Nomads in Sound vol. 1
Visual interventions by M-OP and Martin Borell.
<http://dx.doi.org/10.12801/1947-5403.2011.02.01.12>
On my journey through dance floors, DJ booths and sound scapes as a DJ and electronic music producer I have come to the point where words, language and categories become dead ends. Concepts can be expressed through sound that cannot be captured or iterated in text, like the wordless experience of community on the dancefloor. There are those who argue that electronic music is already immanently conceptual (Eshun in Goodman 2010: 160). This multimedia contribution, Nomads in Sound vol. 1, is an experiment in sound and vision that approaches electronic dance music culture from a DJ/producer/musician/VJ perspective, complementary to writing about it. Contributing artists are all EDM producers, musicians and DJs as well as visual artists. As artists and specialised guides to musical worlds, DJs/producers/musicians tell their stories through soundscapes, weaving together auditory elements and influencing the bodies, moods and emotions of dance crowds. Inspired by Graham St John's recent book on EDM culture Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures (2009), Nomads in Sound vol. 1 is an attempt to illustrate visions in EDM around collective experiences, struggles and vibes.
Electronic dance music operates at intellectual, political as well as spiritual levels despite common misunderstandings that it says nothing, and seeks to accomplish nothing, beyond itself. As opposed to styles like rock or pop, EDM (with the exception of occasional vocal samples) does not usually contain or structure around lyrics, verses and refrains, but nevertheless inspires communities, conveys messages and mobilises struggles. In the words of producer/musician and dub legend Dr Das (founding member of the Asian Dub Foundation and participant in Nomads in Sound):
Dance music is not inherently apolitical or non political, a prejudice that has existed for a long time and also applied to instrumental music in general. In fact, dance music is often directly political. Not having lyrics does not mean music is devoid of political intent. [The legendary Detroit Techno label/ collective] Underground Resistance have been on this tip for years. Their album Interstellar Fugitives I feel bristles with political tension without ever leaving the dancefloor and is a kind of template for me. Muslimgauze too is a big influence, both sonically and in terms of how he conveyed and suggested political engagement in his music. Since leaving Asian Dub Foundation, I've encountered a kind of ignorance that somehow, because I no longer deal with lyrics (in my own work), that I somehow no longer have a political outlook.1
Throughout the history of EDM, traced through Jamaican sound system culture in the 1950s, through NYC and Chicago disco and house scenes in the 1970s and 1980s, to the Afrofuturism of Detroit techno, the sounds of EDM are in and by themselves vehicles for struggle against oppression and injustice. As opposed to being inherently apolitical, EDM scenes evolve, ignite and reinforce activism in the service of a wide range of causes (St John 2009).
Electronic dance music’s subversive and liberating potential is illustrated by a dynamic that is usually described as the “vibe“. In EDM settings, it is crucial for participants (i.e. DJs, VJs, live artists, sound technicians and dancers) to come together and be together in the “vibe”; in an atmosphere of spiritual communication mediated through bodies, sound, visuals and technology (Gavanas 2008; 2009). As a participant in EDM scenes, you know this phenomenon at a very palpable but unspeakable level. The “vibe” can be described as a collective energy in EDM contexts. The “vibe” has also been identified through the concept of “communitas”, which describes the dissolution of social categories, boundaries and hierarchies on EDM dance floors and beyond. St John argues that there are different types of “vibes”, or social aesthetics, since parties respond to different and multiple lifeworld conditions where participants seek different kinds of freedom. Here the music, in all of its variety, crystallises different vibes, or may be a particular sonic expression of resistance that the vibe embodies. Like “communitas”, the EDM “vibe” can be a subversive experience that enables participants a measure of cultural autonomy within alien landscapes of segregation and oppression (St John 2009: 96).
While it is true that EDM communities may create and reinforce social boundaries as well as global inequalities, it is equally true that EDM can be used to dissolve boundaries: socially, spiritually, physically and otherwise. Although EDM scenes may be underpinned by silencing exclusions and gendered/ sexual/ socio-economic/ ethnic/ racial hierarchies (Gavanas 2008; 2009), EDM can also carnivalize everyday life and become the soundtrack for the “temporary liberation from the established order” which marks “the suspension of all hierarchy, rank, privileges, norms and prohibitions” (St John 2009: 219).
