Moon King is the synth-pop project of Canadian songwriter and producer Daniel Benjamin.
106-452: Moon King's music has been described as dream pop , electronic pop or indie rock . Recently the project's sound has shifted to include disco, synthpop and house music. Daniel was born in Toronto , Canada , and as a teen was involved in the city's DIY music community, playing in numerous bands and organizing events including several all-night concerts at a circus rehearsal warehouse, and on
212-427: A leap of faith is a possible means for an individual to reach a higher stage of existence that transcends and contains both an aesthetic and ethical value of life. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were also precursors to other intellectual movements, including postmodernism , and various strands of psychotherapy. However, Kierkegaard believed that individuals should live in accordance with their thinking. In Twilight of
318-462: A "blurry, blissful sound", and credits the influence of the "ethereal soundscapes" of Cocteau Twins as well as more distorted styles of American alternative rock . In the 1990s, "dream pop" and "shoegazing" were interchangeable and regionally dependent terms, with "dream pop" being the name by which "shoegazing" was typically known in America. AllMusic describes the dream pop label as covering both
424-517: A "crucial document" of the dream pop movement, commenting that the group "aimed to emulate an ethereality that could just as easily become nightmarish", resulting in music that feels "just out of reach." Their "dreampop" label was subsequently adopted by music critic Simon Reynolds to describe that group and later extended to the nascent shoegazing scene in the UK. Reynolds describes the movement as "a wave of hazy neo-psychedelic groups" characterised by
530-416: A better car, bigger house, better quality of life, etc.) without acknowledging the facticity of not currently having the financial means to do so . In this example, considering both facticity and transcendence, an authentic mode of being would be considering future projects that might improve one's current finances (e.g. putting in extra hours, or investing savings) in order to arrive at a future-facticity of
636-478: A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which is to say that individuals shape themselves by existing and cannot be perceived through preconceived and a priori categories, an "essence". The actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called their "true essence" instead of an arbitrarily attributed essence others use to define them. Human beings, through their own consciousness , create their own values and determine
742-573: A collection of new material found its way back to Arbutus Records in Montreal, who offered to release it. Hamtramck '16, named for the Detroit-area neighborhood, was released in the summer of 2017, documenting Moon King's shift towards disco and dance music. This was followed by 2019's Voice Of Lovers , and The Audition in 2021, a disco album about learning to become an actor. Dream pop Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop )
848-541: A concrete world. Although Sartre adopted the term "existentialism" for his own philosophy in the 1940s, Marcel's thought has been described as "almost diametrically opposed" to that of Sartre. Unlike Sartre, Marcel was a Christian, and became a Catholic convert in 1929. In Germany, the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers —who later described existentialism as a "phantom" created by the public —called his own thought, heavily influenced by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Existenzphilosophie . For Jaspers, " Existenz -philosophy
954-410: A condition of every action. Despair is generally defined as a loss of hope. In existentialism, it is more specifically a loss of hope in reaction to a breakdown in one or more of the defining qualities of one's self or identity. If a person is invested in being a particular thing, such as a bus driver or an upstanding citizen, and then finds their being-thing compromised, they would normally be found in
1060-418: A dream pop sound specific to "the glitzy decay that is L.A.", according to Pitchfork ; that publication called the album a "dream pop classic". The late 1980s dream pop of A.R. Kane and My Bloody Valentine influenced 1990s acts such as Seefeel and Insides , who began incorporating elements such as samples and sequenced rhythms. Ambient pop music is described by AllMusic as "essentially an extension of
1166-715: A form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a world of phenomena—"the Other"—that is fundamentally irrational and random. According to Sartre, rationality and other forms of bad faith hinder people from finding meaning in freedom. To try to suppress feelings of anxiety and dread, people confine themselves within everyday experience, Sartre asserted, thereby relinquishing their freedom and acquiescing to being possessed in one form or another by "the Look" of "the Other" (i.e., possessed by another person—or at least one's idea of that other person). An existentialist reading of
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#17327933980091272-415: A major work on these themes, The Destiny of Man , in 1931. Gabriel Marcel , long before coining the term "existentialism", introduced important existentialist themes to a French audience in his early essay "Existence and Objectivity" (1925) and in his Metaphysical Journal (1927). A dramatist as well as a philosopher, Marcel found his philosophical starting point in a condition of metaphysical alienation:
1378-483: A man unable to fit into society and unhappy with the identities he creates for himself. Sartre, in his book on existentialism Existentialism is a Humanism , quoted Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov as an example of existential crisis . Other Dostoyevsky novels covered issues raised in existentialist philosophy while presenting story lines divergent from secular existentialism: for example, in Crime and Punishment ,
