Clint Williamson's Kill Joy

In Clint Williamson’s sound piece Kill Joy, a continuous loop of harmonizing tonalities creates a tranquil atmosphere which, compared to his other work, is far easier to listen to. Yet, the subtle sounds betray the initial calmness of the piece and begin to lead the listener into and infuriating series of mind games. It is almost as if his piece is lulling the listener into a false sense of security. At first the notes seem nonthreatening enough, the calm tones and easy melody allow the listener to engage easily with the piece. Yet at the end of the sixty seconds of harmonies comes a noticeable break, an imperfection in the quality of cassette, a consistent reminder of the “the materiality of the object creating the sound and the time the listener has spent engaging with the work.” Although I am not quite sure how the piece was made, Clint describes in his paragraph that “returning in this work to the guitar, I layer multiple tonalities of loops across three octaves...Kill Joy creates a tranquil atmosphere which provides the listener with the ability to clearly discern every note and drift.”
The piece is both mesmerizing and infuriating; as the imperfections of the loop interrupt the tranquil harmonies the listener is again reminded of the sixty seconds that she has spent listening to the same basic notes. The longer the piece is played the more it becomes about the lack of sound. The piece becomes no longer about the harmony or tonalities but it instead is driven by the lack of tone, the imperfections in the cassette, the breakup of perfection, the physicality of an outdated object.
In general I am not very familiar with many sound artists but in listening to Kill Joy I am consistently reminded of the experience of listening to CDs of nature sounds, which are produced to create a calming and tranquil experience but the more they are thoughtfully listened to, the more they begin to annoy and break down the listener. It is not until the third or fourth loop that the tranquil tonalities of Kill Joy begin to grate on the listening experience. Infiltrating the mind and forcing both a disgust and an unavoidable attraction. I view this piece as a subtle form of mocking; every time the click of the cassette is heard I would begin to anxiously await the next sixty seconds when it would be produced again. What was supposed to be calming was therefore grating, it was irrelevant noise, a barrier to get to the breaking of the cassette. I thought this piece was very successful. I found that even though it had elements that were maddening the more that I listened to it the more I wanted to continue the experience. Writing this piece now also makes me want to listen to it which itself brings up interesting ideas on how to distribute a work that is impinged on the physicality of a cassette in an environment that greatly values the digital.

-betsy wright