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CTM FESTIVAL 2019 ADVENTUROUS MUSIC & ART 20TH EDITION BERLIN

02 CTM 2019 – PERSISTENCE 46 WE ARE THE HALLUCI NATION: Introduction AN INTERVIEW WITH BEAR WITNESS OF A TRIBE CALLED RED 08 INTERDEPENDENCE Lindsay Nixon JON DAVIES 52 MICROTONALITY AND THE STRUGGLE 12 ON LOOP AND IN THE CROSSFADE: FOR FRETLESSNESS IN THE MUSIC IN THE AGE OF MASS DIGITAL AGE PERSISTENCE Khyam Allami Josh Kun 60 ARKESTRATED RHYTHMACHINE 16 TRANS-MITTING BLACK RESISTANCE KOMPLEXITIES: MACHINIC Tai Linhares in Conversation with GEISTERSTUNDE AND POST-SOUL Linn da Quebrada PERSISTENCIES ARK 21 »ALL THAT IS SOLID MELTS INTO PR«: ON PERSISTENCE, RESILIENCE, 66 200 BPM ORGASM CLUB MUSIC AND AUTONOMY IN MUSIC Gabber Modus Operandi Ollie Zhang in ConversationEverything with Jan Rohlf changes

24 ALL UNITED 72 NOISE BOMBING:when THE SPIRITyou OFlisten. IC3PEAK in Conversation with STREET NOISE Mariana Berezovska Indra MenusThe & Seanmusic Stellfoxthat moves you is just a tap away. New Sennheiser MOMENTUM 30 THE RADICAL ELASTICITY OF SOUND 80 PEEPING THROUGHTrue Wireless A FROWN: earbuds have intuitive Salomé Voegelin A DÉRIVE THROUGHtap controls. THE No PUNK clicky buttons. No CONTINUUMwires. Just exceptional sounding, 36 FAILING AT THE IMPOSSIBLE: Tim Tetznerergonomically designed earbuds that ATTEMPTS AT EMBODYING are ready to wear and can easily be MATRIARCHY 86 ENCOUNTERS WITH BEELZEBUB’S ~ recharged in the compact carry case. An Interview with Nguye^n + ORGANS – QUELLGEISTER #3: BUSSD Transitory by Kamila Metwaly Stefan FraunbergerSearch: MOMENTUM True Wireles

42 POP, POLITICS, AND PERSISTENCE: POPULAR CULTURE BETWEEN DELIMITATION AND ACTIVISM Luise Wolf

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CTM 2019 PERSISTENCE

As polarising stances and simplistic rhetoric con- idealistic kind of perseverance – a persistence of like little else. It is something we have had the rare tinue to proliferate at alarming rates, we are faced the transitory? privilege to bring about – a gift. One that was made with the difficulties of resisting them and the rifts possible by the great many people who sensed the they create. The challenge lies in cultivating per- The persistence of transience is not only a fitting value of such a festival and generously contribut- sistence without tumbling into rigidity or dogma allegory for CTM Festival’s 20-year anniversary, it ed to its survival and prosperity with their energy, – in cultivating a steadfastness through a recog- also describes an attempt to think of collective- creativity, affection, skill, and knowledge. It’s a gift nition of diversity, difference, and hybridity while ness, community, and subcultures as fleeting, ex- that we wish to share with as many as possible. also embracing fluidity, uncertainty, and flux. perience-based associations. It’s a framework for considering them as testing grounds for collec- We’d like to thank all of you from the bottom of our With Persistence, CTM 2019 examines the aes- tive speculation rather than rigid or exclusive con- hearts. Our endless gratitude goes out to everyone thetic and societal potentials and pains of perse- structs. CTM has always strived to provide a forum that has collaborated and contributed to the fes- verance, and of its opposite: the transient and the that facilitates exchange and networking between tival throughout the years; to everyone that came provisional, and considers the struggles that come different creative communities, while at the same out once or many times over; to all participants and with balancing continuity and changeability. time fostering open spaces of possibility that also artists; all volunteers; all partners, first and fore- allow those who are non-associated to navigate most our sister festival transmediale, to all funders, Music and art are characterised by continuous the interstices and try things out. sponsors, and supporters; to our hometown for all searching, open-ended experimentation, and the its unrefined realness that provides a continuous speculative nature of hypotheses, which allows for In order to keep such spaces open, however, we source of inspiration; and to our dear partners and a positive adoption of uncertainty. A hypothesis is must also insist on stable economic conditions. To families for their immense and lasting support. always open to being corrected or discarded. It survive as an artist and to maintain communities Without all of you the festival would not exist. requires constant questioning and exchange: Lis- and spaces of open discourse make for great chal- tening, critical discussion, and doubt are inherent lenges worldwide. We urgently need concepts, We also sincerely thank the authors of this publi- components of this process, as are sensing and tools and structures that enable music and cultur- cation for sharing inspiring reflections informed by recognising inconsistencies and differences. al creators to continuously experiment in a self- their broad range of disciplines and experiences. determined manner and to freely associate them- A decisive difference between artistic and scien- selves. CTM’s 20th anniversary edition, and also tific hypotheses is that art and music take subjec- this magazine, brings together many actors and in- tive feelings, personal experiences, empathy, the itiatives across music, culture, and technology to Oliver Baurhenn, Jan Rohlf, and Remco Schuurbiers imaginary, and desire as their starting points. Artis- imagine, discuss, and celebrate open and plural- tic propositions can therefore never be complete- istic structures. ly eliminated, and because they need to be expe- rienced, they offer transitory moments of radical Developing our festival and keeping it afloat pluralisation. Thinking and acting on this basis is a throughout the past 20 years has been a challeng- form of resistance against essentialism and natu- ing exercise in determination and persistence, of ralistic misconceptions, against the absolute, and constant and sometimes extremely rapid change unshakable identities, and also against the cor- and continuous learning, and with moments of in- rosive powers of uncertainty. So, can music and tense existential pressure. It has been an incred- art provide us with methods to move towards new ibly enriching experience, one that we wouldn’t societal horizons? Can we maintain a productive, want to do without and that has shaped our lives 7 9

AS IF WE EXISTED AS IF WE WERE UNIQUE AS IF WE WERE SOLITARY SELVES AS IF WE KNEW AS IF WE REMEMBERED AS IF WE COULD FEEL AS IF WE WERE FREE AS IF WE WERE HEARD AS IF WE HAD A VOICE AS IF WE WERE HAPPY AS IF WE WERE BEAUTIFUL AS IF WE WERE EQUAL AS IF WE HAD RIGHTS AS IF WE HAD AGENCY AS IF WE WHERE WHOLE AS IF WE HAD MEANING AS IF THERE WERE NO IFS AS IF WE WERE SEEN AS IF WE WERE KIN AS IF WE COULD SPEAK AS IF WE COULD SHARE AS IF WE WERE GHOSTS AS IF WE WERE STRONG AS IF WE COULD CONNECT AS IF WE COULD AGREE AS WE COULD BE HOPEFUL AS IF WE HAD POWER AS IF WE WERE LOVED AS IF WE COULD IMAGINE AS IF WE COULD LEARN AS IF WE COULD CHANGE AS IF WE COULD LIVE ON 11

­designed as self-improvement not only for one’s cal practice, may intervene in our mindfulness ma- own needs but also for the creation of more men- laise may prove to be a key to how we might es- INTERDEPENDENCE tal resilience in the face of ever more exploitative cape emotional capitalism. labour practices? Aisling McCrea posits that »the rhetoric around self-care is flattering but flatten- Reinvigorating forms of solidarity in music mark a JON DAVIES ing, treating its audience as though the solution strategy for wellness, not just for oneself but in or- to their problems is believing in themselves and der to support one another. The dynamics of im- investing in themselves. This picture glosses over provised music within a group, for example, dem- the question of what happens when society does onstrate ways of communication and care in which not believe or invest in us.«*4) Not only does mind- the sonic outcome is dependent on the constitu- fulness demand a form of labour on the self, but ency of the group. As David Bell notes, improvi- As expectations around creative labour have transformed under Cap- it also turns its patients into consumers, supple- sation as a radical practice »collapses the binary menting their lives through short-term fixes, from opposition between the individual and the collec- italist Realism, the role of the musician has changed drastically. Jon short breaks to health apps. tive: the ability of one to act from their position Davies considers the hazards of contemporary discourses around of difference increases the ability of the collective McCrea asks: »Why are these feelings familiar to to act.«*7) Rully Shabara’s improvisational practice mental health and consider how music might posit potential salves. so many of us, yet we feel so alone?« Refocusing explores consciousness-raising through commu- on the musician, what impact does production and nicating musically with different performers from performance have on our mental health? What im- various traditions, as well as responding to his en- pact does it have, particularly on the surge of solo vironment. With Senyawa (roughly translated as artists, producers, and DJs who on one hand have »chemical compound«), his semi-improvisational benefitted from computer music-making yet on the compositions with Wukir Suryadi are inspired by a other hand have ushered in the atomisation of cre- dialectic between man and nature, while Ruang Ja- What to make of Capitalist Realism and the state in particular the effects it has on mental health. ativity, after the wreckage of the music industry at gat invites audience members to try their hand at of music-making for many struggling artists today? Labour became flexible in more ways than one; the beginning of the 21st century? Without lament- exploring their voice through conducted orches- Perhaps a day for the average electronic music not only does the contract between employer and ing too heavily on the decline of the band, one tras. producer involves trading several hours commut- employee become casualised, but also the nature might suggest that the replacement of group col- ing and working to pay for rent, and not too unlike- of communication increasingly becomes transac- laboration with an emphasis on individual personal Similarly, Pauline Oliveros’ Deep Listening practice ly anti-social hours working in bars and clubs. The tional, and bonds become temporary. Most notice- expression may lead to an increase of isolation in encourages a heightened sense of consciousness hours set aside for creativity are often snatched, able of all, labour is internalised. As a case study, art. The Quietus’ 2016 research into mental health of sound to open up human dynamics of attention. inconsistent, and appropriated from social and lei- the UK’s employment figures are massaged and in music showed a 10–20% difference in anxie- However, her Sonic Meditations group embodied sure times. Adding to further complication, social- plugged by an increase in self-employment, the ty and depression sufferers between solo artists a more concrete political approach in that the ini- ising can become more of a dress-down network- most casual and least protected working sector. and band members.*5) Working alone in electronic tial group was a women-only formation. Through- ing event, where the »always on« nature of capital »Work and life become inseparable. Capital fol- music is nothing new, with over three decades of out much of Oliveros’ work, her aim was to »to cre- surges through the psyche of the urban club space. lows you in your dream. Time ceases to be linear, solo producers and DJs making the canon, howev- ate an atmosphere of opening for all to be heard, The economic malaise of the music industry has becomes chaotic, broken down into punctiform di- er with the democratisation of audio workstations with the understanding that listening is healing.« been well documented from the emergence of the visions. As production and distribution are restruc- making creativity more accessible than hiring stu- Music demands resonance, empathy, and space mp3 up to the end of 2018’s collective backlash tured, so are nervous systems…you must learn to dios, rehearsal spaces, and affording musical in- to be heard, in the same way the politicised, mar- against Spotify’s end-of-year playlists, summing live in conditions of total instability, or ›precarity,‹ struments, isolation is quickly becoming the norm ginal body seeks freedom of expression. Working up the chasm between social and financial reward as the ugly neologism has it.«*3) for contemporary Western music practice. Fur- with dancer Elaine Summers, Oliveros’ Meditations as an artist. And yet there is seemingly no end to thermore, when creative isolation becomes more focused on exploring the movement of bodies to- new producers, thanks to the emergent structure The noticeable rise in mental health awareness, in ubiquitous both in music and in other knowledge- gether in a space. After hosting private weekly im- facilitated by cheaper hardware and software and music but also more broadly in society, is not nec- based labour, one of the few options presented to provisation groups, Oliveros began sharing her by music platforms providing a lower barrier of en- essarily a thing to celebrate. Yes, it is positive pro- us seems to be atomised self-care. Sonic Meditations practice through print in order try to share new tracks. Musicians, according to gress to recognise such illnesses as stress, anxiety, to share her work as a form of activism. Accord- Rosalind Gill and Andy Pratt, »are hailed as model and depression as legitimate diagnoses which can Loneliness is often allayed, in Western culture at ing to Kerry O’Brien, Oliveros’ Sonic Meditations entrepreneurs…conjured in more critical discourse be as debilitating as more physical, visible mala- least, within a framing that sociologist Eva Illouz shouldn’t be mistaken for escapism or disengage- as exemplars of the move away from stable no- dies. However I sense a particular nefarious un- defines as emotional capitalism. When registering ment. The composer described listening as a nec- tions of ‘career’ to more informal, insecure and dis- dertone in the narrative afforded to mental health the emotional intelligence of voice assistants, Siri essary pause before thoughtful action: »Listening continuous employment.«*1) The precarity of work issues in the public eye. The rise of »mindfulness« is described as »a regime that considers feelings is directing attention to what is heard, gathering in the arts is similar to that of many more emerging and self-care strategies, twinned with sensation- to be rationally manageable and subdued to the meaning, interpreting and deciding on action.«*8) employment sectors, most prominently in the so- alist media campaigns on musicians opening up logic of marketed self-interest. Relationships are For Oliveros, music’s symbiotic action of listen- called sharing economy. However, creative labour about their woes (although the destigmatisation things into which we must ‘invest’; partnerships in- ing and performing was key to healing oneself and entails the exhaustion of one’s passions, leading to through celebrities provide key icebreakers in the volve a ‘trade-off’ of emotional ‘needs’; and the each other. fatigue both emotionally and creatively.*2) conversation) obfuscate the debate over stagnat- primacy of individual happiness, a kind of affective ing living conditions for a generation. For many, profit, is key.«*6) Furthermore, wellness in emotion- These collective experiences, be they in the work- In his conception of Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher practicing mindfulness proves to be a necessary al capitalism fuels the industry of self-optimisation, shops conducted by Pauline Oliveros and Rul- drew on strains of Marxist political theory from Ital- coping mechanism for high-pressure work and liv- from becoming more effective in the workplace to ly Shabara, or in groups of individual performers, ian Autonomism to Post-Fordism to recognise the ing conditions. But who can afford to take time expressing your best self in social situations. How such as London’s Curl collective, serve a timely re- blurring of boundaries between labour and leisure, off and meditate? To what extent is mindfulness art, and music in particular as a digital and physi- minder that collaboration can help musicians out 13 »BY NOTICING EACH OTHER’S VULNERABILITIES, WE MAY FIND ROOM FOR EACH OTHER IN MUSIC- MAKING AND SCENE-BUILDING TO ENSURE EVERYONE IS NOT ONLY INCLUDED, BUT GIVEN TIME AND SPACE TO FIND ONE’S OWN SOLID FOUNDATIONS«