1484-432: A meaning to their life. This view is in contradiction to Aristotle and Aquinas , who taught that essence precedes individual existence. Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, and Kierkegaard: The subjective thinker's form , the form of his communication, is his style . His form must be just as manifold as are
1590-571: A meaningless universe", considering less "What is the good life?" (to feel, be, or do, good), instead asking "What is life good for?". Although many outside Scandinavia consider the term existentialism to have originated from Kierkegaard, it is more likely that Kierkegaard adopted this term (or at least the term "existential" as a description of his philosophy) from the Norwegian poet and literary critic Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven . This assertion comes from two sources: Sartre argued that
1696-413: A metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement", meaning that he thought Sartre had simply switched the roles traditionally attributed to essence and existence without interrogating these concepts and their history. The notion of the absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning in the world beyond what meaning we give it. This meaninglessness also encompasses the amorality or "unfairness" of
1802-501: A modest pay rise, further leading to purchase of an affordable car. Another aspect of facticity is that it entails angst . Freedom "produces" angst when limited by facticity and the lack of the possibility of having facticity to "step in" and take responsibility for something one has done also produces angst. Another aspect of existential freedom is that one can change one's values. One is responsible for one's values, regardless of society's values. The focus on freedom in existentialism
1908-658: A person's identity depends on qualities that can crumble, they are in perpetual despair—and as there is, in Sartrean terms, no human essence found in conventional reality on which to constitute the individual's sense of identity, despair is a universal human condition. As Kierkegaard defines it in Either/Or : "Let each one learn what he can; both of us can learn that a person's unhappiness never lies in his lack of control over external conditions, since this would only make him completely unhappy." In Works of Love , he says: When
2014-493: A progenitor of the genre, while stating that its Spector-produced parent album All Things Must Pass influenced "many guitar-driven, echo-drenched bands have come around since, mixing powerful rave-ups with moody, reflective down-tempo numbers and a spiritual bent. A.J. Ramirez of PopMatters recognises an evolutionary line from gothic rock to dream pop. The early 1980s gothic-derived " ethereal wave " subgenre, with its effects -laden guitar sounds and female vocals, led to
2120-513: A radical distinction between the world of spirit and the everyday world of objects. Human freedom, for Berdyaev, is rooted in the realm of spirit, a realm independent of scientific notions of causation. To the extent the individual human being lives in the objective world, he is estranged from authentic spiritual freedom. "Man" is not to be interpreted naturalistically, but as a being created in God's image, an originator of free, creative acts. He published
2226-446: A role (bank manager, lion tamer, sex worker, etc.) acts. In Being and Nothingness , Sartre uses the example of a waiter in "bad faith". He merely takes part in the "act" of being a typical waiter, albeit very convincingly. This image usually corresponds to a social norm, but this does not mean that all acting in accordance with social norms is inauthentic. The main point is the attitude one takes to one's own freedom and responsibility and
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#17327933980092332-563: A rotating cast of backup musicians, Moon King toured heavily from 2013-2015, supporting artists including Unknown Mortal Orchestra , Austra , TOPS , Majical Cloudz , Mr Twin Sister and Alvvays , and releasing an album, 2015's Secret Life . At end of 2015 Daniel relocated to Detroit, Michigan, and spent the next year immersing himself in Detroit's dance music and DJ culture, which eventually began to influence his own recordings. Eventually
2438-534: A sort of morality in the religious (although he would not agree that it was ethical; the religious suspends the ethical), and Jean-Paul Sartre 's final words in Being and Nothingness (1943): "All these questions, which refer us to a pure and not an accessory (or impure) reflection, can find their reply only on the ethical plane. We shall devote to them a future work." Some have argued that existentialism has long been an element of European religious thought, even before
2544-435: A state of despair—a hopeless state. For example, a singer who loses the ability to sing may despair if they have nothing else to fall back on—nothing to rely on for their identity. They find themselves unable to be what defined their being. What sets the existentialist notion of despair apart from the conventional definition is that existentialist despair is a state one is in even when they are not overtly in despair. So long as
2650-500: A teleological fashion: "an essence is the relational property of having a set of parts ordered in such a way as to collectively perform some activity". For example, it belongs to the essence of a house to keep the bad weather out, which is why it has walls and a roof. Humans are different from houses because—unlike houses—they do not have an inbuilt purpose: they are free to choose their own purpose and thereby shape their essence; thus, their existence precedes their essence . Sartre
