The Social Mediation of Electronic Music Production
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People, Platforms, Practice: The Social Mediation of Electronic Music Production Paul Chambers Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts School of Social Sciences Discipline of Anthropology The University of Adelaide May 2019 Contents Contents 2 Abstract 5 Thesis Declaration 6 Acknowledgements 7 List of Figures 8 Introduction Introduction 9 Electronic Music: Material, Aesthetics and Distinction 12 Electronic Music: Born’s Four Planes of Social Mediation 17 Methodology 21 Thesis Overview 31 Section 1: The Subject 38 Chapter 1 Music & Identity in the ‘Post-Internet’ 39 Music, Gender and the Self 42 Val: Clubbing in ‘Digitopia' 45 Sacha: Pasifika Futurism 50 Nico & Alex: ‘Digital Queering’ 54 Travis & Moe: ‘Persona Empires’ 61 Conclusion 66 Chapter 2 Politics of the Personal 70 Music, Freedom & Modernity 73 Brother Lucid & Kyle: The Studio as Autonomous Zone 75 Nix & Bloodbottler: Transposing Alienation 80 Klaus, Clifford & Red Robin: Frequency Response 87 Ali & Miles: Laptop Lyricists 92 Conclusion 98 2 Section 2: The Object 100 Chapter 3 Anyone Can Make It 101 The DAW & the Future of Pedagogy 103 Ableton: Meet the Superstar 107 Learning the Tropes: The Role of the Institution 113 Jamming with Myself: Who Needs a Band? 125 Code Composers: Who Needs a Human? 128 Conclusion 132 Chapter 4 Eurorack Revolution & the Maker Movement 135 Towards a Theory of the Modular 138 Sound Affects: How Low Can I Go? 145 Patching into the Field: Interacting with a Sonic Ecology 150 Glad Obsession: Capitalism and Audiophilia 155 Doing-It-Ourselves: The Maker Movement 161 Conclusion 170 Section 3: The Social 173 Chapter 5 Here & Everywhere 174 Music, Genre & Scene 176 Sidechain (1): ‘Interface Aesthetics’ 179 Sidechain (2): Return of the Human 191 Experimental Music Night: Folks Music 196 Conclusion 206 Chapter 6 People of the Groove 208 Techno City 210 Techno as Genre, Meta-Genre, Post-Genre 220 Club Sync: Styles Collision 228 3 Conclusion 235 Conclusion 237 Appendix 1: Interview Participants 245 Appendix 2: Interview Questions 248 Bibliography 251 Discography 273 4 Abstract This thesis is a study of electronic music practice in the Australian city of Adelaide. Based on fieldwork conducted from July 2016 to January 2018, my work builds on scholarship that seeks to examine the impact of digital technology and the Internet on society. Its central aim is to examine how people engaged in making electronic music negotiate the affordances and difficulties of a digitally-connected world. The thesis has a dialectical structure, alternating throughout with perspectives that chart active and reactive responses to the ubiquity of digital technology in society. Three sections explore electronic music at the level of the subject, the object and their combination in the social, to understand how their mediation informs the modern musical assemblage. Born’s (2010) theory of music’s four planes of social mediation is used to explore a field of musical cultures that are spatially and temporally connected, allowing for comparison and understanding of the processes and relations, discourses and ideologies behind contemporary aesthetic practice. It extends Born’s theory by emphasising and extending conceptions of the social to include a range of non-human others, including user interfaces, recommender algorithms and generative music programs. The diversity of perspectives included from across the age range and stylistic spectrum provide a holistic portrait of musical expression in a particular time and place. The accounts of Adelaide’s music makers show how technical, cultural and economic influences intersect, moving beyond a concern with the functionality and spread of digital technology to concentrate on the meanings and contexts of its use. More broadly, as an ethnography on contemporary music and society, it demonstrates how social relationships, software platforms and creative practices are becoming further entwined, encapsulating the shifting state of being in the world today. 