of isolation, whether through meeting up in physi- come a tactic in the face of rising or already-ex- action from specialised hackers and organisers, or sculpting our increasingly work-oriented environ- cal and virtual space to communicate abstractly; to isting xenophobic, homophobic, and patriarchal assembling weak networks on popular social me- ments into what Paul Rekret calls »a contemporary absorb, explore, and embody other ideas outside oppression, creating alternative welfare networks. dia platforms, with which to share information and chill ground zero,«*11) while extracting data capital the hermetic reach; or to simply have fun in mak- With the recent reports of sexual assaults at music one-off campaigns between disparate individuals from our leisure time. While there is a discussion to ing sound. In the example of Curl co-founder Coby festivals conducted in the UK as well as the de- and groups. Weak networks, while perhaps allow- be had about the wider net of Capitalist Realism, Sey, eclectic output is defined by a desire to make mand to diversify clubs and venues, the demand ing us to fall further into issues arising from popular we can certainly ask what music can do to raise conversation through challenging his practice – he for safer spaces has never been more urgent. Lon- social media, from the capture of personal data to consciousness, a central tenet of Mark Fisher’s works alongside a broad array of artists from Mica don nights such as Pussy Palace and Body Party discerning the broadcast of information between unfinished Acid Communism project. In certain Levi and Dean Blunt to Tirzah, Ben Vince, and art- have initiated safer-space policies through an in- free and sponsored posts, have also allowed for camps Acid Communism is seen as a rehabilita- ist Hannah Perry. From there broader solidarity can tersectional approach, ensuring that queer black activism to spread worldwide.*9) tion of countercultural utopianism, from communal occur, posing questions as to why these experi- bodies are protected at their venues. These spac- meditation to discussion groups, while others see ences are sometimes not afforded to us, particu- es are still precarious, and dependent on occupy- Taking vulnerability as a shared position, as dem- a more radical and philosophical construction of larly in politically and economically complicated ing commercial spaces which can only exist if the onstrated by maintaining safer spaces, sharing ac- the Other. Acid Communism could be broadly seen spaces. Along with Sey’s work, which makes nods spaces are attended regularly. tivities, and supporting campaigns directly or indi- as a reassessment of the materials and histories at towards the long struggle against austerity in Brit- rectly, is, according to Judith Butler, a resource for hand, an effort to remould all senses of community ain, music has always been a battleground for po- However, precarity, if held solid long enough, can common wealth. Of course it would be preferable and intersectionality. This could range from prag- litical and cultural bodies in space. During 2018’s sow the seeds of more permanent accommoda- for such communities as LGBTQ, refugees, ethnic matic strategies of connecting digitally with our- Lisbon Pride, DJ and producer Violet invited queer tion. Bassiani, Tbilisi's best known night club, pro- minorities, the disabled, and the unemployed to selves and others to create networks of solidarity, collective mina to invade the stage in protest for vides an apt example of musical space acting in be afforded autonomy equal to cisgendered and to taking inspiration from improvisation and learn- the lack of visibility for transgender people dur- defiance of wider structural forces, creating kin- patriarchal beneficiaries. However, in consider- ing how to explore boundaries and relationships ing the event, while Moscow duo IC3PEAK publicly ship not only within Georgia’s countercultural ing Butler’s suggestion that »to say that any of us fluidly, or even forming groups of precarity that al- challenged the Russian government’s authoritari- scene but also through visiting performers, col- are vulnerable beings is to mark our radical de- low time and space for people to be heard. Mu- an stance on sexuality through live performances lectives, and scenes. Housed underneath a Soviet- pendency not only on others, but on a sustaining sic can be a part of all of that. Channelling Butler, and the dissemination of provocative music vide- built sports stadium, Bassiani was established as and sustainable world,«*10) we invite ourselves to Mark Fisher wrote about consciousness-raising: os. These moments serve to spark discourse and soon as founders Zviad Gelbakhiani and Tato Getia open up and resonate with others through shared »The roots of any successful struggle will come struggle, however activism in music extends be- could find a venue big enough, acting as a space needs. Precarity calls upon a broadening interde- from people sharing their feelings, especially their yond events and towards building more solid foun- for alternative culture as well as housing LGBT club pendence and the call for creating coalitions be- feelings of misery and desperation, and together dations of solidarity and community. Horoom. However this past year has seen accusa- tween people, a direct contrast to the neoliberal attributing the sources of these feelings to imper- tions and raids conducted by the Georgian govern- world of individualised and competitive bodies. By sonal structures.«*12) Traces of Oliveros’ feminist activism from the 1970s ment over their supposed responsibility in drug- noticing each other’s vulnerabilities, we may find in the spirit of Sonic Meditations can be found in related deaths, despite the fact that none of them room for each other in music-making and scene- the current wave of production workshops, such occurred at Bassiani. After the club was violently building to ensure everyone is not only included, as Mint and No Shade in Berlin and Femme Elec- raided and shut down by the police, over 10,000 but given time and space to find one’s own solid tronic (hosted by DJ Rachael) in Uganda, which use people took to the streets to stage a rave and de- foundations. music practice to build female-oriented commu- mand the resignation of prime minister Giorgi Kviri- JON DAVIES is a writer, organiser, and musician (as Ke- nities. These workshops emphasise the listening kashvili and minister of internal affairs Giorgi Gakh- Of course it would be naive to expect music to pla) based in Liverpool. He has collaborated on two al- experience as central to mixing records, training aria. The organisation of the protest was in no small solve all the demands of the contemporary world bums with DeForrest Brown, Jr. titled Absent Personae DJs to carefully select tracks that flow from one part assisted by social media, with participants and its emotional and mental strains. The produc- and The Wages Of Being Black Is Death (PTP), and another, to create unlikely kinships from track to broadcasting their activities to local and global tion and enjoyment of music is especially com- one with Nathan Jones titled The Happy Jug (Entr’acte). track, and to respond to the dancefloor, control- networks, as well as distributing footage from the pounded now that music is becoming more ubiqui- ling the momentum and giving a platform to as- raids to online magazines in order to mount pres- tous thanks to streaming platforms, simultaneously yet unheard musics. Workshops give spaces for sure on the Georgian government. womxn to not only develop their skills but to foster communities. »I felt that women DJs were miss- New forms of activism have not only built upon tra- *1) Gill, R. and Pratt, A. (2008) »In the Social Factory?: Immaterial Labour, Precariousness and Cultural Work«, Theory, Culture & Society, 25(7–8), pp. 1–30. p. 14 ing…they were invisible,« said DJ Rachael to Vice ditional forms of protest, but also serve to remind *2) Ibid pp. 15–16 *3) Mark, Fisher. 2009, Capitalist realism : is there no alternative? Zero books Winchester, UK. p. 34 *4) McCrea, Aisling, 2018. Self-Care Won’t Save Us, Current Affairs magazine (online) *5) The Quietus, 2018. Why Psychological Analysis Shows We’re Right To Worry For Musicians’ Mental Health. Magazine. »I also thought they would be strong- us of the possibility of intersectional support and The Quietus (online) *6) Aronson, Paulina and Duportail, Judith, 2018. Can emotion-regulating tech translate across cultures? Aeon (online) *7) Bell, D. 2012, Playing The Future: Improvisation and Nomadic Utopiania. Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow UK. p. 7 *8) O’Brien, Kerry, 2016. Listening As Activism: er as part of a group than being solos, as it has dependence on one another. Such strategies in- The »Sonic Meditations« of Pauline Oliveros. The New Yorker *9) Stalder, Felix, 2013. Digital Solidarity Mute/Post Media Lab, Lüneburg. pp. 40–50 *10) Butler, Judith, 2015. Notes toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Harvard. p. 150 *11) Rekret, Paul 2018. Why Does Today’s Pop Music Sound Like It’s Attended always been." Safer spaces have increasingly be- clude creating swarms as spontaneous collective Mindfulness Seminars? Frieze (online) *12) Fisher, Mark 2015. Abandon Hope (summer is coming) k-punk (online) 15

ON LOOP AND IN THE CROSSFADE: 1. Think of generations of Palestinians – the unending MUSIC IN THE AGE OF MASS refugees of this century and the last – who want the A loop is a shape produced by a curve that bends right of return, and whose existence is defined by around and crosses itself. the denial of that right. One day, Fairuz still sings, PERSISTENCE we will return, return, return, return. Regardless of A loop is any structure or process in which the end the length of time and distance that separates us. is connected back to the beginning. JOSH KUN The right to loop. The privilege to loop. A sequence that repeats by returning to the posi- tion it started from. There are those who want to return and cannot. There are those made to return, processed, de- A closed circuit. tained, sentenced to months and years in tents and camps, added to watch lists, sent back, deported, In the name of persistence, many demands are placed upon us. Bod- For the nearly 300 million people currently around denied entry, who don’t want to return. ies migrate and move in need, in search, and in hope of better, of the world who have left the land of their begin- nings, their end is not back from where they started The loop is the political dream. But the loop is also alternatives, of security, of stability. How do loops and crossfades, from. For so many forced to move, to leave, wheth- the punishment. ubiquitous in so many music cultures, reflect contemporar y condi- er because of political terror or economic impossi- bility or climate catastrophe – 26 million refugees Much of the commercially produced and available tions such as precarity ? How might they facilitate means of listening and asylum seekers among them, roughly the pop- music in the world today is made of loops: a break- to and across borders? With On Loop and in the Crossfade, Josh Kun ulation of North Korea or Madagascar, more than beat that is made to repeat as a pattern, a sam- the population of Hungary or New Zealand or Ja- ple of a politician uttering a declaration, a trum- considers sonic staples as methods, as politics, as ways of music-mak- maica or 200 other countries around the world – pet squeal that keeps squealing. Loops become ing, and as ways of living. the loop is a wish, a goal post, a dream. the foundation for composition, a bedrock of pat- terned knowledge and information that, through its The reality is an incomplete circuit, a shape pro- sonic architecture of repetition, allows new pos- duced by a curve that never bends around itself, sibilities to emerge, new choruses to erupt, new that never crosses itself. A beat that never returns bridges to connect verses and phrases. Beyonce to its beginning. A feedback loop that is all feed- likes loops. J Balvin likes loops. CTM is unimagina- back. ble without loops. In Lampedusa this past spring, I heard loops everywhere – reggaetón and Ara- What is the opposite of a loop? bic trap bumping from car speakers. In London, I heard loops in Afro Bashment burners and Indian A line? A boundary? A border? A wall? new school jazz and industrial oud experiments. In Tijuana, Haitian rappers use loops to make sense A return that is always deferred. of how far they’ve come from a home they are no longer trying to return to: a music of loops for a A forward motion, a propulsion, that never ends, population that cannot loop. either because the movement never stops, or be- cause the movement is stopped – at borders, at The loop is just one way to explore how global dis- checkpoints, in detention centres, in prisons, in placements and expulsions have changed the way the desert, in the sea. the world sounds. As a result, I’ve been listening for the sonic aesthetics of displacement, the music This is no world of loops. Think of that long curving of dispossession, the sound that forced movement bending line of thousands of Central Americans makes, or, as Philip Bohlman put it, »the impor- walking north across Mexico who did not want to tance of music as a measure and medium of dis- return home, now halted indefinitely in Tijuana by placement.« Music as a form that migration takes. clouds of tear gas and barricades of riot gear and razor wire at the most-crossed land border in the There is no music without movement, of course, no world that – at the Tijuana-San Ysidro crossing conception of sound without the event of two op- alone – regulates a 2.1 million dollar a day cross- posing forces moving towards and into each other border economy. to create vibrations in the air. Music, to sample and 17

flip Q-Tip, is a mig’rant thing, a migratory thing, a A shape of life that is also a shape of death. De- other, how to move from left to right to left to right The crossfader knows: movement thing. So we need a new kind of listen- composed in the Mexican desert. Lost in the wa- to left without losing your step, your bounce, your we are not single inputs ing, one that listens for the politics and hierarchies ters of the Mediterranean. Blown to bits in Gaza. beat. How can the uninterrupted flow of energy we are samples of these movements, their uneven flows and po- save us? How to mix without erasing? How to sus- we are constellations of place, broken locations, licings. Let’s call it, in the spirit of Walter Mignolo, I recently heard an invocation by Father Gregory tain life in the face of the loss that always threat- dislocated maps Anibal Quijano, and Rolando Vazquez, a listening Boyle, the founder of Homeboy Industries (a job ens to take it over? we are each a matrix of conditions, waiting to attuned to the coloniality of power, a border lis- training program for the recently incarcerated and ­become part of another matrix of another set of tening. former gang members), ask the world to draw a cir- At roughly the same time, in the South Bronx, conditions cle of compassion so wide, so large, so ample, that Grandmaster Flash was answering the same ques- we are here to be connected »Borders have changed place,« Etienne Balibar has there is nobody who stands outside of it. tions when he wired his own horizontal crossfa­ written. »Whereas traditionally, and in conformity der into his DJ mixer to perfect the beat science of The crossfader is an anti-assimilation technolo- with both their juridical definition and 'cartograph- A loop of compassion so wide, so large, so ample, connection within his theory of the Quick Mix. He gy. The crossfader chooses the mix over the melt, ical' representation as incorporated in national that the circle can only be an opening, a start, an used the crossfader to juggle breakbeats, cut them the many over the one, the pluribus over the unum. memory, they should be at the edge of the territory, embrace, and never a noose. up with scratches, and create loops that kept bod- The crossfader is German and Syrian, Algerian and marking the point where it ends, it seems that bor- ies moving and bending and breaking. French at once, at once, never needing to aban- ders and the institutional practices corresponding Never a noose. don one for the other. What a time to be crossfad- to them have been transported into the middle of At roughly the same time, at Harvard University, ing, across fortress Europe, in the age of the AFD political space." On loop. George Steiner got on the mic to remix T.S. Eliot’s and Orbán and Trump and Netanyahu and Bolson- Notes Towards the Definition of Culture. Born into aro, across militarised deserts, across the former What does this new global borderscape sound like? an escape from Nazi Europe, Steiner called his ex- West and the former East, the former North and the What does colonial divestment sound like? What is ilic edit »Notes Toward a Re-Definition of Culture« former South. the sound of rights? Hannah Arendt famously ar- and this was a sample he flipped: gued, from a 20th century position of displacement 2. The crossfader looks linear but it actually operates and exile that echoes similar positions from this The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great on a curve. Bending and arcing like justice – open century, that politics is the space of appearance To fade is to lessen in intensity, to diminish, to be- speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers, and and closed, closed and open, keeping the beat go- and the legislation of a right to appear. The loops come less bright, to move into darkness, to be- races. The triplet pounding at me through the wall ing across our walled, walled world. of contemporary sonic culture provide the founda- come invisible. »We see what happens when we on a winter night in the northeastern United States tion for an exploration of sonic rights, of a right to persecute people,« Mahershala Ali said. They fold is most probably reverberating at the same mo- sound, to listen, and to be heard. into themselves. Fading and folding in; folding in ment in a dance hall in Bogotá, off a transistor in as a kind of fading out. Narvik, via a jukebox in Kiev and an electric guitar »If you had the freedom to get in a car and drive in Benghazi. The tune is last month's or last week's for an hour without being stopped (imagine that The crossfade, though, the crossfade never lets the top of the pops; already it has the whole of mass JOSH KUN is a writer, journalist, and curator based in there is no Israeli military occupation; no Israeli less bright take over. It folds out, it moves into the society for its echo chamber. The economics of Los Angeles. He is Director of the Annenberg School of soldiers, no Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks, light. this musical esperanto are staggering. Rock and Communication at the University of Southern Califor- no »by-pass« roads…)« the Palestinian artist Emi- pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting, nia, where he is Professor of Communication and Chair in ly Jacir asked fifty Palestinians in 2008, before the Section 9.13 of the 1977 sound engineering ma­nual and life style. Popular music has brought with it Cross-Cultural Communication. His most recent books are Separation Wall made daily commute loops across Audiocylepedia: sociologies of private and public manner, of group The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin Amer- Jerusalem unsustainable, »What song would you solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud. ica in Los Angeles (UC Press) and Double Vision: The listen to?« crossfade. verb. »The gradual attenuation of one Photography of George Rodriguez (Hat & Beard). signal as another is gradually brought up to normal By the end of the 1970s, the crossfader had be- What sound would you listen to if you could be level. This is accomplished by closing one mixer come a method and a politics, a new way of music- free? pot as another pot is being opened.« making but also a new way of living. To crossfade is to mix without erasing. Most definitions of a loop remind us of its shape: curves and bends that always create an opening. To openly pursue the multiple, not the singular; the both/and, not one or the other. To listen for points of connection, moments of commonality, starting points of solidarity. To crossfade is to sustain dif- ference. To listen carefully to sounds that already exist while imagining sounds that have yet to ex- ist, to juggle past and future within the time signa- tures of the present. To crossfade is to listen for ed­ ges and borders, not centers, the places where the Richard Wadman, the British engineer who created lines blur, where languages trade tongues, where one of the first crossfaders on the SMP101 mixer, geographies meet. To crossfade is to suture and didn’t see it as a strictly musical tool. It was a so- cut, suture and cut. To crossfade is to live multiple And yet, one of the word’s etymological roots lution to an energy crisis: how to sustain energy in realities at once, playing one while cueing up an- comes from the 14th century, when a loop was also the face of its diminishment? How to sustain flow other, playing one and fading it to another, finding a word for noose. and current when moving from one source to an- a new mix for life. 19