2756-416: A threat of quietism , which is inherently against the existentialist philosophy. It has been said that the possibility of suicide makes all humans existentialists. The ultimate hero of absurdism lives without meaning and faces suicide without succumbing to it. Facticity is defined by Sartre in Being and Nothingness (1943) as the in-itself , which for humans takes the form of being and not being. It
2862-468: A wide influence. Much of the music associated with the 2009-coined term " chillwave " could be considered dream pop. The 2010 album Teen Dream by Baltimore duo Beach House established the group as purveyors of modern dream pop that drew on the "languid reveries" of Cocteau Twins, Mazzy Star and Galaxie 500. The group's success in the late 2000s solidified the popularity of dream pop with millennial listeners. Existentialism Existentialism
2968-499: A will, and end..." Within this view, Nietzsche ties in his rejection of the existence of God, which he sees as a means to "redeem the world." By rejecting the existence of God, Nietzsche also rejects beliefs that claim humans have a predestined purpose according to what God has instructed. The first important literary author also important to existentialism was the Russian, Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground portrays
3074-400: Is authenticity . Existentialism would influence many disciplines outside of philosophy, including theology , drama, art, literature, and psychology. Existentialist philosophy encompasses a range of perspectives, but it shares certain underlying concepts. Among these, a central tenet of existentialism is that personal freedom, individual responsibility, and deliberate choice are essential to
3180-405: Is a Humanism : "Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards." The more positive, therapeutic aspect of this is also implied: a person can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person. Jonathan Webber interprets Sartre's usage of the term essence not in a modal fashion, i.e. as necessary features, but in
3286-520: Is a family of philosophical views and inquiry that prioritize the existence of the human individual, study existence from the individual's perspective, and conclude that, despite the absurdity or incomprehensibility of the universe, individuals must still embrace responsibility for their actions and strive to lead authentic lives . In examining meaning , purpose, and value , existentialist thought often includes concepts such as existential crises , angst , courage , and freedom . Existentialism
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3392-473: Is a limitation in that a large part of one's facticity consists of things one did not choose (birthplace, etc.), but a condition of freedom in the sense that one's values most likely depend on it. However, even though one's facticity is "set in stone" (as being past, for instance), it cannot determine a person: the value ascribed to one's facticity is still ascribed to it freely by that person. As an example, consider two men, one of whom has no memory of his past and
3498-416: Is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such as reverb , echo , tremolo , and chorus . It often overlaps with the related genre of shoegaze , and the two genre terms have at times been used interchangeably. The genre came into prominence in
3604-403: Is associated with several 19th- and 20th-century European philosophers who shared an emphasis on the human subject, despite often profound differences in thought. Among the 19th-century figures now associated with existentialism are philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche , as well as novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky , all of whom critiqued rationalism and concerned themselves with
3710-411: Is better understood as a general approach used to reject certain systematic philosophies rather than as a systematic philosophy itself. In a lecture delivered in 1945, Sartre described existentialism as "the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism ". For others, existentialism need not involve the rejection of God, but rather "examines mortal man's search for meaning in
3816-465: Is committed to a radical conception of freedom: nothing fixes our purpose but we ourselves, our projects have no weight or inertia except for our endorsement of them. Simone de Beauvoir, on the other hand, holds that there are various factors, grouped together under the term sedimentation , that offer resistance to attempts to change our direction in life. Sedimentations are themselves products of past choices and can be changed by choosing differently in
3922-404: Is fully responsible for these consequences. There is nothing in people (genetically, for instance) that acts in their stead—that they can blame if something goes wrong. Therefore, not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread). However, this does not change the fact that freedom remains
4028-464: Is generally considered to have originated with Kierkegaard, the first prominent existentialist philosopher to adopt the term as a self-description was Sartre. Sartre posits the idea that "what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence ", as the philosopher Frederick Copleston explains. According to philosopher Steven Crowell , defining existentialism has been relatively difficult, and he argues that it
4134-514: Is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility. The archetypal example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom. It can also be seen in relation to
4240-423: Is in. He is in a pre-reflexive state where his entire consciousness is directed at what goes on in the room. Suddenly, he hears a creaking floorboard behind him and he becomes aware of himself as seen by the Other. He is then filled with shame for he perceives himself as he would perceive someone else doing what he was doing—as a Peeping Tom . For Sartre, this phenomenological experience of shame establishes proof for