According to philosopher and electronic music producer Steve Goodman (Kode9 / Hyperdub), sound can become a site for affective collectivity and “affective tonality” can be felt as mood, ambience, or atmosphere (Goodman 2010). Writer and electronic musician Tara Rodgers (Analog Tara/ Pink Noises) (2010) argues that sound operates as a portal to private and collective memories and imaginations; sound creates and triggers emotions, personal experiences as well as political struggles (Rodgers 2010: 5). Furthermore, for Rodgers, regarded as pressure and movements, sounds perform cultural work (2010: 18). In other words, Rodgers conceives of (feminist) political movements (i.e. waves) in terms of sound waves that interact, intersect and reverbrate through space indefinitely: “how debates sound within and across these spaces depends upon one’s orientation toward an argument, how one listens selectively, and how some claims are masked or augmented by their relative power or position” (2010: 18). “Sonic squatting” can be a way to reclaim sonic space (Streicker in Balliger 1995: 24).
Moreover, in EDM culture, struggles for oppressed groups to claim sonic space as well as “struggles for the right to dance”, are crucial battles in contexts where authorities seek to regulate the activities of certain groups in specific areas (Buckland 2002).
The tracks below, composed for the current project Nomads in Sound vol. 1, approach the central themes in EDM culture described above:
There can be no political solution without spiritual resolution. Somehow words and politics have been bound-up in one sterilizing, paralyzing tool. This classic track “Mawlid”, and Mutamassik's recent album That Which Death Cannot Destroy, illustrate that insurrection must be conducted in ways that have not been figured-out nor defined by “the man” (including “the woman” now). “Mawlid” invests in sound as the unseen and generally what has not already been defined and prescribed as the proper way to conduct political activism. To Mutamassik, waking people the fuck up and making them hear something is distinctly her job as an artist; protests and marches are not enough. Right now, in our First World, materialist societies, believing in this unseen is just about the most threatening thing you can do. By means of sound, “Mawlid” intends to introduce the “enemy” to the “enemy”.
<http://meerkatrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/mawlid>
Dr Das’ “Undergrowth” is inspired by producing and remixing with the label Indigenous Resistance (IR) for several years. IR promotes the ongoing struggles and actions of Indigenous people worldwide. In these struggles, Dr Das has remixed/reworked on contributions by Underground Resistance and Sly & Robbie amongst others. Dr Das dubs his musical approach “Dubnoiz”, whereby percussion and noise move and fluctuate within a framework of drums and melodic basslines. Percussion on its own is original, organic trance music. By feeding it through distortion pedals it becomes even more emotive. Not only does percussion determine the tonic (key) of the tracks, but by distorting it, harmonics are released which imply melodies and basslines. The basslines, percussion loops and noise (“noiz”) convey emotion, be it joy or anger—or they indicate militant intent.
<http://meerkatrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/undergrowth>
I'm dancing, head in the noose...
Confusion is the tactic that they're using...
The space between my ears is where I'm lost in...
Truth is sometimes a lie that's not provin'...
EDM culture influences mind states; individually and collectively the DJ/performer takes participants on a journey. “Dub in Noose” illustrates the power of EDM to affect mental states, dancing alone together. The X.A.Cute Sound System are long time activists of the Berlin underground. As a duo, or with the help of a family of urban renegades, X.A.Cute challenges limitations, expectations and generic boundaries with every next break.
<http://meerkatrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/dub-in-noose>
DJing is “like driving a plane during war. Like the bombs are flying but you've still gotta drive the plane” (Coleman in Rodgers 2010: 90).
EDM can channel and amplify commitment to justice, a tradition that can be traced back to Jamaican sound systems as vehicles by which racism and prejudice are opposed. In this cultural warfare, “the colonized of the empire strike back through rhythm and sound” (Goodman 2010: 1). The track “Can´t Fail” is about frustration, anger and determination. The feeling you get when enough is enough. When the stakes are high but giving in is not an option. When you just can´t fail.
<http://meerkatrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/can-t-fail>
The revolutionary carnival may only last a few hours or days, but its taste lingers on. It is not simply a letting-off steam, a safety valve for society, enabling life to return to normal the next day. It is a moment of intensity unlike any other, which shapes and gives new meaning to every aspect of life (Ainger et al. in St John 2009: 223).