Since the explosion of funk carioca, the emergence of MC Linn da TRANS-MITTING BLACK Quebrada has challenged a number of norms and expectations revolv- ing around the genre. With lyrics that passionately rebut transpho- RESISTANCE bia and other political violences, the singular MC speaks to Brazilian journalist Tai Linhares about Black queer resistance, »deviant« sexu- TAI LINHARES IN CONVERSATION alities, body politics, and the weaponised potential of music. WITH LINN DA QUEBRADA

Music is dictating the movement of bodies as they TAI LINHARES When you won the Berlinale's Teddy sway against each other. The air is thin, pupils di- Award in 2018 for the »Bixa Travesty« documentary, you late in an attempt to understand the spectacle, and spoke very emotionally about the importance of occupying sweat pools together, making the audience forget spaces and promoting a »black queer resistance.« Which that outside the temperature is still below zero. spaces did the Linn of 10 years ago wish to occupy? Which Linn da Quebrada. Stills from the documentary Bixa Travesty by Claudia Priscilla and Kiko Goifman, 2016. Tickets for Linn da Quebrada's Berlin show were of these spaces have you already conquered? sold out in just a few days. Everyone wanted to be present at that unique moment during her stay LINN DA QUEBRADA The Linn of 10 years ago was in the city. Linn had come for the 2018 Berlinale, only 18 years old, and dreamed of occupying the where she received the Teddy Award for »Bixa Trav- main territory: her own body. I feel that I have made esty,« a documentary portraying her trajectory. great progress concerning my desires, my affec- tions, anxieties, and decisions. I think that I have Linn da Quebrada is a transsexual singer, compos- been conquering my body. It's a process: alive, on- er, and multimedia artist who broke through the going, and constant. I've conquered these territo- Brazilian pop scene in 2016 with the hit, »Envia- ries based on what I wished for and conquered in descer« [Queering]. Her first album, Pajubá, was my dreams; it’s a lot of spaces, you know? Music, crowdfunded and released at the end of 2017. cinema, performance, writing... through these, I've Emerging as an MC of the musical style known as been gaining a space beyond my body, and I've funk carioca, Linn sought, in her debut album, to been gaining a voice that echoes between us, be- find a modern-day sound that is still connected tween our bodies, which has been very important to her roots, obtaining a mixture she defined as – especially with regards to politics in these cur- »afro-funk-vogue.« Few people are able to unite rent times. I've been really happy with everything the catchiness of pop with avant-garde's aesthetic we've been building. qualities, a fusion that is present in her lyrics and video clips, as well as Linn da Quebrada. TL What spaces had trans women and travestis occupied in society until then? Linn's rise to fame in a country like Brazil, whose current president is an openly homophobic man, LQ In Brazil, trans women and travestis occupy may seem contradictory. Since the 2016 coup, the many different spaces. Plural spaces, actually. It’s country has been a territory of symbolic and social true that there are still many travestis that don't oc- struggles where reactionary politicians try to hinder cupy spaces in the job market; travestis that don't all of the progress that women, black people, and get to study; travestis that are expelled from their LGBTQ people have made over the last two dec- homes, that don't get to be part of or have a space ades. The conservative offensive is also felt on the within a family; travestis that continue to occupy streets. Studies by the NGO Transgender Europe a space in prostitution... On the other hand, we (TGEu) claim that Brazil is the number one coun- are seeing travestis and trans people occupying try for assassinations of transsexuals and travestis: spaces in music, in the fashion industry, in cinema, from 2008 to 2014, 689 deaths were recorded. Ac- step-by-step, and I think this in itself is very impor- cording to an investigation by Grupo Gay da Ba- tant because we've conquered other possibilities hia (GGB), 179 deaths were recorded in 2017 alone. in the social imaginary. The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) states that transsexuals have a life expec- TL How does Linn want to impact the way that Brazilian tancy of just 35 years – half of the national average. society views non-binary people? 21

LQ The impact I want to have, first of all, is on devoted to contemporary and experimental music. How get down, up). What concerns accompany your composi- Or maybe I’m a reflection of something that also myself. It's an impact that moves me, takes me out does the experience of shifting between worlds contribute tional process? What effect do you wish to achieve when lives in them? of my usual place and my comfort zone. It's the to your growth as an artist and as a person? creating your lyrics? impact that makes me constantly look at the mir- TL We’ve seen the rise of far-right movements in Bra- ror and re-imagine myself. An impact that contin- LQ The possibility of moving between worlds LQ When I compose, I also decompose myself. I zil, leading to the election of an openly racist, sexist, and ues to lead me to transform myself. That leads me contributes a lot for me as an artist and as a per- start by decomposing the words that are circulating homophobic president. Historically, right-wing movements to transform myself into several others. That leads son because this changes me into several oth- in my thoughts. I constantly ride my thoughts, see- target any form of »deviant« sexuality. How can sex, in- me to exactly this kind movement, right? Not only ers. This changes the way I think; it places me in ing where they lead me, noticing which thoughts timacy, and affection help us when thinking about politics to what concerns non-binary people, but espe- front of very different people and situations. This are already encrusted/embedded in my body, in at this time? cially to what concerns corporealities, the under- makes me change my own way of thinking, it dis- my mind. Certain words, terms, phrases, and sen- standing that our corporealities are multiple and turbs and transforms me. I perceive myself as alive tences accompany me for a while, and I try to de- LQ Sexuality is not necessarily the sex we have in that there are several possibilities of corporeali- and I think there's no greater treasure. All of these compose and transform them into others. I use this private. This kind of sex doesn’t bother these peo- ties. And to understand that these corporealities, things keep me alive, active, present, and acting process of composing and decomposing so that ple in power and their conservative system. It is in turn, lead us to other behaviours. They lead us over my own self. I can incubate my own thoughts in myself, be my not necessarily about whether or not you are hav- to new relations, which lead us to other frames and own doctor, and create my own monster. My music ing sex. It's about how homosexuality, transsexu- social conditions related to sexuality and gender in TL Black, non-binary, feminine bodies are often objecti- is both the virus and the antidote. And so, I use my ality, and blackness as movements disarticulate an affectionate, material, and economic way. This fied and exoticised. How can we decolonise these bodies? Is process as magic. As spell and charm. So that I am the system. If we look at identity issues radically, it is the impact I sought for myself and for the soci- this a question that is part of your creative process? able to cast spells that were previously unachiev- will transform our relationships. Identity issues are ety I live in: a material, social, political, affection- able. So that I can reach the tough and ancient material and concrete. This transforms the main- ate, and economic impact. LQ I don't have a »how-to decolonise bodies« parts inside me, parts that are often ancestral, and tenance of this economic and power system, be- manual. I think this is a matter of perception and so that these parts can – sigh – decompose. Van- cause our forms of sexual and affectionate rela- TL You present yourself as a multimedia artist. When study, a constant practice. I'm looking to myself, ish. So that I can destroy things in myself. So that I tionships build families. They dislocate money and did you discover yourself as an artist? my theories, my thoughts, all the time, and perceiv- can create other things inside me. I create my mu- distribute assets. They distribute affection, col- ing how they translate into the real world. And I note sic as magic and spells, as charms. This is primarily laborate, and stimulate our existence. Or our end/ LQ I didn't discover myself as an artist. I've done the collateral effects and affects that come from aimed at myself. I make my music into a weapon, withdrawal. I think that, for these far-right move- and have been doing myself as an artist. For me, my self-perceptions. I think that, even until today, I make a tool of it. I make of my music an oar, and ments, the danger lies precisely there. Because if being an artist doesn't necessarily mean being in I haven't managed to create and constitute a per- I paddle to other places, against the tide. Against we rethink our sexuality, affection, and intimacy in the spotlight, on stages, and in front of cameras. ception about myself that is free from the gaze and the tide of my own feelings. a political way, it can shift the gears of our mate- For me, being an artist is the possibility of creat- expectations of others. Our existence, our identity, rial and economic system. Beyond a shift in power, ing over my own existence. My body is my raw ma- exists through friction. I myself make my body into TL The body is your media, through it you rebel. What is it signifies a real economic and financial change. terial for creation. My body is my work. I've was a work of friction. Not fiction, but friction. And this your strategy to deal with the vulnerability resulting from Our love benefits the bodies around us. Looking an artist when I began to experiment, incorporate, friction emerges exactly through the encounter be- exposing your body? How do you deal, for example, with at this in a radical way makes us perceive which and elaborate other forms of existence into myself. tween my feelings and the affects which circulate hate speech on the internet? bodies benefit, and makes us start subverting the When I started to produce (my own) thought. When through my body when they meet the other's gaze. system’s order and elaborating other networks I started to produce collective thought. When I Because my body is also text and it's constant- LQ My strategy to deal with vulnerability is to deal between us. Not only the sexual and affectionate started to use my own body as my own artwork. ly read in several different ways. It's from this en- with my own vulnerability. Not to pretend it doesn't ones; let us also start elaborating other economic, counter and friction that our identities emerge. This exist, but to perceive where it comes from, and territorial, and material networks. So that we man- TL How is it being an artist in the quebrada (hood)? is a question that often goes through my creative especially to transform my fragility into potency. age to stay alive and with dignity. And this is fright- process and it's precisely because of it that we can That's when I transform. I'm working with my vul- ening, because we're talking again about disputes: LQ Life as an artist in the quebrada also pass- speak of different topics and create diverse things nerabilities, my shapes, my limits, all the time to or power and language. es through singularities – especially with regard to without being restricted to talking only about our gain new limits, shapes, and a new aesthetic. One the stifled possibilities of artistic production inside experiences and ourselves. I have an entire uni- that is not static. My work comes from my fragility, the quebrada, the trashing of our ideas. The scrap- verse inside me. And I want and can talk about this from what's pointed out to me as fragility. The fem- ping of marginalised bodies prevent the free circu- entire complex universe which is sometimes very inine inhabiting my body. The melanin existing in lation of our thoughts, particularly bodies like mine, different from myself. Because it’s exactly when I my skin. My colour, my behaviour. The things that » www.linndaquebrada.com which carry the gift of uncertainty. I don't make art experiment with myself and put myself in check I’m told imply frailty and weakness are what I trans- to produce answers, I don't have many certainties. that I transform. And this is the moment when I form into power and potency. And into a strategy of TAI LINHARES is a Brazilian journalist, filmmaker, and But I carry so many questions and I've been elab- want to talk about other things, to come up with resistance. I look at hate speeches on the internet photographer living in Berlin. Her new film mixes docu- orating many more... These are the questions that other questions, and to explore other issues. I'm and see how they're shallow, often cowardly, dis- mentary and fiction and examines racism in Brazil. stir me and many people around me. Being an art- tired of feeling the same things through my own courses because they rely on threats. They come » www.tailinhares.com ist in the quebrada, for me, also means expanding perception of my own self or encounters with the from the political strategy of fearmongering, to set territory, disputing language and power. gaze of the other. I want to talk about new things in us back. To make us doubt our own strength. From Translated from the Portuguese by Hailey Kaas. order to feel new things. the shallow and retrograde nature of these dis- TL With your music, performance, and recently your en- courses, I sense how their creators/perpetuators try into cinema, you manage to move between different TL Your lyrics talk about sex in an explicit manner, dis- feel threatened. Why they are attacking us? What's worlds, from pop to avant-garde art, to funk shows, or missing the false shame present in funk music which often in me that bothers other people so much? Why do to being the main attraction in the opening of a festival chooses metaphors that objectify the act of sex (sit, bounce, they attack me? What do they want to kill in me? 23