4346-538: Is never put to shame. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more than it seems, because it is an eternal decision. Existentialists oppose defining human beings as primarily rational, and, therefore, oppose both positivism and rationalism . Existentialism asserts that people make decisions based on subjective meaning rather than pure rationality. The rejection of reason as
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4452-450: Is not a concern. The setting is inwardness in existing as a human being; the concretion is the relation of the existence-categories to one another. Historical accuracy and historical actuality are breadth. Some interpret the imperative to define oneself as meaning that anyone can wish to be anything. However, an existentialist philosopher would say such a wish constitutes an inauthentic existence – what Sartre would call " bad faith ". Instead,
4558-768: Is not an abstract matter, but is always situated (" en situation "). Although Martin Buber wrote his major philosophical works in German, and studied and taught at the Universities of Berlin and Frankfurt , he stands apart from the mainstream of German philosophy. Born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1878, he was also a scholar of Jewish culture and involved at various times in Zionism and Hasidism . In 1938, he moved permanently to Jerusalem . His best-known philosophical work
4664-475: Is often reduced to moral or existential nihilism . A pervasive theme in existentialist philosophy, however, is to persist through encounters with the absurd, as seen in Albert Camus 's philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942): "One must imagine Sisyphus happy". and it is only very rarely that existentialist philosophers dismiss morality or one's self-created meaning: Søren Kierkegaard regained
4770-473: Is one in accordance with one's freedom. A component of freedom is facticity, but not to the degree that this facticity determines one's transcendent choices (one could then blame one's background for making the choice one made [chosen project, from one's transcendence]). Facticity, in relation to authenticity, involves acting on one's actual values when making a choice (instead of, like Kierkegaard's Aesthete, "choosing" randomly), so that one takes responsibility for
4876-578: Is related to the limits of responsibility one bears, as a result of one's freedom. The relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency and a clarification of freedom also clarifies that for which one is responsible. Many noted existentialists consider the theme of authentic existence important. Authenticity involves the idea that one has to "create oneself" and live in accordance with this self. For an authentic existence, one should act as oneself, not as "one's acts" or as "one's genes" or as any other essence requires. The authentic act
4982-472: Is suicide." Although "prescriptions" against the possible deleterious consequences of these kinds of encounters vary, from Kierkegaard's religious "stage" to Camus' insistence on persevering in spite of absurdity, the concern with helping people avoid living their lives in ways that put them in the perpetual danger of having everything meaningful break down is common to most existentialist philosophers. The possibility of having everything meaningful break down poses
5088-417: Is the facts of one's personal life and as per Heidegger, it is " the way in which we are thrown into the world ." This can be more easily understood when considering facticity in relation to the temporal dimension of our past: one's past is what one is, meaning that it is what has formed the person who exists in the present. However, to say that one is only one's past would ignore the change a person undergoes in
5194-537: Is the task Kierkegaard takes up when he asks: "Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor's distance from everyday life—or the learner who should put it to use?" Philosophers such as Hans Jonas and Rudolph Bultmann introduced the concept of existentialist demythologization into the field of Early Christianity and Christian Theology , respectively. Although nihilism and existentialism are distinct philosophies, they are often confused with one another since both are rooted in
5300-520: Is thought to relate to the "immersion" in the music experienced by the listener. The AllMusic Guide to Electronica (2003) defined dream pop as "an atmospheric subgenre of alternative rock that relies on sonic textures as much as melody". According to Paste , the genre emphasizes mood and sonics over lyrics, so that "chords and tracks blur seamlessly into one another so frequently that it can be difficult to even decipher when one song ended and another has begun." Common characteristics are breathy vocals,
5406-528: The Bible would demand that the reader recognize that they are an existing subject studying the words more as a recollection of events. This is in contrast to looking at a collection of "truths" that are outside and unrelated to the reader, but may develop a sense of reality/God. Such a reader is not obligated to follow the commandments as if an external agent is forcing these commandments upon them, but as though they are inside them and guiding them from inside. This
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#17327933980095512-519: The "approach to the sheer physicality of sound" integral to dream pop was "arguably pioneered in popular music by figures such as Phil Spector and ( Beach Boys founder) Brian Wilson ." The Beach Boys recorded an early dream pop song, " All I Wanna Do ", for their 1970 album Sunflower . Critic Jim Allen, who cites the Beach Boys as the "godfathers" of the style, says that the song's unprecedented "cinematic dream sequence" production style marks
5618-461: The "loud, shimmering feedback" of My Bloody Valentine and the "post-Velvet Underground guitar rock" of Galaxie 500 . My Bloody Valentine showcased a unique dream pop sound on their 1988 debut album Isn't Anything , with guitarist Kevin Shields employing a tremolo-arm technique in order to produce "an amorphous drone, at once visceral and disembodied". Galaxie 500 provided a "cornerstone" of
