Just finished Confessions: beautiful, lovely, funny, and touching. Thank you for the gift of that music.

-B

Ouch. I suppose my intent here was to say that really what I want to be doing is thinking just about the notes and the rhythms and not do the self-aggrandizing thing of imagining myself as part of a movement or Grand Scheme. And I’m sorry you don’t like (and haven’t ever!) my music. Instead of un-publishing it, I am going to carry on writing, and hope that someday I can win your ears over.

Hey dude! Thanks for weighing in. I was just weirdly talking about the J letters with Teitur not 72 hours ago. I didn’t want to dox you, because I wanted to use what essentially was a questionnaire you sent to a bunch of people as an example of the sort of maddening questions that drive at least me into rage-spirals of worrying about genre. Obviously you’re no ingénue, which is why it was even more terrifying!

And I didn’t mean to make it personal and it was slightly cruel of me to loop you in with Dude from Class, but you hit a nerve: the way you phrased your questions actively made me feel shitty about what it means to make work if the people who write about it consider framing it in these ways, even just as a rhetorical prompt!

I tried to divorce my response from what I imagine is your normal, more thoughtful path through these conversations. I am actually unwilling to believe that you think these questions and the way they are phrased is in any way representative of your best work; even your comment here is exponentially clearer than those questions! “Some people consider ‘new classical’ music to be loftier and more intellectual than ‘rock’ music” … come on. That’s how Donald Literal Trump talks: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/09/politics/donald-trump-conspiracy-many-people-are-saying/ — you must see the problem: it reframes the question inside a set of assumptions with which I don’t agree, and makes me argue against invisible people who might not even exist! This question irks me specifically because I have never, ever, in my 35 years on this earth, heard this opinion actually voiced. I’ve heard the art vs. entertainment thing, sure, but that’s usually two composers sniping at ONE ANOTHER, not at Elton John.

Just please know that the questions made a whole bunch of us to whom you sent it want to light our hair on fire, despite your best intentions. I know you don’t want that as a writer despite the sometimes fun reactions you might get. One of the reasons I can’t read too much writing about music of any kind is an article Miss Sasha Sœur Jones (of recent disgrace fame) wrote in like 2007 about “indie rock” in which he made a lot of outrageous statements about “blackness.” When confronted about this (with, among other things, a very thoughtful response from Will Butler), he did one of those smug “You may have read my article. I sure got a lot of angry reactions out of it! So glad to have started a conversation!” things. Nobody wants that.

A lot of these are conversations I’m willing and eager to have — and when your questions made sense, I hope you found my answers alright! — but when I first got it, I thought of that delicious moment in The Silence of the Lambs when he says, “Oh, Agent Starling, you think you can dissect me with this blunt little tool?”

But seriously: thank you for responding and I appreciate the time you took; seriously, the prose here makes me want to engage and deepen the conversation, unlike the questionnaire, which, as I said, the hair and the fire. I look forward to a more nuanced version of this conversation, perhaps IRL. And please use “Jesus take the wheel.” It’s an old one, but a good one.

Yours,

N

I was commissioned to write a feature about what some have called “The New Classical”. It’s a concept I have found increasingly absurd, but I have championed many of the musicians involved in my writing, and the chance to address the topic was not only appealing, but also overdue, given some of the discussion elsewhere to date. The term – which, like it or not, is widely used – is an unusually vague one that has been employed to cover a vast swathe of music that in fact has little more in common than – as one question suggested – Britney Spears’ and Foo Fighters’. Nonetheless, the article that was commissioned was intended to explore the topic, and there was a list of musicians that I was encouraged to consider, one or two of whom – primarily Tim Hecker – I felt might not be pertinent. However, the only way for me to present an argument that suggested it wasn’t a helpful term – in other words, not to fulfil the commission as perhaps might have been expected by my editors – was to gather together as much evidence as I could to show why it might be a misnomer.

This was exactly what Nico provided, and hIs interview was enormously helpful. But part of the reason it was so helpful was because he ridiculed the concept. And he ridiculed the concept because I often played ‘devil’s advocate’ in my line of questioning. Nico’s mistake is perhaps to believe that because a journalist asks a question, it means that they agree with the assertion they are making. That’s a failure to understand what a journalist is trying to do. I wasn’t trying to be Nico’s friend. I wasn’t trying to get him to agree with me. I wasn’t trying to prove how much I know. And, with respect, I wasn’t trying to discuss his compositional techniques. I was trying to cover a huge amount of ground, addressing a somewhat controversial concept, in a relatively small amount of space, involving over 15 interviewees, in the most intelligent, straightforward and time-efficient fashion possible, in an enlightening, entertaining way, and to a deadline.