»ALL THAT IS SOLID MELTS INTO PR«:*1) ON PERSISTENCE, RESILIENCE, AND AUTONOMY IN MUSIC

OLLIE ZHANG There’s plenty of evidence out there: frustrated as productive« demands on artists, promoters, Twitter threads, reluctant tidbits dropped in inter- publishers, writers, listeners, and everyone else in views, and a plethora of idealistic music-block- between are the pressures and mechanisms of PR chain projects that aim to »fix« music. The more and promotion in the age of platform capitalism. time I spend in Berlin and in the »music scene,« the more traces I uncover of dissatisfaction and These attempts at measuring forms of labour resignation. »which, by their nature, are resistant to quantifi- cation«*4) cultivates a cultural dynamic in which In the past year, artists have begged for likes and representation seems to weigh more than actual- Through tumultuous times, what does it mean to persist? Beyond the support of fire emojis online; numerous threads ity – music dissolves into gesture. persisting, what would it look like to thrive? To have agency and au- criticised the perfunctory gestures of superficial music journalism; a number of pop stars lament- It becomes common practice to book artists with tonomy, or to cultivate joy? Ollie Zhang considers the ramifications ed today’s industry pressures to be visible; beef certain follower counts. A good press release is re- of late capitalism on the independent music industry and makes the was had with Instagram/Facebook/Twitter de- iterated time and time again, and comes to define pendence; despair at corporate reliance was ex- an album or artist. Corporate platforms with be- case for new infrastructures, platforms, practices, and politics – ones pressed; and countless off-the-record admissions yond-dubious operations come to dictate the way that make room for pleasure, empathy, and imagination. were made, stating that x phenomenon in the mu- we think about and discover art. sic industry isn’t working, but is a necessary evil. The conviction that we in music are motivated not What resigns us? A fear of being left behind, or an primarily out of financial interest but also out of incessant pressure to excel? A masochistic drive? love has long been considered a common founda- Or, more likely, a widespread apathy resultant from tion of independent (music) cultures. As we navi- rampant individualisation? gate the shifting ways in which technology shapes our lives, what it means to have agency or to be in- Swirling in a toilet bowl of our apparent collective dependent becomes increasingly contested. apathy are our anxieties, smartphones, cor-porate reliances, and social media habits. To preserve and insist on the value of what we do is a necessary and difficult task. We continually trust This brings up more questions: what is to be done? centralised, investor-owned platforms; »[w]ithout Will another piece critiquing social media con- thinking, we have passed vast swathes of music vince anyone to leave a platform? Will another rant culture to the whims of capital, and distributed it against the reliance on [insert corporation] in mu- through channels with a single point of failure.«*5) sic help? As we swim through a culture that places more value on representation than being, we are also An economic system that persistently says »never in danger of pursuing a politics (or wokeness) that enough« is, unsurprisingly, not the ideal climate only »register[s] at the level of (PR) appearance.«*6) for art, creativity, sharing, or joy. If neoliberalism »seeks to bring all human interaction into the do- In 2007, Facebook announced Beacon, a system main of the market,«*2) then music, along with the that lets users broadcast recent activities and pur- rest of us, is in a troublesome situation. A medium chases. It was also accompanied by the Facebook that cannot be quantified or have its value reduced Page, which was touted as a new way for consum- to metrics ends up pushing against a bizarre indus- ers to engage with businesses and heralded as try that makes »an attempt to crudely quantify… af- »a new era for advertising.«*7) The ubiquitous Fa- fective contributions.«*3) Placing »affective, as well cebook Page is now one of the presiding meth- 25

ods via which artists share their work and make a For all the talk of politics on the dancefloor, there affective labour and undercutting individual user a responsibility of all who desire alternatives) may name for themselves. In 2015, these Pages were seems to be a substantial oversight here. agency. Music consumption is not just an econo- be to keep searching and working towards these »empower[ed]«*8) to connect with users/consum- my in its own right, but also an opportunity to pro- strategies, in ways however small. If we are going ers via direct messaging. Meanwhile, the behe- People will posit that it’s a privilege to leave or ab- duce data that can be exploited via other means. to draw so frequently on a term like intersectional- moth acquired Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in stain from any major platform, and rightfully so – Streaming has continued the custom of sharing ity, let’s consider how our varied practices can en- 2014, thereby playing a dangerously large role in but perhaps that makes it all the more important music for (nearly) free – often without direct af- act that. Acts of protesting dubious platforms and our networked world, and reshaping many music to. The few who refrain from social media promo- filiation or engagement with the artist or the cul- contributing to the development of better ones can industry norms. tion are likely already established, with careers that ture that the music is a part of. While making music be called what they are – practices that are at once blossomed a few years earlier. Those who have the available for free can also be a conscious strat- anti-capitalist, anti-racist, feminist, collective, and 2008 saw the launch of Spotify, another investor- option to decline suspect programmes and servic- egy of artists to flatten economic disparities and so on. owned platform that rewired the music industry, es likely need financial security to do so. Yet even to connect to listeners, this only works if their en- promising »Music for Everyone.« While espousing then, it seems the desire for individual »success,« gagement is reciprocated. Gargantuan platforms How might we step outside of our collective tun- this seemingly egalitarian sentiment, Spotify has relevance, or popularity often eclipses whatever – and, of course, technologies like smart speak- nel vision and consider what a better, healthier, come under fire for failing to properly compensate hazy benefits abstinence or refusal might eventu- ers that are designed to foster passive listening more joyful cultural ecosystem might look like? musicians, for fostering a new strain of Muzak, ex- ally give rise to. But surely any kind of progress is – often strip music of these contexts and intents. How might we find or create wiggle room in an in- acerbating sexism in music, and threatening the art dependent on those who have the capacity and They thereby risk homogenising and diluting music dustry that appears hopelessly bound to the whim form itself through cultivating homogeny. The list means to move to do so. into play-hungry background Muzak.*9) Independ- of investor-owned platforms that do not have our of dubious activities goes on, yet in 2018, it was ent promoters, publishers, artists, and so on all suf- shared interests at heart? How might we foster an reported that their user base had ballooned to 180 Despite its apparent visibility, the underground mu- fer as a result. empathetic politics, and challenge the ways in million monthly users globally. For all the reports of sic world has suffered on many fronts over the last which we assign value to our work? it »saving« the music industry, lesser known artists decade. It not only lacks viable economic models, A number of efforts have thankfully been under- (and those who don’t make it onto playlists) con- but also faces neoliberalism’s weighty demands taken to imagine better structures, platforms, and If we want to cultivate a music ecosystem that tinue to receive paltry payments. in the forms of maximum efficiency, affective la- means of connecting to/sharing with one anoth- doesn’t just persist but maybe even thrives, per- bour, and constant visibility. In a landscape where er, both in-and outside of music. From new eco- haps we need to reconsider our roles within and music is content, and content is free; when many nomic models for creators of all stripes, such as contributions to it. To combat the harmful effects of »FOR ALL THE TALK can’t afford to pay, and many don’t want to, it be- those conceived by sustainable journalism initia- our existing habits, it seems we must begin to shift comes more difficult than ever to build a healthy tive Civil*10) and browser Brave,*11) to Cryptorave’s our approach. A helpful beginning may lie in allow- OF POLITICS ON THE arts scene that isn’t run by and for those who are pursuance of autonomy on dancefloors in an age ing collectivity, generosity, and joy to weigh more independently wealthy. After the era of the work of of digital capitalism and db’s*12) proposition as a than appearance, and in interrogating what it is to DANCEFLOOR, THERE art in the age of digital piracy, what is left to do? small, user-owned platform, several noteworthy be »successful.« In the face of questions thrown up developments are taking place in these conver- by »persistence,« maybe we can find hope in turn- SEEMS TO BE A 20 years ago, many of these professionalised in- sations and their peripheries. Off the back of the ing to collaborators both in- and outside of music dustry practices weren’t standard in the worlds platform co-op movement, crypto boom, and so- to collectively imagine better platforms, infrastruc- SUBSTANTIAL of experimental/underground electronic music. cial media dissatisfactions, it appears that in or- tures, and practices. It was enough to do the thing, without having to der to be effective, efforts need to span an array of OVERSIGHT HERE« gesture about, sensationalise, create hype around, conversations and ideas. While this conversation and insist that the thing was great; the thing was is sometimes framed as a question of whether we These corporate monoliths undoubtedly do not enough. This isn’t posited in an effort to convey a need new technical solutions or whether we need rule the music industry alone, but given their gar- boring, unhelpful nostalgia for »better days,« but to change our attitudes and approaches, maybe OLLIE ZHANG is a writer and musician based in Berlin. gantuan roles, sketch out a picture of where we’re instead to further sketch out the context in which we ought to sidestep this false dichotomy and ac- They can be found at [email protected] at today. Facebook and Instagram have become we’re operating today. knowledge that platform design is an ideological dominant sites of communication and promotion; problem, and that our practices are dependent on meanwhile the rise of Spotify and similar servic- The worlds of underground, experimental, and club them. es normalises passive listening and inequitable music have changed drastically in the last couple streaming across the board. of decades. As we entered the age of surveillance So far, efforts don’t seem like enough. There’s still capitalism, the role and world of music have seen plenty of resignation, dismissal, flat-out critique, Our shared reliance on corporate platforms is to multiple paradigm shifts. and anger. Perhaps an effective approach (and thus the detriment of the entire ecosystem. Even in the arts, there doesn’t seem to be space for a creative Reliances on centralised platforms that operate in gesture outside the homogenising forces of per- the interests of capital quash our collective ability sistent press cycles, relentless (re)posting, and PR. to imagine otherwise. Resigned, we participate in the very same structures that are funneling revenue *1) Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism (Winchester: Zero Books, 2010), p. 39. *2) David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (New York: Oxford University Press, All of this paints a fairly dire picture, which prob- away from the arts, undercutting individual agen- 2005), p. 3. *3) Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, p. 39. 4*) Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, p. 42. *5) Josh Hall, »Towards a Distributed Culture«, Rewire Festival Magazine (2018). *6) Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, p. 43. *7) Rob Hof, »Facebook Declares New Era for Advertising,« 6. November 2007, Bloomberg, www. ably doesn’t come as a surprise. But what does cy, and furthering our joint dependency on them. bloomberg.com/news/articles/2007-11-05/facebook-declares-new-era-for-advertising.*8) Josh Constine, »Facebook Empowers Pages To Provide Custom- er Support Over Private Messages,« 5 August 2015, TechCrunch, www.techcrunch.com/2015/08/05/facestomer-support/.*9) See: Liz Pelly’s »The Problem is the supposed »radical« underground’s acqui- Our shared reliance siphons revenue away from with Muzak,« December 2017, The Baffler, www.thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-muzak-pelly. *10) A community-owned journalism platform pri- oritising transparency and economic sustainability. Learn out more at civil.co *11) Which uses micro-payments to propose a new, seamless remuneration escence to and acceptance of these phenomena. those who need it, demanding grand amounts of model for content creators online. *12) db is a co-operatively owned platform and experiment in peer-to-peer broadcasting; find out more at broad-cast.sh 27

Self-described »audio-visual terrorists« IC3PEAK garnered interna- ALL UNITED tional attention in late 2018 after a series of unannounced inspec- tions and other inconveniences, including bomb scares and arrests, IC3PEAK IN CONVERSATION WITH interrupted their Russian tour. Mariana Berezovska of BORSHCH MARIANA BEREZOVSKA magazine speaks with IC3PEAK to find out whether their artistic and social resistance is as dramatic as the Western media makes it seem.

In 2018, the duo drew another level of attention. NIKOLAY KOSTYLEV (NICK) I think that when Nas- After their latest album, Skazka (or Fairytale), tya started writing lyrics in Russian [in 2017], the came out in September, IC3PEAK’s reputation bal- country’s problems naturally entered the songs. looned past their fanbase, reaching Russian au- But I wouldn't call all of our work political. In all of thorities and government-owned news channels. our latest albums, there are a range of themes and The scandals escalated a month later, after the art- topics that we address. Sometimes they happen ists released a video for the now-infamous »Smerti to be political. I think that real art is always cre- Bolshe Net« (or »No More Death«), in which Nastya ated in the process of struggle, whether with our- and Nick drench themselves in kerosene in front of selves or with the government, and our music has the Russian White House. They devour raw bloody always been about emancipation and about »being meat with the Kremlin in the backdrop and ride fe­ against,« not »with.« deral police officers in front of the headquarters of the FSB. ANASTASIA KRESLINA (NASTYA) We sing about everything from love to politics. Everything human Despite palpable tension and heated media dis- has its place in our music and my lyrics. Initially, we cussions fueled by hatred and trolling, IC3PEAK used words and voice like an instrument; they car- still decided to tour Russia. They were apprehend- ried phonetic rather than semantic meaning. The ed and detained, missing gigs in the process. Pro- abstract noise and screaming were comprehensi- moters were threatened, and the duo’s manager ble for listeners worldwide – it was a language of was beaten up. Nonetheless, Nastya and Nick re- emotions that needs no translation. Now the mes- mained positive and kept sharing the incidents on sage is more clear and direct, and yet allegorical. social media, while the FSB’s outdated methods The latest album is a scary social fairytale, and we were watched, judged, and ridiculed across the are its bewitched protagonists. web. MB IC3PEAK has been known to audiences in under- IC3PEAK deliberately kept touring to make a state- ground music circles for several years, but after recent sto- ment against these pressures, hoping that their ac- ries emerged detailing the harassment you experienced at tions could serve as an encouraging example to the hands of authorities and the pressures put on you by the their peers across the country. As is often the case government and the FSB, your level of fame rapidly took with the citizens of Russia, in being truly patriotic, off. The funny thing is that now many listeners are grate- the young musicians do not wish to flee or emi- ful for the attention and criticism from authorities because grate; they want to persevere, drawing a staunch it first introduced them to IC3PEAK. There are also many line between the country’s conscious youth and more haters, even among public figures like the renowned its deeply rooted dictatorship fortified in the Red Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov, who publicly analysed Square. and criticised your songs. His remarks, according to Nas- tya, were just copied from popular YouTube comments. MARIANA BEREZOVSKA The lyrics of your latest Does this have any negative influence on you, or is there album, Skazka, are very straightforward. They are no such thing as bad PR? critical of the government and focus on anti-estab- lishment sentiments. In an interview, Nastya men- NK Our music definitely got more exposure thanks tioned that writing lyrics about dystopian themes to all of these problems with authorities and Silovi- made even more sense to her after Putin won the ki [politicians from the security or military services, presidential election for the fourth time, in 2018. who are often officers of the former KGB, GRU, FSB, What caused the shift in your songs from existen- and SVR]. Of course, with more exposure comes IC3PEAK. Photo: Courtesy of the artists. tial issues to open political satire? more hate. There are people who are very far re- 29

moved from this music and don't have the context but your language is very different from the majority of to understand what we are talking about. But the the scene: there are no swear words, no name-calling, no reactions are mostly positive, because our songs drugs. All of your songs are very symbolic. It must be dif- vocalise what a lot of people want but don’t dare ficult and frustrating to have your songs banned or cen- to say. sored – it doesn’t happen to rappers like Husky, for ex- ample. The same goes for your videos, which make use of Mikhalkov’s comments are funny but they can a DIY approach and low budgets, yet everything is well also lead to something negative, because Nikita thought-through and, again, very symbolic. Do you think Mikhalkov is one of the main Russian propagan- this language is as understandable to young people in Rus- dists. If they put so much effort into putting us on sia as rap? this list of »bad artists,« it means that they are re- ally angry. And since we all know how the Russian NK Nastya’s language is poetic. That’s just the FSB works, we also feel that it can be dangerous. way she writes lyrics; everything is symbolic and At the same time, this propaganda does not work at has a deeper meaning. The same happens when all, because people who end up watching our vid- we make a music video. We think of it as of a mo­ eos don't rely on those comments and make their vie and not as advertising for a song. Good mo­ own judgments instead. Some viewers also thank vies usually have deep symbols and strong image- Mikhalkov for the tip. ry, and that's what we want to see in our videos. Judging from the reactions our audience had to AK I also don’t see any real problem here. Some our latest album, we just express things that many people are scared of new things, and that’s fine. people can relate to. This is an educational moment – how else will peo- ple start perceiving other music if they don’t lis- AK You can only change culture through lan- ten to it in the first place? Now they need time to guage, because language is culture. We all exist in comprehend the idea that having an alternative is the same kind of context – the same time period, very important. Fake and angry comments on You which we reflect on. The rest comes down to ar- Tube are funny – they come from impotence and tistic tools. Everyone understands and reads these the fear of a new, powerful culture that won’t be signs, so of course we are also talking to our gen- stopped by prohibition. Many thanks to the FSB for eration. the promotion! MB From rapid media updates, we see IC3PEAK is being MB When it comes to censorship on social media in Rus- followed by the FSB. Alternative music concerts are can- sia, do you have to be careful with the ideas you express celled, artists are detained and threatened. Putin meets up Stills from IC3PEAK's »No More Death« on different platforms? with rappers in the Kremlin to discuss their music and the music video. Courtesy of the artists. influence they have on young people, aiming to interfere NK We don't try to be careful with our message. and get young influencers to be on the side of the govern- The only thing we want to avoid is having our vi­ ment. It sounds quite dramatic and a bit desperate, but deos age-restricted or blocked on YouTube. In the at the same time it proves that youth culture and under- process of writing a script or directing or filming a ground music have their value and power. video, we don't really think about any consequenc- es. It’s in the process of post-production that we NK That we’ve been followed and detained by the start to think about the parts that may be perceived FSB, and that our concerts get cancelled by Silo- as extremism or drug propaganda. Unfortunately, viki, it really means that our music is being recog- we sometimes even have to blur cigarettes in our nised. But the thing is, these tactics are so ugly, videos. old-school, and clumsy. They end up making fun of themselves – they try to censor rappers and cancel AK The most important thing for us is to be hon- concerts before backtracking afterwards and say- est with ourselves and our listeners – to give peo- ing that rap is good, or even trying to rap on state ple an opportunity to understand that they are not television like Kiselev did. alone, and to show from our own experience that it’s time to stop being afraid of the dictatorship and AK It is youth culture that's shaping the gene­ to finally speak up. The prohibition of our concerts ration that, in a few years’ time, will be deciding showed that publicity and information are our main the future of the country. The Russian government weapons and that the media can provide enor- suddenly woke up and realised that they are lo­ mous support. sing control and that there are many people be- yond their influence. Alternative music has a strong MB The Russian underground scene is growing, with effect on those people; to them, the authorities are young rappers taking the lead, touring the country in just a joke. The government resorted to their old crews, and also receiving a lot of pressure from authori- methods in hope of changing the situation. ties. You are also often put in the same category of artists, 31

