Burial’s longing for lost forward motion resists the nostalgia mode
Evidence
But if there is one act which makes a case for the supreme pertinence of the concept of hauntology in relation to music today, it is Burial. Precisely because Burial deals with nostalgic longings, his music does not belong to the nostalgia mode. What you hear in Burial’s two LPs is a craving for a past which nevertheless appears irretrievably lost, veiled behind a relentless drizzle of crackle. Beyond the longing for a particular moment or a particular musical genre is a longing for the ceaseless forward motion of a culture which once appeared capable of infinite renewal, but which is now used up, involuted. The nostalgia for modernism resists the postmodern nostalgia mode. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2428
Categorization
- XREF: Pays off the long-running book_so_far thread on nostalgia mode, hauntology, capitalist realism (ch34, ch61, ch66). — connects to: Nostalgia films express depersonalized curiosity rather than genuine longing — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 23; Nostalgia mode is formal reiteration, not psychological longing — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 2423; Postmodern nostalgia mode is an inability to imagine beyond the past. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 515 (+1 more)
- QUESTION: Could ‘the nostalgia for modernism’ itself be co-opted into corporate aesthetics the way postmodern nostalgia was? Fisher gestures but does not fully pursue.
Broader Connections
- Nostalgia films express depersonalized curiosity rather than genuine longing
#contradicts(0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 23 - Nostalgia mode is formal reiteration, not psychological longing
#corroborates(0.80) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2423 - Postmodern nostalgia mode is an inability to imagine beyond the past.
#complicates(0.75) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 515 - What looks like nostalgia for the past can actually be a longing for modernism.
#complicates(0.72) — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 317