5724-470: The 1980s through groups associated with the UK label 4AD , most prominently Cocteau Twins , This Mortal Coil , and A.R. Kane . Subsequently, UK-based acts such as My Bloody Valentine , Slowdive , and Lush alongside US-based artists Galaxie 500 , Julee Cruise , and Mazzy Star released significant albums in the style. It saw renewed popularity among millennial listeners following the late-2000s success of acts such as Beach House . The term dream pop
5830-508: The Durutti Column "embodied the cliché of the suicidal dream-pop guitarist in the mid-1980s" with his "narcotic performances" presaging later acts such as My Bloody Valentine and Galaxie 500 . The Dif Juz album Extractions (1985) would expand the dream pop sound, incorporating saxophone, shifting tonalities, and off-kilter rhythms. Film director David Lynch , unable to obtain the rights to This Mortal Coil's version of "Song to
5936-482: The God-forsaken worldliness of earthly life shuts itself in complacency, the confined air develops poison, the moment gets stuck and stands still, the prospect is lost, a need is felt for a refreshing, enlivening breeze to cleanse the air and dispel the poisonous vapors lest we suffocate in worldliness. ... Lovingly to hope all things is the opposite of despairingly to hope nothing at all. Love hopes all things—yet
6042-454: The Idols , Nietzsche's sentiments resonate the idea of "existence precedes essence." He writes, "no one gives man his qualities-- neither God, nor society, nor his parents and ancestors, nor he himself...No one is responsible for man's being there at all, for his being such-and-such, or for his being in these circumstances or in this environment...Man is not the effect of some special purpose of
6148-414: The Other as seen by him, as subjectivity), in existentialism, it also acts as a kind of limitation of freedom. This is because the Look tends to objectify what it sees. When one experiences oneself in the Look, one does not experience oneself as nothing (no thing), but as something (some thing). In Sartre's example of a man peeping at someone through a keyhole, the man is entirely caught up in the situation he
6254-535: The Siren" for his 1986 film Blue Velvet , enlisted composer Angelo Badalamenti and singer Julee Cruise to record a replacement track. The result was "Mysteries of Love", described by Rolling Stone as a significant development of the dream pop sound which "gave the genre its synthy sheen". The trio of Cruise, Lynch and Badalamenti later recorded the 1989 album Floating into the Night , which further elaborated on
6360-525: The Toronto Islands. In the early 2010s he became closely affiliated with Montreal label Arbutus Records, and began frequently performing as a touring musician with Grimes , Sean Nicholas Savage and Doldrums, while beginning to write and produce his own music. Fucked Up guitarist Mike Haliechuk released two early 12" EPs, Obsession I and Obsession II, on his label One Big Silence. Performing live with guitarist and vocalist Maddy Wilde, as well as
6466-631: The UK-based 4AD. According to Paste , the band crystallized their "swelling, euphoric" dream pop sound on the 1984 album Treasure , with guitarist Robin Guthrie conjuring an array of "woozy textures from his arsenal of effects pedals." The 1984 album It'll End in Tears by 4AD's "dream-pop supergroup" This Mortal Coil was conceived by label head Ivo Watts-Russell and featured members of Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance . The album helped "set
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#17327933980096572-613: The University of Salamanca, Unamuno wrote a short story about a priest's crisis of faith, Saint Manuel the Good, Martyr , which has been collected in anthologies of existentialist fiction. Another Spanish thinker, José Ortega y Gasset , writing in 1914, held that human existence must always be defined as the individual person combined with the concrete circumstances of his life: " Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia " ("I am myself and my circumstances"). Sartre likewise believed that human existence
6678-447: The act instead of choosing either-or without allowing the options to have different values. In contrast, the inauthentic is the denial to live in accordance with one's freedom. This can take many forms, from pretending choices are meaningless or random, convincing oneself that some form of determinism is true, or "mimicry" where one acts as "one should". How one "should" act is often determined by an image one has, of how one in such
6784-434: The apparent meaninglessness of life and the use of diversion to escape from boredom . Unlike Pascal, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche also considered the role of making free choices, particularly regarding fundamental values and beliefs, and how such choices change the nature and identity of the chooser. Kierkegaard's knight of faith and Nietzsche's Übermensch are representative of people who exhibit freedom , in that they define
6890-415: The claim that "bad things don't happen to good people"; to the world, metaphorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good person or a bad person; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a "good" person as to a "bad" person. Because of the world's absurdity, anything can happen to anyone at any time and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the absurd. Many of
6996-486: The continual process of self-making, projecting oneself into the future, would be to put oneself in denial of the conditions shaping the present self and would be inauthentic. The origin of one's projection must still be one's facticity, though in the mode of not being it (essentially). An example of one focusing solely on possible projects without reflecting on one's current facticity: would be someone who continually thinks about future possibilities related to being rich (e.g.