MB But do you think these old methods are just threats, NK Russia is huge, and cities outside of Moscow or do you feel real danger to the point where you might and St. Petersburg, and maybe also Ekaterinburg need to leave the country? What would need to happen for and Kazan, are quite different. This applies to ed- you to stop writing and performing music? ucation and the environment there. But I wouldn't say that people we met during our time in the re- AK At the moment, most of the pressure comes gions differ much from the youth in Moscow. We from fake YouTube comments attempting to cre- are all so heavily connected to the same sources ate a bad reputation for us. But still, the reactions of information that it feels like we're all neighbours. of real people outweigh them. For me, it’s better Of course, the internet doesn't solve all problems, not to do art at all than to be dishonest with my- and the environment in which these talented, bright self. Perhaps what could stop me would be condi- young people live is much more severe than that of tions in which speaking up honestly is already im- their Moscow peers. It’s sometimes depressing to possible. see how talented people have to struggle just to do something simple like going to a gig. MB Have you ever thought that living outside of Russia might make things easier for you? MB What do you think people outside of the Russian context should understand about the current music scene NK We are international musicians and can live in Russia? wherever we want. We don’t want to leave Rus- sia forever. There are no reasons for that. We have AK The music scene has grown in recent years. many fans in Russia and we love this country. It’s We are not ashamed to say »we are Russians« any- where we grew up and we feel like we belong here, more. But we also don’t want to scare anyone. We even more so after this whole story with the au- stand for dialogue and communication. thorities. NK Maybe outside of the country, Russian music AK I love Russia and I’d love to travel the world, scene and culture do not seem so big or interest- but I wouldn't like to leave Russia forever. It’s not ing because most of it is in the Russian language. important where you are but rather which language In actuality, we have a booming scene right now, you speak. and a lot of super-talented young singers, produc- ers, and performers are emerging. People should MB I must say that in the Western press, the concept of definitely check out more music coming from Rus- Russia and Russian culture is often generalised based on sia because the language barrier is not so difficult what is known about Moscow or St. Petersburg. This is in to overcome. spite of the fact that it is a huge country, and it would be logical for young people in different regions to develop their own interests and cultural movements. Do you think it’s important to understand the difference between vari- ous regions of Russia when speaking about musicians and » www.ic3peak.bandcamp.com their socio-political context? » www.instagram.com/ic3peak

AK There is a common cultural code in Russia MARIANA BEREZOVSKA is a Ukrainian writer, editor, that glues everything together. Surely there is a and co-founder of BORSHCH, the Berlin-based print ma­ difference­ between possibilities in Moscow and gazine on electronic music on and beyond the dance floor. other regions, but young people who have access » www.borshchmagazine.com to multiple sources of information on the internet can think critically, and this is what unites all of us. And music, of course, is our common language. IC3PEAK. Photo: Courtesy of the artists. 33

their open sounds, politics finds another imagina- be more resilient, but comes to resist the cause of THE RADICAL ELASTICITY tion: that of a shared existence and responsibil- her pain. ity, performed in the acknowledgement that there is no independent self but that everything, includ- To follow the vertical, to fall vertiginously into the OF SOUND ing every »I,« is made of non-»I«, non-thing ele- word, is to discover its invisible textures, not to a ments:*3) My tiptoed voice repeating Resilience 100 certain ground but into a viscid expanse, in which times articulates between body and breath, and we inter-are with things in our individual capacities SALOMÉ VOEGELIN sounds the co-dependence of oxygen and the sun, together. Thus through its repeated performance, of trees and water, life and things. Thus it brings Resilience starts to open a different imagination home the need for collaboration and participation that rethinks neoliberalism’s adaptability of the in- and sounds an elasticity that is not resilient, but ex- dividual through the possibility of an indivisible pansive and contingent. world and the necessity of radical nonresilience.

UNPERFORMING RESILIENCE In its repeated performance, Resilience rethinks Thatcher and Schmidt wonder whether there is al- the neoliberal adaptability of the individual in the ready a different political economic imagination invisible volume of sound, its viscid dimensional- afoot. They sense a tipping point but concede that Take off your shoes and socks ity, where responsibility is not individuated but a they are not sure. They suggest that »on the one stand on your tiptoes matter of interbeing, as being of and with each oth- hand, the content of neoliberal ideas may be weak- er: not »this« or »that« but »this« with »that« and ened from the inside by its increasing internal in- in the middle of the room. from »that,« indivisibly sounding a shared cosmos; coherence and gaps between rhetoric and reality,« Voice the word Resilience 100 times. and where weakness is not overcome but listened and that »on the other hand, rival ideas may gain to, sounded and heard in the breath that connects strength.« In the conclusion of their 2013 publica- us all. tion they mention the concurrent developments in Latin America and Barack Obama as sources The volume generated in the unperformance of Re- for a potential rethinking of the neoliberal ideal – Words strut about and make a space for them- Repeating Resilience over and over on shaky silience is not a measure of decibels but the ex- neither of which have succeeded, however. But selves. They rise out of the conversation with other ground however, this emphasis slips. And once ac- panse of a sonic world, its voluminous capacity, Thatcher and Schmidt leave us with hope by sug- words to temporarily colonise language and deter- cidentally »mispronounced,« with a stress on the generated by our collective sounding and listen- gesting that a new thinking »might arise from novel mine interpretations, enforcing new contexts and soft vowels and a skip of the consonants’ edge, ing, in all its asymmetries, terrors, and dangers, but sources…«*7) meanings, carrying through ideologies and desires its politics becomes apparent. This sonic slip-up without allowing them to singularise the political that are the driving force of their upsurge. offers a glimpse behind the scenes, at the engine imagination. This is not a capacity to endure, but I understand the nonresilient elasticity of sound to and author of its aim: the neoliberal ideal for the a capacity for interaction and the possibility of a be such a novel source for a radical critique and However, words also stutter and fall over them- individual to become »a subject which must per- shared cosmos. agitation of resilience that as neoliberal signifier selves, breaking the rhythm of their naturalised manently struggle to accommodate itself to the enslaves and blames us individually, but that as meaning and, suddenly sounding awkward, they ex- world, and not a subject which can conceive of According to Mark Thatcher and Vivian A. Schmidt, repeated utterance creates a voluminous expanse pose the ideologies that carried their prominence. changing the world.«*2) A subject, in other words, writing on Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Politi- and makes us responsible together. Sound, a sonic And so, standing unsteadily on bare tiptoes, Resil- that overcomes its own weakness rather than fight- cal Economy, resilience is »perceived as the only sensibility, does not provide the consciousness of ience falls over its own repetition to reveal what it ing the inequities that cause it; that cannot resist, legitimate course of action.«*4) It pretends to al- a counter-resilience but enables its unperforming, knew all along: that it was a con, a charade, played but needs to adapt, thereby inadvertently enabling low for diversity and plurality, everybody can be its re-articulating, re-uttering, in bits and pieces of out on the back of those who had no choice but the status quo that is stacked against it. resilient, while remaining the only possibility, eve- separate vowels and consonants that form a vol- had become persuaded by its ever more frequent rybody has to be resilient. We have accepted this ume which we can inhabit together in a contingent repetition and the promise of its rhetoric to pro- By contrast, in our unperformance of vowels and demand since its solution appears simple: »she process of co-constitution, trying at least to listen vide agency and security in a baffling and abusive consonants, in an extended and unnatural pose, must learn resilience«*5) while not questioning its out for and participate in a more equitable world. world. Resilience connotes »the capacity of a sys- on the tips of our toes, we expose the develop- unyielding elasticity, whose flexibility is not a sign tem to return to a previous state, to recover from ment of a word from the scientific sense of ecolog- of its conceding and reciprocal intent but the ra- And here I meet Thatcher and Schmidt’s hope for a shock, or to bounce back after a crisis or trau- ical adaptation into a dubious economic elasticity: tionality of its control. a Latin American source of another thinking as I ma«.*1) This resilience is ideational. Bouncing back instituting the neoliberal response to asymmetri- hear in the avant-garde compositions of Jocy De should occur without the help of social infrastruc- cal resourcing that prepares the mind and body By contrast, the sounds of our unperforming Resil- Oliveira the soundscape of a sonic possible world ture, but through training and anticipation instead. for the tolerance of an intolerable world, offering ience are irrational in relation to the word’s neo- that is viscous and indivisible, promoting a being- It is a signifier of individual strength and autono- solutions on the stretched-out form of the resil- liberal aim. Its enunciations do not move on a ho­ together according to listening and sounding with- my that interprets elasticity as compliance (i.e. to ient individual without having to address causes or rizontal chain of meaning and association but dive out a horizon of danger but the possibility of a dif- accept low wages, precarity, uncertainty, disaster, consequences, thereby abdicating collective re- into the depth of contingent articulation. They pro- ferent future. and even war), and demands you withstand it on sponsibility in favour of personal blame. duce a verticality of sense, »embracing a world of your own two feet. Its emphasis is on an ethics of forces and matter, which lacks any original stabil- De Oliveira, a Brazilian composer, musician, artist, self-care and self-entrepreneurship that balances However, in the breathy enunciation of E’s and I’s ity,«*6) and linger in an elastic expanse that is that and writer, began her career as a concert pianist the financial deficit on the weakest in society, and without language as a certain frame to lean on of sound rather than of compliance. Here we do not playing the works of avant-garde composers such distracts from other political possibilities by pro- rests another meaning: that of failure and vulner- hear the rhetoric of one truth and the demand of as Berio, Xenakis, and Santoro. During the 1960s, nouncing an ongoing threat that demands prepar- ability, which become radical efforts of resistance its reality, but plural possibilities that initiate other however, she started to focus on her own com- edness rather than resistance. in an unequal world. And in the fragile breath of ways to live: where she does not have to learn to positions, which expand a traditional definition to 35

cover installation, film, video, and theatre as well sions a language that is nobody’s and everybody’s; as concert hall works. And as little as her sonic that in its turning undulation explores and performs works comply with a traditional definition of music, the sonorous depth of words rather than their hor- so too do they not comply with the neoliberal dis- izontal connection in language, and that sounds aster management of economic asymmetries, but without recourse to semantic certainties another sound on slow revolutions a vulnerability that con- possibility of sense. nects rather than needs to be overcome. The sound created between the two voices, elec- Her work presents a »novel source« to rethink resil- tronic violin, bass, guitar, and percussion is elas- ience through voices, electroacoustic sounds, and tic without being compliant. It does not adapt but acoustic instrumentation. They sound the world as formlessly forms another imagination of music, of a voluminous cosmos and create the condition and instrumentation as well as of the body, and in exten- impetus for a different engagement. And so as I sion also of the political understood as the govern- listen to undulating voices, breathing words, and ance of interaction and living together. It creates moving sounds, I accept an invitation into »a dis- communication as a viscous thread that repeats tinct cultural capsule, and a means through which and returns again and again to the same juncture to find accurate truths to amend history’s sins.«*8) without saying the same, but pointing at the infin- Her work generates the material for a global con- ity of expression and the impossibility of a direct versation that rethinks reality and truth through exchange. This impossibility is not the work’s fail- sonic rather than ideological encounters.*9) ure but its desire for a plural voice, and its infinity is

»WEAKNESS IS NOT OVERCOME BUT LISTENED TO, SOUNDED AND HEARD IN THE BREATH THAT CONNECTS US ALL«

De Oliveira’s work spans seven decades and in not a sign of the work’s resilience, but the continu- that time sounds different socio-political realities ation and expanse of its viscid material and song. and possibilities. I am listening to »Estória IV,« a Bradford Bailey, writing in the liner notes of the al- composition which she started in 1978 and first re- bum, reminds us of the paradox of the avant-garde, leased in 1981, during the last years of the military and particularly the Latin American avant-garde: dictatorship in Brazil. Its performance occupies the of its optimism and global exchange post-war – whole second side on the album Estórias Para Voz, »bouncing and ricocheting around the world, these Instrumentos Acústicos e Eletrônicos [Estórias for sounds, structures, and ideas, have offered a fo- voice, acoustic and electronic instruments], an al- rum through which radically diverse backgrounds bum which in its 2017 re-release is a bright and and cultures can meet and speak« – and its con- translucent red. No visible lettering or labels, just current inability to reach a broad audience and be- a bright-red turning surface that makes no line of come part of a general socio-cultural conscious- tones but a volume of voices and sounds, open- ness – the failure of its »quest for open democracy mouthed and moving, one performer singing af- and access through sounds, it is a world which, ter the other, following the same text not to under- for most, remains opaque – perceived as offering stand but to modulate and exist in the encounter: challenges too great for the majority of listeners indivisibly, expansive, and potentially infinite. As to take.«*11) Thus while this work remains relative- De Oliveira, discussing the piece, explains: »the ly hidden still, its audition in the context of a dis- performer’s role is not to make the text under- cussion on resilience allows us to reconsider its standable but to use it as a key, for the phonemes sonorous power. It invites us to think about what selection, singing as slowly as possible, as a tape might have been if it had succeeded in its quest that has been played backwards, in a slower rota- and had managed to inculcate a general listening tion.«*10) and broad sonic consciousness of the world at this very moment, in the 1970s, when neoliberalism was The piece turns these two voices around the deck, finding a footing in politics and language, and a around the mouth in slow rotation, articulating be- truth in the breathless preparation for disaster and tween Portuguese, Sanskrit, and Japanese expres- catastrophe via ecological notions of adaptability. 37

»THIS FAITH IS NOT THAT OF RESILIENCE, BUT OF RESISTANCE TO THE STATUS QUO, THAT OF MUSIC, THAT OF LANGUAGE, AND THAT OF POLITICS. ITS TRUTH IS COMPLEX BECAUSE IT IS CONTINGENT.«

By contrast, the truth of this sound is that of its ma- And maybe if in the 1970s, the moment financial terial and of its performance. There is no manipu- politics took resilience from the discourses of lation on the tape that provides the original for this ecology to adapt to its own aims, we had learnt to record re-release. Instead, the tape faithfully pro- listen to avant-garde music in general and the work vides the surface for the depth of an elastic sound. of Jocy De Oliveira in particular, we could have This faith is not that of resilience, but of resistance avoided a descent into insecurity and resilience to the status quo, that of music, that of language, and practiced our own voices, our own breath, and that of politics. Its truth is complex because it generating an autonomy that is not about self-care is contingent. It does not promise an understand- and responsibility, but about creating an environ- ing and the clarity of easy solutions, but practices ment for everybody and everything. the demand of a sonic depth, where we need to generate our own understanding and participate. It provides not a line of words but a volume for us to be in, together, to breathe in its slow rotation and to share in the indivisible cosmos of its sonic SALOMÉ VOEGELIN is an artist and writer concerned expanse. with listening as a socio-political practice of sound. She en- gages words in invisible connections, transient behaviour »Estória IV« produces an elastic sound that unper- and unseen rituals, and performs the aesthetic, social and forms resilience. That counters the pliability not political realities that are hidden by the persuasiveness of with a stubborn refusal but with the resistance of a visual point of view. Her most recent book The Politi- the material to be plied into a form, by not accept- cal Possibility of Sound, was published by Bloomsbury in ing to work with what can be listened to and in- November 2018. stead making us hear something new.

