A record's context provides the listener a filter through which to experience the work. The time and place of its creation, its artwork, the band's dress and personal style, the interviews they gave (or didn't give), all help place the finished piece in a frame that the consumer uses to differentiate it from the vast melange of music made now and in the past. With so much music out there, listeners today rely on these points of reference more than ever. By standardizing the presentation, and even going so far as to homogenize the song structures, the Journal of Popular Noise provides an alternative context through which one can enjoy a record. Here the content presented to the listener is not defined as much by an artist's self-wrought context as it is their approval of an association with previous contributors, the aesthetic presentation, and of the physical and compositional restraints.
On the other hand, Ian Svenonius's discography has been defined by the attention he's given to crafting context. In seminal late-80's hardcore band Nation of Ulysses, Svenonius and his cohorts utilized every available vehicle to promote the agenda and mythologyÑfrom liner notes to broken bones, the N.O.U. was far more than just a rock band. In his follow-up act, the Make-Up, SvenoniusÕs every outfit and interview served to preach the new gospel. Later, as David Candy, he invented an entirely fictional persona as the centerpiece of tongue-in-cheek imagined creative utopia. But with his latest endeavor Chain and the Gang, currently on tour, Svenonius offers songs like "Trash Talk" and "Interview with Chain and the Gang" that reveal frustration with this overload of consumer context. Perhaps in the age of micro-celebrity, it's time to replace the cult of personality with a more obtuse approach.
So what is his latest effort, Felt Letters? When I asked Ian, he replied, "it's just a rock band." Perhaps within the wider context of an overmediated pop culture, the next logically irreverent step is to exist without context. Is this the group that will have to speak for itself? You'll find no clues in the meandering, stream-of-consicousness musings on this 45. We may find out more on a forthcoming full-length release, but for now we'll have to enjoy this record without Svenonius's help Ð and draw our own conclusions.
Photo Bryan Whitson
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