Veal, Michael E. and E. Tammy Kim, Eds. 2016. Punk Ethnography

142 MUSICultures 46/2 Veal, Michael E. and E. Tammy Kim, Glasspiegel, Jonathan Andrews, Marc eds. 2016. Punk Ethnography: Artists Masters, Brian Shimkovitz, Andrew R. and Scholars Listen to Sublime Tonry); and visual artists (Robert Hardin, Frequencies. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Rachel Lears). The crossover approach of University Press. 429 pp. the book mirrors the history of the label itself, situated at the intersection of music, DIEGO PANI film, and ethnography. The book’s most Memorial University of Newfoundland significant achievement is in representing the many sounds and voices that comprise “The Sublime Frequencies releases the past and present core of the label’s life. embrace the world of feeling, inject- Sublime Frequencies was founded ing mystery and sensuality — the in 2003 by brothers Alan and Richard qualities that drew us all to music Bishop (previously bandmates in the art- and film in the first place — back punk band Sun City Girls) together with into ethnography” (Veal and Kim their friend Hisham Mayet, a passionate 2016: 19). traveller and amateur filmmaker. From its foundation, Sublime Frequencies (hence- The introduction’s final remarks in Punk forth SF) has directed its attention to Ethnography: Artists & Scholars Listen to soundworlds far from the United States, Sublime Frequencies synthesize well the such as Mali, Haiti, Thailand, Iraq, and key elements of this 2016 collection of Java to name a few. The label has focused essays edited by Michael E. Veal (musi- particularly on the vernacular and popu- cian and professor of ethnomusicology lar musics of traditional musicians and at Yale University) and E. Tammy Kim rock’n’roll bands, but also on recordings (writer and editorial member of the New of rituals, animals, urban and rural sound- Yorker): music, film, and ethnography at scapes, commercials, and news broadcasts. the Seattle-based record label Sublime Fre- This kaleidoscopic set of sounds was col- quencies. The essays collectively address lected by SF’s field recordists and archival the label’s history in sound, evoking and researchers in libraries, dusty markets, problematizing its musical production thrift shops, and local radio stations, with and modus operandi. The editors’ different recordings released as monographic col- backgrounds form a basis for a large multi- lections, compilations, and radio-collages vocal work that hosts the contributions of dedicated to individual countries and cit- 20 different authors from a range of disci- ies. Sublime Frequencies has always stood plines, including ethnomusicologists and out for a production ethos and aesthetics popular music scholars (David Novak, rooted in the Do It Yourself movement Andrew C. McGraw, Shayna Silverstein, (Holtzman and Hughes 2005), especially Julie Strand, Stanley Scott, Lynda Paul, in relation to the lo-fi techniques used for Joseph Salem, André Redwood, Cristina the productions of records and video clips. Cruz-Uribe); musicians and DJs (Chris Punk Ethnography is divided into Becker, Gonçalo F. Cardoso, David Font- three major parts with brief interludes. Navarrete, Ethan Holtzman); journalists, Part One considers the context of the independent writers, and bloggers (Wills label’s founding and mission. It presents Book Reviews / Comptes rendus de livres 143 interviews with the label’s founders, a ret- referring to the radio-collages issued by rospective on the Bishop brothers’ band, SF that have been realized through the Sun City Girls, and a final contribution audio patchwork obtained by the mixing related to issues of copyright and intellec- together of different radio programs from tual property associated with the work of a city or country. For example, the chapter the label. Within this first section is David written by Joseph Salem about SF’s Radio Novak’s chapter, “The Sublime Frequen- Palestine release deconstructs the collage cies of New Old Media,” which considers in a table illustrating the different sound SF’s works dedicated to individual coun- sources that compose the record. The tries and cities, which are produced in radio composition is broken down into a way that maintains the rawness of the categories (narration, music, western pop, original recordings, including their vol- ceremonial, various) and annotated fol- ume levels and consequent distortions. lowing their appearance in time. The author analyzes these distortions as The principal aim of the book’s a quality that connects the records with editors is to understand the ways that the North American alternative rock and Sublime Frequencies represented a new punk scene which can discover “its nos- concept label for so-called “world music” talgic distortions elsewhere in the world” or “world beat” at the beginning of the new (45). Moreover, SF, with “its mashups and millennium. Since its inception, SF has overlaps, degraded sources and untracea- tried to challenge such problematic labels ble short-circuits,” documents musics that for musics outside the Western popular normally do not find a place within the and art idioms, instead proposing a DIY “world music” record industry (45). For approach to the conceptualization, pro- these reasons, Novak, drawing on Feld’s duction, and promotion of its recordings. article “A Sweet Lullaby for World Music” This DIY approach is positioned outside (2000), refers to SF releases as “a noisy the mass marketing of world music record wake-up call for global media” (45) which companies (this is particularly highlighted have allowed the record label to create a in David Novak’s chapter) and is far dis- personal aesthetic and a musical mani- tanced from academic musicology which festo founded in the “distorted rawness” the label’s founders have condemned as of its recordings. colonialist and outdated. Several authors A brief interlude featuring interviews explore how SF’s own idea and practice with two label listeners prepares the reader of ethnography and ethnomusicology is for Part Two, “Visual and Sonic Culture,” conveyed through album artworks that where the focus becomes the sound and follow an abrasive style which reflects the audio-visual representation of cultures those of punk fanzines and album covers, made by the label over the years. A second later replicated through the production of interlude follows presenting another two unconventional music videos and docu- interviews with SF listeners. The book’s mentaries (Lynda Paul’s chapter, “‘Just final and longest section, “Local Forays,” Pure Sound and Vision’: Rawness as explores the different regions represented Aesthetic-Ideological Fulcrum in Sublime by the label’s releases (Africa, the Middle Frequencies’ Videos,” considers SF’s for- East, Asia, and South America), mainly ays into music video production and the 144 MUSICultures 46/2 broader visual representations of nations often fetishized as “exotic” by Westerners. and communities). In this regard, Shayna Silverstein’s chapter A major strength of this volume is its deals with Syrian mutrib (wedding singer) polyvocality. The different voices of schol- Omar Souleyman who gained popularity ars, musicians, and the label’s aficionados in Syria and the Arab world through his are engaged in a dialogue mirroring the international debut record, Highway to distributed and dynamic identity of Sub- Hassake, produced by SF in 2006. Out- lime Frequencies itself. Here, the vitality side his native Syria, his techno-dabke, of the many musics represented in SF’s an electric version of traditional dabke releases emerge as a product of the label’s music, has also been much appreciated encounter with the public, when the social among Western punk, dancehall, and and interactive experience of music pro- world beat audiences. Silverstein consid- vokes differential interpretations within ers the reception of Souleyman’s concerts its listeners. In fact, the interpretations of in these latter contexts. These audiences, the writers and listeners sometimes seem Silverstein suggests, are driven by “coun- to overwhelm those of the label’s owners, tercultural desires for authenticity, cultural Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayet, from tolerance, and political activism” (268) whom we hear in only two separate and and discourses of class and race often reprinted interviews in different chapters. connected with the Western reception The politics of representation is of non-Western popular music. Silver- another touchstone issue the book stein notes that these audiences “consume addresses. How SF frames the sounds techno-dabke” (279) while resisting any of different countries and communities contextualization of the Arab world. through sound recording, artwork, dis- Instead, Souleyman frames his sounds tribution, and promotion, as well as how with aspects of Western popular music the label engages (or not) with issues of genres with which Western audiences are copyright and the ethics of intellectual already familiar (for example, techno and property are considered. André Red- house listeners find familiarity with his wood, for example, dedicates an entire fast and repetitive rhythms, while other chapter to considering the activities of SF fans recontextualize Souleyman’s distorted with respect to US copyright and intel- and low-fi releases with the aesthetics of lectual property law (the label does not DIY punk rock records). Silverstein’s main always recognize copyright on the music point is that, even if their engagement issued, mostly because of the difficulty with Souleyman’s music is framed by anti- in finding the effective owners of song

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