And so to practice our tiptoed unperformance of resilience we can join with De Oliveira, following her first voice, modulating with it to find our place in a fragile and open sound, going round and round on the record deck not to show stamina and ac- ceptance but vulnerability, and to produce with our voice a different sound that resists the pull of forward movement, simplicity, and self-care, and relishes the rotation and fleeting encounters with everything. Not to move towards a certain aim but to move in processes and relationships, to experi- ence in their depth an unresolvable fragility rather than a weakness to be overcome.

*1) Mark Neocleous, »Resisting Resilience«, in Radical Philosophy, issue 178, March/April 2013, www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/resisting-resil- ience *2) Brad Evans, and Julian Reid, »Dangerously Exposed: the life and death of the resilient subject«, in Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses, Vol. 1 No. 2 (2013): p. 85.*3) »Everything coexists with this sheet of paper. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with eve- ry other thing. This sheet of paper is because everything else is« , Thich Nhat Hanh, The Pocket Thich Nhat Hanh, ed. Melvin McLeod (Boston and London: Shambhala Pocket Classics, 2012, p. 57). *4) Vivien A. Schmidt and Mark Thatcher, eds., Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 419. *5) Mark Neocleous, »Resisting Resilience«. *6) Hito Steyerl, »In Free Fall: A Thought Experiment on Verti- cal Perspective«, in The Wretched of the Screen (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012), p. 28. *7) Vivien A. Schmidt and Mark Thatcher, eds., Resilient Liberalism in Europe’s Political Economy, p. 424. *8) Baily Bradford liner notes for Estórias Para Voz, Instrumentos Acústicos e Eletrônicos by Oliveira De Jocy, BLUME 007, Reissue, Red, Italy, 2017 (re-release from 1981). *9) Brad Evans and Julian Reid, »Dangerously Exposed: the life and death of the resilient subject«, p. 90. *10) Jocy De Oliveira liner notes for Estórias Para Voz, Instrumentos Acústicos e Eletrônicos, by Jocy De Oliveira, BLUME 007, Reissue, Red, Italy, 2017 (re-release from 1981). *11) Baily Bradford liner notes for Estórias Para Voz, Instrumentos Acústicos e Eletrônicos, by Jocy De Oliveira, BLUME 007, Reissue, Red, Italy, 2017 (re-release from 1981). 39

~ ~ Nguye^ n + Transitory (Nguye^ n Baly and Tara Transitory) traverse FAILING AT THE IMPOSSIBLE: the boundaries between sound, synthesis, noise, rhythm, and per- formance to explore various Southeast Asian + diaspora queer ex- ATTEMPTS AT EMBODYING istences and histories. After meeting during 2017’s Untraining the ~ Ear Listening Sessions,*1), Nguye^ n, Transitory, and Kamila Metwa- MATRIARCHY ly discussed a wide range of themes, some of which are elucidated

^~ here. Ahead of the performance of their work-in-progress »Bird Bird, AN INTERVIEW WITH NGUYEN + TRANSITORY BY KAMILA METWALY Touch Touch, Sing Sing« at CTM 2019, the duo speak with Metwaly about reassessing the politics of the senses, collective intersectional feminism, and the challenges and failings of their practice.

KAMILA METWALY Let's start with »Bird Bird, Touch gamating our physical bodies with parts of the in- Touch, Sing Sing,« the work you will perform at CTM. strument, and working with each other in the most direct way – to go beyond merely reacting to what ^~ NGUYEN + TRANSITORY This is still a work in pro- the other is producing sonically. We wanted to be- gress – one which we have been developing since come part of the instrument and to dissolve the in- early 2018, when we were exploring the possibili- dividual in the process, and often times we fail in ties of touch, proximity, and feedback as prima- this attempt at the impossible. ry elements in a sound composition/performance. Concurrently, we decided to start building and us- Some of the key themes that we have been deal- ing a modular synthesizer system, as this would ing with on both a personal and professional level enable some sort of flexibility in adjusting what we include vulnerability, interdependency, closeness, would like to control, and in a way that was more trust, and intimacy. We tried to instill these in our direct and immediate than if we had used a com- collaboration and creation process. We are deve­ puter. Besides that immediacy, the sound palette loping a work that addresses, explores, and em- that is offered by analogue synthesizers is both bodies these qualities that are very close to us. In limiting and freeing, which sounds a bit contra- its own way, we feel the piece is a response to the dictory but somehow makes sense at this point in frustrations we have towards the failings of normal- our practice. While developing this piece, we were ised structures that are today, more than ever, able also trying to understand this new system we were to impose their destructive value systems onto al- building. As collateral, we had composed quite a most all facets of our universally-shared co-exist- number of sound pieces along the way, which we ence. The act of touching has somewhat been den- plan to release at some point in the future and are igrated as of late, becoming associated with the in the process of finding a suitable label for. negative more than the positive, and the act of re- claiming it was one of the central elements in »Bird KM I experienced this work when you first presented it Bird, Touch Touch, Sing Sing.« Touch, together with in Berlin in June 2018. As an audience member, I felt like the use of collaborative feedback creation, the dis- I was part of a collective entity consisting of many bo­ tance between us, and the distance between us dies, machines, and wires. You touch each other to produce and the instrument, affects the sound, which then sound and touch us – the audience – through vibration. affects the composition, which then affects our With a seemingly abstract medium such as sound, you re- movement. This unintentionally creates another minded me of the very primal urge to (re)connect, attach, feedback loop which transcends the realms of the and touch, weaving together one another’s vulnerabilities, physical, the ethereal, and the magical. interdependency, closeness, and disorientation. You have noted that societies are desensitised from what touch could KM During the performance you were interweaving the or could not mean; why else did you focus on touch? energies in the room through a transmission of knowledge, almost dissecting the singular in the plural. In the moment N+T We were interested in creating music to- when you are on stage as two bodies, do you consciously ask gether with our bodies, working with touch, amal- us to be close to you and vulnerable? To open up our senses, and propose that another language is possible? ~ Nguye^ n + Transitory. Photo: Fatha. 41

N+T We often hope to share the specific col- these processes and the music/sound/art that I lective experience together with the audience in make from a slightly more postcolonialist angle. In the space. The collective experience in this case little ways, I try to come up with methods that are would take the physical form and setting of a per- less influenced by this dominant approach. Usually formance that somehow tries to embody those these methods are quite subtle and not very liter- themes through transmission and communica- al, because I often wonder if actively decolonising tion, both between us (the performers) and you these processes has to be cerebral. (the audience). Maybe that is where the art hap- pens – beyond the aesthetics of sound, presenta- KM Tara, in your previous work you have been extreme- tion, stenography,­ and presence – in an intangible, ly sensitive about working with samples. How did this sometimes intentional, sometimes serendipitous come about and how has it developed? exchange. We communicate beyond language, in silence, and with silence, despite the soundscape TARA My feelings towards sampling have de­ that drones on. Although we only communicate finitely shifted over the years, from using it reck- with our bodies, we reveal quite a lot about our- lessly and in abundance to nowadays using very selves personally. We not only collaborate artisti- little of it, and only using samples that I generate cally, but also in everyday life. How and what we myself. How this came about definitely has to do perform on stage also represent our relationship to with that sensitivity you mentioned. I guess my po­ each other, how we feel, and what makes us vulner- litics back then led me to assume that everything able – all this inevitably gets transmitted. The set- could be sampled and re-used in materialising the ting for this performance, which in itself is some- vision of the artist. Then I started to believe that by what neutral, loses its neutrality once the bodies sampling, even if only taking a field recording of a that carry their experiences enter the fold, bringing place, I am not just taking the sonic identity of a along histories, sentiments, memories, and inter- place, but also part of its soul. I feel that this appro- pretations. They infuse the collective experience, priation of the soul is much more obvious and lit- touching each of us with the usual mixes of anxi- eral when sampling someone’s voice, because we eties, elations, pains, ebullitions, and ambiguities. do not just take the voice, we take what the person Perhaps it was some of this that you felt. is trying to transmit, their emotional state, their his- tories, their narrative, their lifeblood. And for what KM Baly, as a solo artist, you work mainly in the per- grander purpose was I doing it? To keep an archive forming arts, but also with sound art and music. How do for future generations to reference? To reappropri- ~ they intersect in your practice? ate that into my work and call it my art? I ran out of Tara Transitory (top) and Nguye^ n Baly (bottom). Photos: Fatha. excuses and could no longer bear to take credit for BALY I usually work as a musician and perform- that which was not mine. er in different constellations with choreographers and artists in the performing arts. Depending on I do believe that some things in this world were who I am working with, I can be more or less free never meant to be seen, heard, experienced, or in what I am doing, though sometimes I feel more much less documented. It is perfectly fine for me like a service provider than an artist. This made me that some things exist forever in secret or that they decide at some point to work only with artists who disappear forever. I don’t have a need to discover are really interested in eye-level collaborations, in everything there is to discover – even less if I con- which our vision and politics might resonate, or in sider the negative costs that could come with that which we are at least willing to understand each selfish curiosity. other. I also try to avoid producing easily catego- risable work – work which falls nicely into industry- KM Your recent collaboration challenges our perception defined genres. The sort of sound pieces I create and categorisation of what is commonly considered con- depends largely on the context of the performance temporary music and dance. Together, you fluidly takes us or theatre piece. With each collaboration, if possi- beyond such constructs of form and genre. You dance and ble, I try out new ways of creating music. move to create sound, and through sound you move and dance. How do you grapple between those two worlds and I am particularly interested in how we can break still pay the bills? away from specific knowledges of musics. To me, music feels like it has always contained with- N+T It has been and still is difficult getting sup- in itself certain knowledges, lineages, memories, port from institutions and festivals for our work. We emotions, and thoughts. Yet despite globalisation, feel that this is due partly to what you have de- much of non-Western music, if we can call it that, scribed, that it falls into the interstices between is still strongly associated somehow with its sup- clearly demarcated categories. Many institutions posed geographical-ethnic origins. I feel that un- and cultural managers still come across as quite derstanding music in this essentialist way comes clueless when it comes to works that are inherent- from a dominant Eurocentric, patriarchal lens. In ly multidisciplinary and do not fit neatly into those my work, I try to explore the relationships between well-established categories, or works which are 43 not easily reproducible, presentable, and predict- it does give visibility and a platform for the under- able. This is quite shocking. It is almost as if the represented, but on the other, only a handful are last century of the Western avant-garde canon ne­ fortunate enough to be given that opportunity, and ver existed, maybe partly due to some movement’s most are used for some time and then replaced resistance to institutional appropriation, or to mar- when that topic is not trending anymore. To have ~ Nguye^ n + Transitory. Photo: Fatha. ket policies. But this collective erasure by the cul- such programming makes many traditionally con- tural institutions of today is quite revealing of the servative institutions seem progressive, garnering contemporary cultural climate. Despite what one them support from a demographic that might not might think, the cultural climate of 2019 in some have traditionally supported them, so they public- ways feels as conservative as it did half a century ly project themselves to be more progressive than ago, if not more. Nonetheless, being in this periph- they are. It’s basically a win-win situation for them. eral position professionally is definitely not easy to We have nothing against programming more un- sustain, especially as we both come from working derrepresented identities, but we question what class backgrounds. We have managed to survive the intentions are for wanting to do so. Because so far, maybe due to good fortune and the support until we have more underrepresented, under-priv- of some, but we feel that those days are numbered ileged, subaltern, under-class folks in decision- and the inevitable reckoning of collapse and burn- making positions in the arts and elsewhere, and out is around the corner. until the cultural institutions themselves unsub- scribe from the logics of capitalism and patriar- KM Both separately as individual artists and collective- chy, the cultural landscape will not be fundamen- ly as a duo, it almost seems that your work is anti-produc- tally altered. tion and anti-novelty. Do you connect with such positions? KM Is persistence a part of your practice? N+T It does not make much sense for us to pro- duce one project after another, as we feel it is more N+T When thinking of persistence, we are re- important to have depth and dedication in deve­ minded more of the word »extant« and its relation- loping ideas. For us, these processes usually take ship to us. We continue to exist despite conditions time to materialise and they do not function by more suited to our extinction. Given these circum- the logics of the market. We see our work more as stances, our professional work, the sort of work it an ongoing process – one in which we can only is, the medium, the politics embedded in it, and see how to move one step at a time. It’s a process the values by which we try to live, perpetual pre- which isn’t clearly defined and intentionally lacks a carity is destiny. But despite such dire and unfa- clear outcome. This unfortunately sits at odds with vourable conditions, we are still persisting in our market logic, and not being understood has be- attempts at embodying matriarchy and failing at come synonymous with this process. the impossible.