5 Thesis Declaration I certify that this work contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in my name, in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. In addition, I certify that no part of this work will, in the future, be used in a submission in my name, for any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution without the prior approval of the University of Adelaide and where applicable, any partner institution responsible for the joint- award of this degree. I give permission for the digital version of my thesis to be made available on the web, via the University’s digital research repository, the Library Search and also through web search engines, unless permission has been granted by the University to restrict access for a period of time. I acknowledge the support I have received for my research through the provision of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Paul Chambers 6 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge all engaged in participating and supporting electronic music practice in Adelaide, particularly those who kindly agreed to take part in this project. I sincerely hope I have represented your perspectives accurately and remain profoundly grateful for your help. Thank you so much to my supervisors, Doctor Dianne Rodger and Professor Andrew Skuse, for your mentorship and assistance, insightful criticism and seasoned advice, and to the ongoing help and support of the postgraduate cohort and staff in the school of Anthropology & Development Studies at the University of Adelaide. To Sebastian Joseph for the title, ‘People of the Groove’, Patrick Lang for clarifying details in Chapter 5, Cathy Adamek for feedback on Chapter 6, Tim Gaze for proof- reading and Claire Harris for asking me my own questions prior to fieldwork. Special thanks to Kathryn, Erin and Axel for your continuing love and encouragement. 7 List of Figures Fig. 1: Percentage of participants using software or hardware to make music Fig. 2: A home studio modular set-up in Adelaide Fig. 3 Eurorack case and modules Fig. 4. Modular jam at the Experimental Music Night Fig. 5. Homemade synth made by Nathan Fig. 6. Mario’s live set-up Fig. 7. Controller performance at Sidechain Fig. 8. The Buddha at Lotus Lounge Fig. 9. ‘Controllerist’ at Sidechain Fig. 10. ‘Fusionists’ in action at Sidechain’s Fourth Birthday Fig. 11. Experimental Music Night performance Fig. 12. The Hotel Metropolitan, Adelaide Fig. 13. One & One, live at the Adelaide Techno Convention Fig.14. Enthusiasm taking over at the Adelaide Techno Convention Fig.15. Poster for Club Sync Fig. 16. Poster for Club Sync, featuring Lotic 8 Introduction Music is prophecy: its styles and economic organization are ahead of the rest of society because it explores, much faster than material reality can, the entire range of possibilities in a given code. It makes audible the new world that will become visible…it is not only the image of things, but the transcending of the everyday, the herald of the future (Attali 1985: 11). This thesis investigates the practice of making ‘electronic music’ in the Australian city of Adelaide. By music, I use Cary’s (2007) wonderfully succinct definition of “sound that can be organised”. By ‘electronic music’, I mean “music created and conceived using electronic instruments” (Holmes 2006: 99). But like many categories in what follows, neatly boxed identities and ontological boundaries become indistinct and obfuscated. My work seeks to examine the impact of digital technology1 and the Internet on society by exploring the subjectivities and capabilities of a cross-section of music makers, examining how and why they make and perform the music they do. Although my research set out to investigate the practices and social relationships around electronic music, the Internet emerged as central. The reports of my participants suggest the need for a theory that can account for an emerging ‘networked’ habitus2 and its implications for music, subjectivity and social formations. Adelaide in this thesis forms a ‘symptomatic’ field site where the particular problematic to be examined, namely the impact of digital technologies in society, is analysed as it manifests in one Australian city. Analysing this form of cultural production necessitated a triangulation of my informants’ discourse, an evaluation of their present and historical social context and reflexivity about my own aesthetic 1 Digital here refers to what Prior (2018: 10) refers to as a “formation of discourses, artefacts and practices that revolve around an increasing reliance on complex computerized systems.” 2 Habitus is the term used by Bourdieu (1977) to describe the often unconscious and habitual dispositions accrued through family, upbringing, education, and environment. 9 dispositions. Incorporating microsocial affect, meso-societal relations and macrostructural conditions required a theoretical methodology that could engage with the mediation of all three without a reduction to deterministic causality. The visible and enduring cultures around music practice characteristic of the late-twentieth century are looking problematic among contemporary patterns of taste and meaning, amidst the mycelial communications and niche expression of ’Post-Internet’ socialities. I use the term ‘Post-Internet’