<Anyone has some opinions on this book? I've been
wanting to order it for a while but I've always hesitated. Any good on-line stores where I can get it at a reasonable price?
I got it from Amazon a year ago, and it was around the rec. price. Arcana is worth owning, and a great idea in theory; round up the more creative individuals in modern (non-pop) music and have them wax highbrow about techniques and holistic theories re: music. It's certainly an interesting read, but the pieces by Zorn and Ribot (the two I was looking forward to the most) were worthless bullshit. Zorn's is some sort of "joke storyboard" treatment of a film in so many scenes. It's pointless and incoherent. Ribot's is a so-common-knowledge-it-hurts one page treatise on musicians using ear plugs. It's as cliché and groan-worthy as that Baz Luhrman "wear sunscreen" song- just imagine Ribot- "Live in New York, but not for so long that it makes you hard. Live in LA, but not for so long that it makes you soft. And remember...ALWAYS WEAR EARPLUGS." From a guitarist like Ribot, I hoped for something more insightful. Ikue Mori's article isn't particularly bad, but it made me realize what a complete bulshitter her whole "technique" is. I've always suspected that Mori's repertoire (which I love, btw) is little more than her bashing on drum machines and making little sequences, occasionally dropping in samples. Naturally, this explanation isn't highbrow enough for the Tzadik crew, so Mori writes a few pages about how "combining PCM digital audio files triggered by velocity sensitive (Midi Standard 1-127, Supreme Court Vs. Bomb Squad, 1989) with hard-clocked internal tempo source, I use these encoded audio fragments to explore the shattered diaspora of contemporary culture..." and other equally pretentious nonsense. Mori's entire technique (and therefore article) should have rightfully been reduced to "Oh, I make music by bashing pads on my drum machine and occasionally using a software sequencer and dropping samples in." Take a cue from DJ Shadow (who's done the same thing for years, and isn't ashamed of it) and don't try to fluff-up what you're actually doing. To their credit, the article by John Oswald (on the nature of plunderphonics and all that) is especially entertaining and interesting, as are many others. andrew