KM As queer artists of Southeast Asian backgrounds, you have shared your fears with regards to your futures and described how your identities have been appropriated and consequently othered, often as a result of certain dom- » www.nguyentransitory.wordpress.com inant curatorial practices and institutional booking poli- » www.nguyen-transitory.bandcamp.com cies. Can you elaborate on these worries? » Instagram: @nguyen.transitory » Facebook: @nguyen.transitory N+T When an industry thrives on superficialities such as discovering and presenting only »new« KAMILA METWALY is a freelance music journalist, elec- things and those that fit into what is marked as tronic musician, and a sound curator at SAVVY Contem- trending, then it would come as little surprise that porary. She is based between Berlin and Cairo. its championing of progressive politics might be nothing more than posturing. What seems to be a trend amongst many cultural institutions recently is the need to show inclusivity in the diversity of its programming, and it is in this limited scope that we see the Women, the Queers, the Indigenous, the Africans, the Arabs, the Asians, etc. We ask: who do these inclusivity/diversity showcases benefit? One way to look at it is that on the one hand, yes,

*1) Untraining the Ear Listening Sessions are a series of events and radio broadcasts co-organised by Kamila Metwaly; and produced collaboratively by SAVVY Contemporary, CTM Festival, and Deutschlandfunk Kultur – Klangkunst. 45

Persistence. Once again this year, CTM Festival sistence, the success, and the symbolic and social has adopted a theme that affects us politically, and losses with which artists fight for freedom social POP, POLITICS, AND even agitates us. It suggests that we listen to pop spaces, for acceptance of other life models? with politics in mind. After 2015’s Un Tune, which brought to mind the physical and psychoacous- In this essay, I would like to approach various ar- PERSISTENCE: tic power of sound, the festival turned to a series tistic strategies with which to position oneself in of politically-discursively charged topics starting political and social realities. It's about the prox- with 2016’s New Geographies. The 2016 theme imity and distance between pop and politics, art POPULAR CULTURE BETWEEN aimed to extend the limits of European audiences’ and society. On the question of a policy of aesthet- understanding and reception of music by includ- ic practice, persistence can be understood on the ing global and hybrid music scenes representing one hand as open protest, as active resistance to DELIMITATION AND ACTIVISM countries from Mexico to Iran. Under the slogan hegemony, and on the other as a state of persis- World Music 2.0, the audience explored a global tent distancing from the dictums of Realpolitik and music scene, a hybrid, technologically progres- consumer society. Artists can respond to the defi- sive, sampled, transnational, transcultural, and nitions imposed by dominant themes, norms, and LUISE WOLF post-gender world community. New Geographies general perceptual patterns with real alternatives also drew attention – and not merely from a nation- to the very nature of currently lived reality, and ex- al viewpoint – to social and political conflicts and periment with new modes of expression and living. upheavals, and to the sounds of war and repression Through such approaches, they create new com- (Mazen Kerbaj). munities of meaning such as undergrounds and scenes, online communities, and safer spaces. Artists worldwide are persistently opposing social and political in- The 2017 theme Fear, Anger, Love can be inter- justice and nationalist backsliding. But equally persistent are the an- preted as a vociferous artistic and pop cultural re- In recent years, artistic practices have experienced sponse to a society in which fear and anger are a re-politicisation, now also clearly visible in the ti-liberal and traditionalist forces who assert their power, which is cultivated in ways that, until recently, didn’t seem mainstream. While the end of the protest song was apparent not only symbolically but long-since structurally. In this possible. The conciliatory sound of love – apart declared in the 90s, political statements are again from the sound of sex (18+) – was sought in vain. widespread today, even in songs on heavy rota- climate, artists are under pressure to express themselves, to take a Yet the more drastic sonic examples of rage (Vom- tion. Popular culture and politics have once again stance, and even to act. Yet in the course of a general tide of re-po- ir), fear (Genesis P-Orridge), and protest (NON converged. On the one hand, political culture has Worldwide) were easily found. Here, the coalition adopted aesthetic strategies such as stardom, liticisation, artists are also once again increasingly engaging and in- of music and war once again dominated the dis- marketing, and performance.*1) On the other hand, tervening in social and political discourses. Luise Wolf considers the course programme (Lawrence English). social and political hardships and rollbacks pro- voke artists worldwide to stand up for concrete so- complexities of blending art and politics. Emotions are followed by shifts and unrest. As such, cial and political values and change. Under slogans Turmoil was last year’s theme, and it explored the such as Die Vielen (The Many) or Wir sind Mehr (We sound of emancipatory uproar. An aesthetic rebel- Are More), artists and cultural actors in Germany lion offers the opportunity to escape the global have initiated and joined such broad movements. permanent disaster alarm, be it through the futuris- Protest concerts are back, hinting at the return of tic and speculative (Holly Herndon) or through con- pop culture’s mobilising power. Yet artists are also templation (Christopher Bauder & Kangding Ray). increasingly pressured to position themselves po- litically. I would argue that while it is not the artist’s Seismographically, the festival themes reflect cur- task to dissolve the ambiguity in the world or to rently relevant topics and tendencies in our socie- decorate political slogans, these days they are, in ties and cultures. Culture is changing all the time. their function as role models, sometimes expected This change is determined by internal dialectics of to do just that. the conscious and the unconscious, identity and performance, tradition and progression, essen- Persistence also exists on the part of the rise of tialism and hypermodernism. This year's festival essentialism and nationalism, which not only sym- theme of Persistence also addresses such dialec- bolically paints a »new normality,« but has long tics. The term Persistence can be interpreted here since become structural. This shows in the popu- as a mode of emancipatory art and pop culture, of larity of some right-wing conservative and nation- liberal, anti-racist, and anti-sexist forces, yet also alist artists such as Frei.Wild or Andreas Gabalier, as the persistence of essentialist and nationalist as well as in the discussion about a radio quota setbacks. The political polarisation of Western so- for German-language pop music, which was re- cieties and the growing harshness in the culture of kindled in 2015. However, no soundtrack exists for public debate suggest that one reality cannot be the New Right, according to pop critic Jens Balz- refuted by another. Thus, the perception of reality, er in his article »The Kids Are Alt-Right – Tracing the interpretation of events and processes, in itself The Soundtrack Of Neo-Reactionary Turmoil« in the becomes a matter of dispute and a symbolic cul- CTM 2017 magazine. Why is that? »One possible tural loss or gain: In this climate, what are the per- reason the New Right doesn’t have a leg to stand 47

on, culturally speaking, is that its very ideology, its tions, in representing these samples as fabrication, al Assembly), or the Peng! Collective provide im- who joined the boycott, such as Roger Waters or striving for ‘purity’ – despite the evident interde- as instruments, the changeability of all meaning pressive examples in Germany. Young Fathers, have to deal with accusations of pendence of every last atom in the cosmos! – pre- is revealed. The arts sensitise us to inclusion and antisemitism and populism. Musicians who did not cludes any true acceptance of pop culture. Pop exclusion in society. Therefore, they are to the From gospel to hip hop, popular music has never join the boycott, such as Thom Yorke or Nick Cave, culture is living proof that hybridity rocks. Without greatest possible extent and almost ontological- been disconnected from social and political real- were criticised for not resolutely opposing the Is- an endless circulation of signs, without the shifting ly resistant to any form of hegemony. They act as ity and was never considered merely beautiful and raeli government’s unjust policies. Label operators permutation or fusion of every cultural tradition un- correctives, as jokers, ridiculing solutions that are »useless.« It has always been a direct response to speak of »cultural terror.« Nick Cave talks of cen- der the sun, pop culture just would not be. There is supposedly without alternative. reality, as opposition or mere compensation. The sorship. In one of the most complex political war nothing in pop that doesn’t refer somehow, some- differentiation of »pop« – from Björk to Pop Idols – zones of the 20th and 21st centuries, pop’s positive where, to something else.«*2) Balzer explains that The rejection of political mechanisms provides leads to the fact that innovations, differences, and commonplace has been blown up. the lack of success for right-wing pop acts is due the opportunity to create uncommon, extraordi- protests today tend to be forged in niches rather to the basic hallmarks of pop, which resist ideolog- nary experiences. The dystopian sounds of noise, than in the mainstream. But even the mainstream is Such discursive shifts between pop and politics ical determination and disambiguation. dark ambient, or doom strain our listening conven- often so successful only because it is dialectically show that artistic activism not only strains the po- tions. They let us hear the world from the dysto- influenced by convention and innovation, identifi- litical discourses it addresses – often successfully, From rock'n'roll to post-punk and from disco to pia of a failed existence, to experience ourselves cation and ambivalence, commerce and protest. thanks to its media literacy – but that it also strains trap, popular music is characterised by an interplay from an otherworldly lostness. Such music, which Movements such as queervisibility and feminism the field of art itself by questioning the limits of between adoption and variation, reference and is unsettlingly far from acoustic conventions, from would not have found their way out of their nich- art, and its place in the field of tension between manipulation. In the oscillation between the exist- common statements, symbols, codes, and stylistic es and into the mainstream without artists like, for certainty and contingency, autonomy and social ing and the new, citation and reinterpretation, pro- templates, is especially conducive to experiencing example, Antony or Coco Rosie. In a society that function. At times, theatrical forms of artistic ac- duction and processing, pop celebrates an aes- the drastic nature with which categories determine constitutes and reflects itself in segmented public tivism manage to draw the entirety of politics into thetic of transformation. »Aesthetic is trans,« says us in everyday life. In pure sound we might hear life spheres within which socialisation and integration their performance, exposing politics itself as a per- the rapper and self-proclaimed »gender terrorist« as it could be, according to musicologist and eth- happen, niches are plainly the places of action. formance of power. But whenever art puts these Linn da Quebrada.*3) Pop is in between – even on- nologist Jochen Bonz.*5) Indeed, from where else And here musicians are increasingly positioning theatrical means completely aside, and radicalis- tologically. Pop is a fluid phenomenon that is all do we take the variation of our gestures and our themselves in the most varied of roles with multi- es itself primarily socio-politically, it can quickly the more successful and interesting the more un- habits? How can we perceive the defaults and bi- ple responsibilities. They appear as musicians and get entangled in polarisation and populism, and definably it positions itself. ases of our senses? At the basis of our beliefs and activists, as musicians and researchers. They seize thereby easily risks losing something crucial: so- values lies a physical sensibility, a sensed mean- discourse and agency within and also far beyond cial contingency and the power to maintain dia- »Pop stands for the simple behind which the com- ing that is touched and moved above all by the arts. niches and scenes, stages and clubs. They also use logue across different contexts, beliefs, and re- plex hides,« wrote Peter Kemper.*4) In contrast to Such music, which focuses on material-aesthetic and produce formats and methods of articulation alities. Then again, one must ask whether such populism – which propagates a »narrow ideology« transformations, conducts a kind of »fundamental in the social, technological, or political spheres. radicalism is not actually an appropriate response and the disambiguation of the perception of re- research« on our emotions and our psyche. It can They demonstrate, occupy, and hack. They write, to an equally radical reality. Is it not the case that ality – pop creates a positive commonplace, an provoke sparks of reflection, and can affect the na- proclaim, educate, and experiment. aesthetic freedom is first practiced when it over- open-ended web of connections. In contrast to the no-politics of our bodies. rides the hegemonic allocation of its competenc- political sphere, performative forms of identifica- Artistic productions that present themselves as art es? The answer to this dilemma should depend on tion and hybrid world views neither pose any prob- Art that is not concerned with the current, the nec- and life, art and politics, or art and social engage- whether or not artistic freedom is served. lems nor are considered exceptional circumstance essary, or the real, but rather with the future, the ment, are often eventually pressured into justify- in popular culture, at least not in principle. Rather, improbable, or the possible, therefore cannot be ing being ethically right or wrong, and act as mor- pop initiates such processes for the sake of inspi- considered a-political. It injects our supposedly ally good or bad – especially if they leave their ration, variation, development, and renewal, sig- »mere« existence or feelings with new ways of ex- niche and enter the wider public sphere. This is nified by terms such as fusion, featuring, or syn- pression and articulation, expanding the horizon of clearly visible in the boycott or non-boycott of Is- LUISE WOLF is an author and scientist in Berlin. She thesis. our tolerance and knowledge. rael, where the dispute over the legitimacy of per- explores aesthetic transformations in art and musical cul- forming or not performing in Israel partially splits ture. In contrast to political articulation, artistic prac- In recent years, however, under the pressure of po- Western music scenes. Under names such as BDS tices and popular culture are not concerned with litical and social changes which threaten the free- (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) or DJs for Translated from the German by Alexander Paulick-Thiel, forming exclusionary content, absolute values, dom of art itself, we have seen shifts in the politics Palestine, campaigns call for a boycott of Isra- Berlin. or ultimate judgments. Rather, they focus on il- of artistic practice. Art critic Boris Groys considers el in order to put pressure on the Israeli govern- luminating things differently, on recontextualiza- today’s art activism to be a new phenomenon. Art ment to stop oppressing Palestinians. Musicians tion, and on creating links or variations to gener- has given up its »quasi-ontological uselessness« in ate meaning. Artists don’t advocate for values and order to make itself politically and socially useful.*6) judgments through persuasion or by forcing opin- According to Groys, these art activists have tried ions, but through attitude, performance, and aes- not to only criticise political and social conditions, thetic staging. Art and music are forms of articu- but to change them by means of art – especially lation that are not primarily rational, strategic, and outside of the art system: in politics and education, *1) Jörg-Uwe Nieland, Pop und Politik. Politische Popkultur und Kulturpolitik in der Mediengesellschaft (Köln: Herbert von Halem Verlag, 2009).*2) Jens Balz- er, »The Kids Are Alt-Right – Tracing the Soundtrack Of Neo-Reactionary Turmoil«, CTM 2018 Turmoil Magazine (2018), p. 24.*3) Meiofio, »Eu não quero me discursive, but physical, affective, emotional, im- in the midst of society and at its edges. Actions finalizar,« 10.October 2016, Youtube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5xckO1WtVc (last accessed January 2019).*4) Peter Kemper, »Love goes Pop. Die lär- mende Macht großer Gefühle«, in Liebe – Zwischen Sehnsucht und Simulation, ed. Peter Kemper and Ulrich Sonnenschein (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, aginary, idiosyncratic. In taking up and re-contex- by the Zentrum für politische Schönheit (Center for 2005), p. 302. *5) Jochen Bonz, »Soziologie des Hörens. Akustische Konventionalität und akustische Materialität als Kategorien subjektorientierter Popkul- turforschung«, Pop, Populäres und Theorien. Forschungsansätze und Perspektiven zu einem prekären Verhältnis in der Medienkulturgesellschaft (Münster: tualising motifs of prevailing norms and conven- Political Beauty), the Generalversammlung (Gener- LIT Verlag, 2011), p. 130. *6) Boris Groys, »Kunstaktivismus – Die totale Ästhetisierung der Welt als Eröffnung der politischen Aktion«, Lettre International 106 (2014), p. 88. 49

»A Tribe Called Red promotes inclusivity, empathy, and acceptance WE ARE THE HALLUCI NATION: amongst all races and genders in the name of social justice. They be- lieve that Indigenous people need to define their identity on their AN INTERVIEW WITH BEAR own terms. If you share this vision, then you are already part of the *1) WITNESS OF Halluci Nation.« A TRIBE CALLED RED