7102-593: The cultural movement in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s associated with the works of the philosophers Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir , Maurice Merleau-Ponty , and Albert Camus . Others extend the term to Kierkegaard, and yet others extend it as far back as Socrates . However, it is often identified with the philosophical views of Sartre. The labels existentialism and existentialist are often seen as historical conveniences in as much as they were first applied to many philosophers long after they had died. While existentialism
7208-488: The dream pop and shoegaze scenes; it was represented by Cocteau Twins and labels such as 4AD and Projekt Records . Rolling Stone describes "modern dream pop" as originating with the early 1980s work of Cocteau Twins and their contemporaries. AllMusic 's Jason Ankeny credits the Cocteau Twins' "distinctly ethereal" sound and singer Elizabeth Fraser 's operatic, indecipherable vocals with defining their label,
7314-451: The dream pop that emerged in the wake of the shoegazer movement", distinct for its incorporation of electronic textures and techniques such as sampling . Bowery Electric 's 1996 album Beat was described by Long Live Vinyl as an important touchstone of both dream pop and trip hop . The 2007 album Person Pitch by Panda Bear combined Beach Boys-influenced dream pop with modern sampledelic techniques, winning acclaim and exerting
7420-420: The existence of other minds and defeats the problem of solipsism . For the conscious state of shame to be experienced, one has to become aware of oneself as an object of another look, proving a priori, that other minds exist. The Look is then co-constitutive of one's facticity. Another characteristic feature of the Look is that no Other really needs to have been there: It is possible that the creaking floorboard
7526-597: The existentialist label in a lecture to the Club Maintenant in Paris , published as L'existentialisme est un humanisme ( Existentialism Is a Humanism ), a short book that helped popularize existentialist thought. Marcel later came to reject the label himself in favour of Neo-Socratic , in honor of Kierkegaard's essay " On the Concept of Irony ". Some scholars argue that the term should be used to refer only to
7632-406: The extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom. The Other (written with a capital "O") is a concept more properly belonging to phenomenology and its account of intersubjectivity . However, it has seen widespread use in existentialist writings, and the conclusions drawn differ slightly from the phenomenological accounts. The Other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits
7738-479: The first philosophers considered fundamental to the existentialist movement, though neither used the term "existentialism" and it is unclear whether they would have supported the existentialism of the 20th century. They focused on subjective human experience rather than the objective truths of mathematics and science, which they believed were too detached or observational to truly get at the human experience. Like Pascal, they were interested in people's quiet struggle with
7844-403: The genre in their 1989 album On Fire , with their downtempo, reverb -laden sound becoming influential. UK bands acts as A.R. Kane, My Bloody Valentine and Ride played an influential role in the development of the movement. Other prominent acts to emerge from the movement include Slowdive and Chapterhouse . The 1990 Cocteau Twins album Heaven or Las Vegas proved an iconic release in
7950-404: The genre. Spin credited My Bloody Valentine's "landmark" 1991 album Loveless with "crystalizing (and obliterating) the genres of dream pop and shoegaze guitar rock." The UK band Lush became an influential act in the genre during the 1990s, with Robin Guthrie producing their 1992 debut album Spooky . The 1993 album So Tonight That I Might See by American band Mazzy Star reflected
8056-410: The human experience of anguish and confusion that stems from the apparent meaninglessness of a world in which humans are compelled to find or create meaning. A primary cause of confusion is that Friedrich Nietzsche was an important philosopher in both fields. Existentialist philosophers often stress the importance of angst as signifying the absolute lack of any objective ground for action, a move that
8162-431: The human individual searching for harmony in a transient life. Harmony, for Marcel, was to be sought through "secondary reflection", a "dialogical" rather than "dialectical" approach to the world, characterized by "wonder and astonishment" and open to the "presence" of other people and of God rather than merely to "information" about them. For Marcel, such presence implied more than simply being there (as one thing might be in
8268-460: The life of "flesh and bone" as opposed to that of abstract rationalism. Unamuno rejected systematic philosophy in favor of the individual's quest for faith. He retained a sense of the tragic, even absurd nature of the quest, symbolized by his enduring interest in the eponymous character from the Miguel de Cervantes novel Don Quixote . A novelist, poet and dramatist as well as philosophy professor at
8374-473: The literary works of Kierkegaard , Beckett , Kafka , Dostoevsky , Ionesco , Miguel de Unamuno , Luigi Pirandello , Sartre , Joseph Heller , and Camus contain descriptions of people who encounter the absurdity of the world. It is because of the devastating awareness of meaninglessness that Camus claimed in The Myth of Sisyphus that "There is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that
8480-697: The mix. In the view of critic Simon Reynolds , dream pop "celebrates rapturous and transcendent experiences, often using druggy and mystical imagery". In 1991, he suggested this escapist tendency might be a response to the cultural landscape of the UK during the 1980s: "After 12 years of Conservative government in Britain, any idealism or constructive political involvement seems futile to these alienated middle-class dropouts." Similarly, according to Rachel Felder, dream pop artists often resist representations of social reality in favour of ambiguous or hallucinogenic experiences. Author Nathan Wiseman-Trowse writes that