Furthermore, his suggestion that I talk to Chris Sharp was one that was unnecessary. I am not the ingénue that he seems to imagine. I was already in touch with Chris, who I’ve known for many years. In fact, had Nico done more research, he might have found out that I worked closely with him last year putting together a show at The Barbican.

What Nico also fails to mention is the lengthy message I wrote to him, and to all participants in the story, at the start of the document containing the questions. In that, I loosely explained the approach I was taking. I shall therefore share its contents here, since he has neglected to do so:

“Thank you so much for agreeing to participate in this feature. Please feel free to answer the questions below in as much depth (or otherwise) as you wish, and to go off on tangents at will. Should you feel questions are irrelevant, or should you disagree with anything, too, do not hesitate to say so – and ideally explain why – but ignore any question with which you are uncomfortable. I know there are a lot here, but that’s because there’s a lot of ground to cover, and I will wholly understand if you choose only to answer the questions that interest you most. Once I’d started preparing this, however, it was hard to stop! To be honest, I am sure that there are other questions I want to ask, but I shall spare you.

“I should add that it is not my goal to force everyone involved into a single box, and from stories I’ve written in the past, I know that there’s a diversity of opinion and approach to music amongst the artists with whom I will be talking.

“There are a significant number of inverted commas used in this interview, as terms like ‘new classical’ remain controversial to artists said to make such music, and to suggest that it is a ‘movement’, for instance, is also open to debate. I therefore want to emphasise that it’s not a sign of irony on my part, but more sensitivity to the fact that this story is partly about investigating whether such things are appropriate. “

Perhaps in re-reading this Nico will understand that my goal was far from “Prove My Thesis”. It was, in fact, “Disprove This Thesis, Because I Find It Faintly Ridiculous – At The Very Least – And I’m Pretty Confident That You Do Too”.

In addition, Nico talks about my “I need the answers right away” urgency. This is a little disingenuous. As I mentioned, I approached a large number of musicians to take part in the feature, and though many of the questions I posed went to all of them, each one was tailored, as he concedes. Nico received three pages of questions, and it takes a lot of time to prepare an interview of such depth, just as it does to answer them. To prepare 15…? Nonetheless, it would be a fool’s errand for me to prepare an interview of such depth without first having confirmation that it will proceed, so I in fact explained to the publicist that I would be able to send the questions within 24-48 hours; that it would then be helpful to get them back as soon as possible; but that I wouldn’t start to write the feature for at least another 4-5 days. I kept to that timetable, which wasn’t so hard given that a weekend lay not far ahead. In fact, I felt rather embarrassed to learn that Nico had put time aside right away, at dawn, to reply. That wasn’t my intention, and I did everything I could to communicate that fact in advance. Over the last 25 years I have worked as publicist, A&R, marketing manager, label boss and writer, so I’m entirely sympathetic to the time constraints busy artists have.

Finally, Nico’s not actually addressed the resulting article. I suspect he may not have read it. If he had, he might have found that I’ve tried to address his concerns throughout the story, and that I’ve gone to great lengths to undermine the idea of a ‘genre’ this loosely defined, while underlining the significance and value of the music involved. It’s up to you to decide whether I succeeded. I’d be interested to know.

Of course, if he has read the story, and stands by his belief that I am “That Guy From Class”, then that’s his prerogative. I attempted as best as I could to make sense of this convoluted topic, and I stand by my opinion as articulated in my story. Nico’s equally entitled to his opinion, and I found this blog a very fair criticism of some journalism. Just not mine.

I am nevertheless disappointed to be used to define a stereotype that feels as impertinent to me as the term I was asked to address with which he has understandable issues being associated. I addressed those issues with care and consideration. Whether or not there are people who would confirm that I am, as Nico concedes might be true, “a really nice guy”, there are others who, I hope – rather more importantly – will be willing to verify I’m not the writer he tries to portray me as.

On the bright side, if I am, then I have the consolation of knowing that Nico thinks of me as “The Dude”. I shall also be forever grateful for the words “Jesus take the wheel.”

PS Q: Elvis Costello? A: The Juliet Letters.

If only he had had access to:
“Lord have mercy” or “Jesus take the wheel”

Ah, the value of an Anglican education.

It’s at the center of any composer’s work, while the melodrama on this page explains better than any other resource why I’ve never liked your music. Irony is, you published it. Might want to un-publish it and re-examine your soul.

The real mistake of the interviewer I think was to not do the work and reference actual music. ‘Nico, I noticed you use pretty patterns that do x in y piece. Phillip also uses patterns. Do you feel there is any relationship or influence there?’ Still annoying but at least there is context??

It must be frustrating that Dude needs to put you in a categorized folder so ‘the public’ knows how to approach your musiq but this is how many people think. Good for you not letting anyone put Nico in a corner.