August 30, 2006
Lines I wish I wrote, #6
In an essay originally included in a publication accompanying an Air de Paris exhibition called "New York Twice," Seth Price writes:
The public happens to be most comfortable with the piano, and this became electronic music’s user interface. This is why the events lurking behind most of the music you hear on the radio actually preserve the slight, barely perceptible movement of a fingertip somewhere striking a key. Strike the key and trigger an event, which is immediately sequenced in a series of other events. A chain of control achieved through a simple depression. When I am depressed, there is power at work somewhere. [Emphasis added.]
Price periodically ruptures his essay with little non-sequitirs, and this one is perfect, just jarring enough to stick in the mind. The next paragraph picks up right where the second-to-last sentence left off, as if he hadn't just set off a little rhetorical bomb.