Taylor's fake album, though.

harrycaul wrote:
I'm as keen on the subject as you are...
Heh! I think you've ably demonstrated you're very much more into it than I am, on every level. :-)

I'm too wrapped up in my own little world of electro(pop) to 'get into it' thoroughly. I just notice when it interacts, Venn-diagram stylee with electropop - e.g. Pilote, King Of Woolworths, Minisystem, et al.

King of Woolworths is The Advisory Circle, one of Ghost Box's first acts. I prefer his music under his original name, mind.

I've been listening to a lot of Lone recently. He's a Nottingham producer who's been bigged up by Bibio (mentioned up thread), but he doesn't quite self-consciously fit (the cover to his most critically acclaimed album is decidedly unhauntolgical) but the music- Boards of Canada gone funkier/hip-hoppier with fake tape wobble- certainly does, and is highly recommended.

I've also been thinking about the whiteness of hauntology a bit. There's a definite dub influence on some Ghost Box stuff, but this stuff is all very white. Mike Ladd's 'Welcome to the Afterfuture' offers a hauntological re-imagining of the 'blutopia' of Sun Ra et al, though: particularly on the title track where he raps "I'm 5000 miles west of my future/Where's my floating car? My utopia?".