8586-533: The nature of their own existence. Nietzsche's idealized individual invents his own values and creates the very terms they excel under. By contrast, Kierkegaard, opposed to the level of abstraction in Hegel, and not nearly as hostile (actually welcoming) to Christianity as Nietzsche, argues through a pseudonym that the objective certainty of religious truths (specifically Christian) is not only impossible, but even founded on logical paradoxes. Yet he continues to imply that
8692-525: The opposites that he holds together. The systematic eins, zwei, drei is an abstract form that also must inevitably run into trouble whenever it is to be applied to the concrete. To the same degree as the subjective thinker is concrete, to that same degree his form must also be concretely dialectical. But just as he himself is not a poet, not an ethicist, not a dialectician, so also his form is none of these directly. His form must first and last be related to existence, and in this regard he must have at his disposal
8798-416: The other who remembers everything. Both have committed many crimes, but the first man, remembering nothing, leads a rather normal life while the second man, feeling trapped by his own past, continues a life of crime, blaming his own past for "trapping" him in this life. There is nothing essential about his committing crimes, but he ascribes this meaning to his past. However, to disregard one's facticity during
8904-420: The phrase should be taken to say that people are defined only insofar as they act and that they are responsible for their actions. Someone who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel person. Such persons are themselves responsible for their new identity (cruel persons). This is opposed to their genes, or human nature , bearing the blame. As Sartre said in his lecture Existentialism
9010-506: The poetic, the ethical, the dialectical, the religious. Subordinate character, setting, etc., which belong to the well-balanced character of the esthetic production, are in themselves breadth; the subjective thinker has only one setting—existence—and has nothing to do with localities and such things. The setting is not the fairyland of the imagination, where poetry produces consummation, nor is the setting laid in England, and historical accuracy
9116-546: The point "where the dream pop family tree starts to come into focus." However, the Beach Boys' impact on the genre was not widely acknowledged until after the 2000s. The 1960s work of the Byrds would influence the "swoony harmonies" of later British dream pop groups. The music of the Velvet Underground in the 1960s and 1970s, which experimented with repetition, tone and texture over conventional song structure,
9222-423: The presence of another thing); it connoted "extravagant" availability, and the willingness to put oneself at the disposal of the other. Marcel contrasted secondary reflection with abstract, scientific-technical primary reflection , which he associated with the activity of the abstract Cartesian ego. For Marcel, philosophy was a concrete activity undertaken by a sensing, feeling human being incarnate—embodied—in
9328-420: The present and future, while saying that one's past is only what one was, would entirely detach it from the present self. A denial of one's concrete past constitutes an inauthentic lifestyle, and also applies to other kinds of facticity (having a human body—e.g., one that does not allow a person to run faster than the speed of sound—identity, values, etc.). Facticity is a limitation and a condition of freedom. It
9434-653: The present, but such changes happen slowly. They are a force of inertia that shapes the agent's evaluative outlook on the world until the transition is complete. Sartre's definition of existentialism was based on Heidegger's magnum opus Being and Time (1927). In the correspondence with Jean Beaufret later published as the Letter on Humanism , Heidegger implied that Sartre misunderstood him for his own purposes of subjectivism, and that he did not mean that actions take precedence over being so long as those actions were not reflected upon. Heidegger commented that "the reversal of
9540-425: The previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear that has an object. While one can take measures to remove an object of fear, for angst no such "constructive" measures are possible. The use of the word "nothing" in this context relates to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one's actions and to the fact that, in experiencing freedom as angst, one also realizes that one
9646-601: The problem of meaning . The word existentialism , however, was not coined until the mid-20th century, during which it became most associated with contemporaneous philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre , Martin Heidegger , Simone de Beauvoir , Karl Jaspers , Gabriel Marcel , Paul Tillich , and more controversially Albert Camus . Many existentialists considered traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in style and content, to be too abstract and removed from concrete human experience. A primary virtue in existentialist thought
9752-453: The protagonist Raskolnikov experiences an existential crisis and then moves toward a Christian Orthodox worldview similar to that advocated by Dostoyevsky himself. In the first decades of the 20th century, a number of philosophers and writers explored existentialist ideas. The Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo , in his 1913 book The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations , emphasized
9858-467: The pursuit of self-discovery and the determination of life's meaning. The term existentialism ( French : L'existentialisme ) was coined by the French Catholic philosopher Gabriel Marcel in the mid-1940s. When Marcel first applied the term to Jean-Paul Sartre , at a colloquium in 1945, Sartre rejected it. Sartre subsequently changed his mind and, on October 29, 1945, publicly adopted