The track “Technomad Communitas” seeks to convey the especially carnivalesque character of experience on dance floors and outdoor festivals. It is influenced by the retro sounds of 1980s New Wave, which trigger collective memories of “coming out” to the EDM dance floor. The track conveys the chaos and determination, and the revolutionary, infectuous and irresistible build up of comm-uni-tas.
<http://meerkatrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/technomad-communitas>
People really find solace and a community in the clubs . . . people find, when they come to the city, their surrogate family. People find this connection where, they all left places around the country or they felt disenfranchised here or there. It was like a big family gathering or house party of like-minded souls linked through the energy of the music and in a more communal setting (DJ Jeannie Hopper in Rodgers 2010: 195).
EDM community can be a surrogate family within lonely and desolate urban existence. The track “Darkness” is about Berlin in 2010, the 21st century’s art capital of the world. The track “Darkness” invokes the typical Berlin club: an abandoned warehouse with little (minimalistic) decoration, the club is almost dark, only the occasional cold strobe light will reveal the art painted directly on the concrete walls and ceiling. Static, hypnotic techno is thumping from the speakers. Yet this cold place becomes warm, intimate and somehow cosy when filled with people.
<http://meerkatrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/darkness>
Protestivals are generally acts of civil disobedience, neither sanctioned nor tolerated by official culture . . . hardly sanctioned by the state nor becoming easily recuperable (St John 2009: 222f).
Claiming auditive space in squats, outdoor raves and abandoned warehouses, the track “Dark Alleyways” amplifies persistent techno subcultural resistance. Proliferating in nocturnal alleyways, underground sounds of resistance defy the violence, policing and control of oppressive authorities. In these mobile and evasive strongholds, the DJ is the ultimate outlaw and sound is the ultimate counterforce.
<http://meerkatrecordings.bandcamp.com/track/dark-alleyways>
As a bonus, Nomads in Sound vol. 1 possesses an audiovisual dimension. Below are visual interpretations of two of the tracks composed for the project by visual artists M-OP and Martin Borell.
M-OP is a VJ and EDM producer who has toured EDM festivals and events internationally for many years. In his own words, according to his approach as a visual artist:
I never get attached to my output. Being one with the moment, the present moment of creation is what it's all about—and it becomes multiplied if you can share it with someone else. Like a bush fire spreading, raging through the African Savanna. Igniting, spreading rapidly only to die out as quickly as it started, leaving behind it what at a first glance seems like destruction, but in essence making way for the fertile, the new, the unborn, the seed of possibility to grow. Over and over again... that is being alive—fully conscious that we are not dead.
Here is M-OP's interpretation of Håkan Ludvigson's “Darkness”:
Håkan Ludvigson feat. Coni - Darkness (Video by M-OP) from Meerkat Recordings on Vimeo.
Martin Borell is a visual artist currently making the lesbian action movie Dyke Hard. He works on special effects for feature films during days and graphics for friend’s projects by night. Here is Borell's interpretation of Gavana's “Technomad Communitas”:
Gavana - Technomad Communitas from Meerkat Recordings on Vimeo.
Balliger, Robin. 1995. “The Sound of Resistance”. In Sounding Off! Music as Subversion/Resistance/Revolution, ed. Saikolsky, Ron and Fred Wei-han Ho, 13–28. New York: Autonomedia.
Buckland, Fiona. 2002. Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer World Making. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Gavanas, Anna. 2008. “Grasping Communitas”. Ethnos 73(1): 127-133.
———. 2009. “‘You better be listening to my fucking musik you bastard!’ Teknologi, genusifiering och andlighet bland DJs på elektroniska dansmusikscener i Berlin, London och Stockholm”. In Rundgång: genus och populärmusik, ed. Ganetz, Gavanas, Huss och Werner, 77–120. Stockholm: Makadam page.
Goodman, Steve. 2010. Sonic Warfare. Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear. London and Cambridge: MIT Press.
Rodgers, Tara. 2010. Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
St John, Graham. 2009. Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures. London and Oakville: Equinox.
1. Dec 6, 2010, personal communication.