9964-403: The same world as a person does. In its most basic form, it is this experience of the Other that constitutes intersubjectivity and objectivity. To clarify, when one experiences someone else, and this Other person experiences the world (the same world that a person experiences)—only from "over there"—the world is constituted as objective in that it is something that is "there" as identical for both of
10070-478: The source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical free will and our awareness of death. Kierkegaard advocated rationality as a means to interact with the objective world (e.g., in the natural sciences), but when it comes to existential problems, reason is insufficient: "Human reason has boundaries". Like Kierkegaard, Sartre saw problems with rationality, calling it
10176-543: The style and featured the Twin Peaks theme and UK top 10 single " Falling ". The term "dreampop" was coined in the late 1980s by Alex Ayuli of A.R. Kane to describe his band's eclectic sound, which blended effects-laden guitar with dub production and drum machine backing, among other elements. The group released their 1987 EP Lollita on 4AD, with production by Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie. Pitchfork describes their debut album Sixty Nine (1988) as
10282-468: The subjects; a person experiences the other person as experiencing the same things. This experience of the Other's look is what is termed the Look (sometimes the Gaze ). While this experience, in its basic phenomenological sense, constitutes the world as objective and oneself as objectively existing subjectivity (one experiences oneself as seen in the Other's Look in precisely the same way that one experiences
10388-637: The template for dream pop" and associated the formerly gothic-affiliated UK label with the style. The album's 1983 single, the Tim Buckley cover " Song to the Siren ", became an influential work in the genre, and saw success in the UK Indie Chart , remaining there consistently for two years. Other early acts to touch on the style included Lori and the Chameleons , Dif Juz , and the Durutti Column . According to Pitchfork , Vini Reilly of
10494-498: The term came into use. William Barrett identified Blaise Pascal and Søren Kierkegaard as two specific examples. Jean Wahl also identified William Shakespeare 's Prince Hamlet (" To be, or not to be "), Jules Lequier , Thomas Carlyle , and William James as existentialists. According to Wahl, "the origins of most great philosophies, like those of Plato , Descartes , and Kant , are to be found in existential reflections." Precursors to existentialism can also be identified in
10600-470: The use of guitar effects, and a densely produced sound, with "nebulous, distorted guitars" paired with "murmured vocals sometimes completely smudged into a wall of noise." The music tends to focus on textures rather than propulsive rock riffs. Effects such as reverb and echo are ubiquitous, with tremolo and chorus also heard on recordings. Lyrics are often introspective or existential in nature, but may be difficult to hear or incomprehensible in
10706-580: The works of Iranian Muslim philosopher Mulla Sadra (c. 1571–1635), who would posit that " existence precedes essence " becoming the principle expositor of the School of Isfahan , which is described as "alive and active". Kierkegaard is generally considered to have been the first existentialist philosopher. He proposed that each individual—not reason, society, or religious orthodoxy—is solely tasked with giving meaning to life and living it sincerely, or "authentically". Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were two of
10812-588: The world or the human being is not in itself absurd. The concept only emerges through the juxtaposition of the two; life becomes absurd due to the incompatibility between human beings and the world they inhabit. This view constitutes one of the two interpretations of the absurd in existentialist literature. The second view, first elaborated by Søren Kierkegaard , holds that absurdity is limited to actions and choices of human beings. These are considered absurd since they issue from human freedom, undermining their foundation outside of themselves. The absurd contrasts with
10918-415: The world. This can be highlighted in the way it opposes the traditional Abrahamic religious perspective, which establishes that life's purpose is the fulfillment of God's commandments. This is what gives meaning to people's lives. To live the life of the absurd means rejecting a life that finds or pursues specific meaning for man's existence since there is nothing to be discovered. According to Albert Camus,
11024-433: Was also an important touchstone in the genre's development. Their 1967 debut The Velvet Underground & Nico incorporated what music critic Marc Beamount terms " psychedelic dream pop" in addition to a variety of other styles. Elements of dream pop could also be found in Velvet Underground songs such as " Candy Says " (1969). Music journalist John Bergstrom recognises George Harrison 's 1970 track " Let It Down " as
11130-420: Was simply the movement of an old house; the Look is not some kind of mystical telepathic experience of the actual way the Other sees one (there may have been someone there, but he could have not noticed that person). It is only one's perception of the way another might perceive him. "Existential angst", sometimes called existential dread, anxiety, or anguish , is a term common to many existentialist thinkers. It
11236-682: Was the short book I and Thou , published in 1922. For Buber, the fundamental fact of human existence, too readily overlooked by scientific rationalism and abstract philosophical thought, is "man with man", a dialogue that takes place in the so-called "sphere of between" ( "das Zwischenmenschliche" ). Two Russian philosophers, Lev Shestov and Nikolai Berdyaev , became well known as existentialist thinkers during their post-Revolutionary exiles in Paris. Shestov had launched an attack on rationalism and systematization in philosophy as early as 1905 in his book of aphorisms All Things Are Possible . Berdyaev drew
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