LINDSAY NIXON Hailing from Ontario, Canada are A Tribe Called Halluci Nation as »the tribe that they cannot see,« Red, a native producer and DJ crew blending ele- who »see the spiritual in the natural.« This stands ments of hip hop, dubstep, and house with tradi- in contrast to the oppressive ALie Nation, who tional Pow Wow songs and drumming. Now com- »see the material religions through trauma [where] prised of Tim »2oolman« Hill (Mohawk, of the Six nothing is related, all the things of the earth and Nations of the Grand River), and Ehren "Bear Wit- in the sky have energy to be exploited.« Featuring ness" Thomas (of the Cayuga First Nation), ATCR collaborations with artists such as rappers Yasiin are a testament to the enduring strength and im- Bey (formerly Mos Def) and Saul Williams, Pola- portance of Indigenous culture. ris Prize-winning singers Tanya Tagaq and Lido Pi- mienta, in addition to Manawan Atikamekw Nation »If you’re an Indigenous person living in a country drum group Black Bear, Australian aboriginal band that was forcefully colonised, it’s all too common OKA, and Swedish-Sami singer Maxida Marak, the to find yourself underrepresented and misrepre- record’s empowering anti-colonial message is po- sented if not blatantly and systematically devalued etic and clear. and attacked. Positive role models and a positive self-identity are hard to come by, yet the Canadian Lindsay Nixon caught up with ATCR’s Bear Witness DJ collective A Tribe Called Red is a modern gate- ahead of their appearance at CTM 2019 to speak way into urban and contemporary Indigenous cul- about how the group got started, how they see ture and experience, celebrating all its layers and their role in shaping modern Indigenous identity, complexity,« reads the group’s website. Against all and to explore some of their wide-ranging artistic odds, and against systematic erasure and oppres- collaborations. sion that continues well into the present day, Indig- enous cultures have persisted and are reinventing LINDSAY NIXON For folks who don’t know a lot about themselves. In parallel to ongoing community ef- your work out in Berlin, your work is so multidisciplinary. forts of documenting, preserving, and re-learning I'm wary of describing it as »just« a DJ project. Can you what little linguistic knowledge, histories, customs give an overview of how you guys work together and how and beliefs of these civilisations can still be found, you produce together? is a movement of artists, musicians, dancers, writ- ers, and poets that imagine and experiment with BEAR WITNESS A Tribe Called Red has its roots modern and future identities of their (urban) Indig- in club DJing. But right from the start we were at enous communities. Artists such as ATCR are a cru- a place where all of us played on different equip- cial part of this movement. ment. One guy on turntables. And myself on a MIDI controller. Another guy on CDJs. So we just always Since forming in 2008, A Tribe Called Red have es- had all this gear set up. The idea of kind of play- tablished their voice in an essential renewed ab- ing together in a way that was more than just three original rights movement known as Idle No More. DJs taking turns was something that came up right It’s no accident that the late native (Santee Dakota) away at the Electric Pow Wow parties that we start- activist, poet, and musician John Trudell is the first ed here in Ottawa. That idea has evolved over the voice you hear on the collective’s third and most years into what we have now, with myself and 2oo- recent album, We Are The Halluci Nation (2016), lman. It’s still based in DJing but it’s become more as the group considers him a forefather for this and more of a band, in a sense. I’m the only DJ movement. The concept album features the sto- on stage now, really. 2oolman is doing live remix- ries of aboriginal voices, addressing the impact of ing and playing the MPC. We started to bring the colonisation on Indigenous people in the modern MOOG on the road and stuff. There’s a lot more 2oolman and Bear Witness. Photo: Matt Barnes. world. Trudell’s lyrics open the record, defining the of a live aspect that has began to be woven into 51 »WHAT DOES [THE URBAN IN- DIGENOUS EXPERIENCE] LOOK LIKE AND WHAT COULD THAT BE?«

the DJ set. And then, we have the live visuals as- had a common thread: the urban Indigenous ex- BW Working with Yasiin Bey was one of the crazier talking. We were having a great time. Part of the pect, which just has always added another layer. perience. And, really, their generation was ask- collaborations we’ve gotten to do. And, like many collaboration process is telling stories and shar- We try to offer something more than just a cou- ing those questions: what does [the urban Indig- of our collaborations, it stretched out over a year, ing your background with people. Even just getting ple DJs playing turntables. At the end of the day enous experience] look like and what could that from the time that we met to him coming out on to know people so you feel more comfortable in we’re just a couple of guys standing at a table and be? Throughout my life I’ve seen it define itself the stage at Osheaga during our set and perform- the studio. But for the recording process, you have it’s hard to make that interesting outside of your and become a real community. We’re a big part ing with us there, with Narcy as well. an hour or two a day of the entire day. At one end, usual kind of clapping and drumming around kind of that. We’re a part of helping solidify that identi- why are you complaining? You're in a studio with of stuff. Having visuals adds more to look at but ty as urban Indigenous peoples. So, a bigger part LN I was there! That was so cool. Yasiin Bey telling you crazy stories and being awe- also gives us an opportunity since our music is par- than discovering my own identity through the work, some. But me, being kind of pragmatic about the ty music, it’s club music. But there’s always been has been the part of defining this generation of ur- BW Ya, that was wild! He wasn’t even supposed to situation, I was like, »OK, we gotta get this guy in more of a message to what we’ve been doing. Vis- ban Indigenous people. I feel like we follow more be in town, he just happened to show up. there.« We finally get him into the studio and he’s uals have always given us an opportunity to add in than we lead with A Tribe Called Red. It might look like, »Where’s Ruby?« And that’s when we find out a very fun way at times, but still adding to the con- from the outside that it’s the other way around. But LN I know! He just kept jumping on stages and it was that he has this special mic named Ruby and it’s versation of Indigenous representation and Indige- our following – the things we see our community like, are you here? the only mic he records on. He then disappeared nous issues. The most recent thing we’ve added to needs, that our community wants – this commu- for another three hours to go and get it. But when our live set is dancers. We’ve had dancers now for nity is able to represent ourselves the way we see BW And then they scored a set because some- he finally got back with Ruby and everything, he fi- about five years or even more. The group of danc- ourselves. The way we are seeing ourselves is very body got cancelled. So he ended up doing a whole nally dropped this amazing verse. What more could ers we’re working with now were already doing that important to our community. So that’s what we go set too. So there was that meeting. There were sev- we have asked for in a Yasiin Bey verse, than what same kind of work we’re doing with music in their out in the world and do. eral meetings that led up to us actually working to- we ended up getting? dance practice. Lunacee and Creeasian both prac- gether. And even just that was a really crazy expe- tice traditional Pow Wow dancing as well as street LN You brought up Electric Pow Wow earlier. I went to rience. After we had recorded the song there was LN Is there anything else you wanted to say to your au- dance. You’ll see Lunacee in her traditional rega- the one right after you were nominated for the Juno and that time period when he was stuck in South Africa dience in Berlin? lia doing various different dances: fancy shawl and it was such a banger. I always think about A Tribe Called under house arrest, which meant that for the video jingle dress. And Creeasian does grass dance. So Red as being for the cool, fashionable neechies (the word we wanted to shoot, we had to go to him. We found BW We’re excited to be coming back to Berlin. you’ll see them both in their traditional regalia. But in the Anishinabemowin language for cousins) who live a way to weave that into the Halluci Nation story we then they’ll change into their street clothes and do in the city. Do you think about that? Kind of like the way were trying to tell, and we were going to try to help break- and house-dancing, those sort of things. Drake does with Toronto? Do you think about Ottawa and him escape. After we made the video for »R.E.D.,« And then you’ll even see them in an in-between the city community there as really formulating and being we watched it. There’s a middle part where they are kind of mode, where they’re sort of in half tradition- a part of A Tribe Called Red? actually escaping. A few months before that had » www.atribecalledred.com al regalia and half street clothes. These are all very happened, my grandfather had passed away. He visual representations of what we’re doing with our BW In our early years we started the Electric Pow was a holocaust survivor. He was born in Paris. He LINDSAY NIXON is a Cree-Métis-Saulteaux ­curator, music as well. Wow party without a lot of expectation and without was sent away by his mother before anything hap- award-nominated editor, award-nominated writer, and a lot of foresight into what it could mean and be. pened to him. He was sent away. He had to escape McGill Art History Ph.D. student. Nîtisânak, Nixon’s LN This is a cool festival to house your work because But this was very quickly shown to us by the people in a cart, kind of thing, into the demilitarised zone. memoir and first published book, is out now through it thinks about the interactions of music and visual art. I here in Ottawa in the Indigenous community. They So, when I was watching the video after, I realised ­Metonymy Press. know these disciplinary definitions can be very complex told us what it meant and that it was something we kind of told his story in this video. » www.aabitagiizhig.com for Indigenous peoples. I’ve heard you call both your art that we needed to continue doing. So it’s always and musical work remixes. I was wondering how does A had that feeling of being a community-led project. But back to the collaboration part of it. Working Tribe Called Red has helped you find your identity as a Things have definitely changed over the years. Un- with Yasiin was nuts because he’s a very on person. musician and artist? fortunately we don’t have that Electric Pow Wow It was trying to herd cats in a sense, getting him party anymore and we’re in a very different posi- into the actual studio. It was awesome! We were BW The work around identity as an urban Indig- tion, but that’s where things started. enous person has been all lifelong work for me. Even longer than my lifetime. It extends to my par- LN Listening to A Tribe Called Red is so cool because of ents and my grandparents. All of whom are artists all the collaborations that you include on your record. Do *1) »A Tribe Called Red.« A Tribe Called Red. Accessed January 13, 2019. www.atribecalledred.com. in different disciplines. All of their work has always you have any cool or funny collaboration stories? 53 55

Persistence is a powerful word. It implies a sense In the following years my interests grew. As I did of arduous effort – taken to go against the tide. To more research, I rediscovered the oud and its high- MICROTONALITY AND THE be insistent, to go on resolutely in spite of oppo- ly revered position throughout the Middle East and sition. It is markedly different from the idea of per- North Africa as the instrument of choice for theo- severance, which implies a sense of focus and de- rists, philosophers, musicians, and composers. In STRUGGLE FOR FRETLESSNESS termination in one’s continuation but doesn’t really April 2004, I decided to start studying it and be- communicate the effort involved. gan weekly private classes with Iraqi oud maestro Ehsan Emam in London. IN THE DIGITAL AGE I used to consider myself perseverant, but only when I started writing this article did I realise that In June 2004 – thanks to the influence of Trey Spru- I was actually persistent. I don’t consider myself ance’s epic band the Secret Chiefs 3 and the Web KHYAM ALLAMI to be someone who has achieved a lot, especial- of Mimicry’s online forum community – I placed an ly not when it comes to musical output. But what order for Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: Mysti- I have managed, both musical and extra-musical, cism in Music from Antiquity to the Avant-Garde by Despite the sleek, seductive promises of modernisation, recent mu- has taken a lot of effort. Going against the tide, and Joscelyn Godwin. The book soon arrived and I was sic-making tools are culpable for a number of often-overlooked short- for so long, has been draining – so much so that it captivated: tuning systems, mathematics, ratios, became normalised and embodied to the point of fractions, string lengths, monochords, the har- comings. Khyam Allami delves into his research on microtonality to a serious burnout that took around two years of re- monic series, the zodiac, the planets, Pythagoras, reflect on the non-neutrality of music software, the hegemony it en- covery. Much of this is personal and due to my his- the harmony of the spheres, the Greeks, the Arabs, tory, but much of it is also musical and therefore the Enlightenment – it seemed endless. Wild and courages, and the cultural asymmetries it can cultivate, ultimately ad- inseparable from life itself. fantastical theories about sound, the universe, and vocating for a celebration of difference across cultures, ideas, meth- music’s place in it, not merely as entertainment, One of these avenues of persistence is closely re- but as an alchemical mirror reflecting the depths ods, and sounds. lated to the subject of microtonality and tuning of ourselves (our »self«) and the entire cosmos (the systems. Over the last couple of years I’ve been ex- universe as an embodiment of order and harmony). perimenting a lot and developing Comma, a micro- tonal tuning Max4Live patch designed by me and At that moment, something clicked between the programmed in Max in two stages – first by Charles unspoken spiritual philosophy of taqāsim (Arab-Ot- Matthews in London and then by John Eichenseer toman improvisations), the tunings of the maqāmat in California. It is the epitome of my musical per- (Arab-Ottoman modes), and the reverence of the sistence to date. oud as the king of all instruments.

I spent the majority of my adolescent years listen- This time, I had to really persist; the oud is a fret- ing to rock music and learning how to play guitar, less instrument and takes at least 6 months to a bass, and drums by ear. I would record songs from year of practice before it becomes even remotely the radio onto cassette tapes and sit next to the re- enjoyable to play. But once I got the hang of it, I wind button with a guitar in hand. It was incredibly could finally sit next to the computer and play mu- satisfying and so much fun to figure things out and sic (by now it was mp3s) with my mouse and oud be able to play what was coming out of the speak- in hand and start to try figuring out those evasive ers – they could do it, and so could I. The seed of melodies which had caused me so much trouble. DIY and punk rock ethics was firmly planted. I ended up dedicating the next seven years to stu­ That was until I discovered Soundgarden and Sonic dying the oud intensively. Fretlessness is a beau- Youth. They used alternative tunings for their gui- tiful thing. tars which were almost impossible to figure out, and so I had to rely on guitar magazines and tab- TUNINGS, TEMPERAMENTS, MICROTONALITY, lature to understand what was going on. Here it INTERVALS, SCALES, MODES… stopped being fun, but it remained fascinating, and so I continued searching. The topic of tuning systems is complex and con- fusing, partly because it is mathematical and goes When I started discovering Arabic, Indian, and Azer- back at least 2500 years, but mostly because the baijani music around the turn of the millennium, I internet is full of unreliable and unsubstantiated in- hit a wall again. I was frustrated that I couldn’t get formation. It is essentially the mathematics of mu- my guitar to sound right when trying to play some sic and therefore highly theoretical, with lots of of the melodies. I was sure I had the right notes, but words and numbers and very few attempts to prac- they didn’t feel right. I would spend hours checking tically elucidate any theories or discussions. the tuning and bending my strings whilst playing, thinking something wasn’t as it should be. Khyam Allami at One Hertz Studios, Beirut, working on Kawalees: Part II using his virtual/acoustic piano setup through Comma. Photo: Courtesy of the artist. 57

For those who aren’t so microtonally inclined, Today, 2600+ years later, the most pervasive tu­ that were exciting me at the time, namely the music When I tried to ignore the problem and just carry here’s a quick rundown of terminology: ning system used in the world is usually referred to from the Arab world and North Africa, Turkey, Iran, on, my composing would change. I would develop as equal temperament (ET), also known as twelve- Azerbaijan, and India. different kinds of melodies and directions in reac- A tuning system is a mathematically derived tone equal temperament (12-TET), or twelve equal tion to the tuning. Sure, it was interesting, but it series of pitches used in composition and divisions of the octave (12-EDO). It is named as After my BA, and with support from a SOAS scholar- wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t what I felt. I was no performance, i.e. just intonation. such because it equally tempers, i.e. adjusts into ship and a study grant from the British Institute for longer following my inspiration and intuition – in- A temperament is the modification of a equal parts, preceding historical tuning systems the Study of Iraq, I went on to undertake a Masters stead, I was being influenced and manipulated by tuning system, i.e. quarter-comma- such as the Pythagorean or just intonation (anoth- in Performance as Research, focusing specifically something external. meantone. er tuning system based on simple ratios). None of on the Iraqi Oud School, its influences, and deve­ An interval is the distance between two its intervals are simple ratios. lopment. During these studies, the use of computer Rather than fight for the right feeling by trying to pitches of a tuning system, i.e. a perfect fifth technologies for the analysis and composition of figure out workarounds, or spending fortunes on An octave is a distance between two Although considered a »Western« tuning system, non-Western music became increasingly appeal- expensive hardware, I went back to my oud and pitches at a ratio of 2:1, whereby the second the earliest historical mention of it is found in Chi- ing, but it always felt like a struggle. The only way focused my energies on my solo acoustic work in- pitch is exactly a double of the first pitch’s na as far back as the 5th century.*2) Outside Chi- to get anything done was through workarounds, by stead. frequency, i.e. the octave of 200hz is 400hz. na, the first mathematical description of a 12-tone combining various different software to do differ- The same applies, albeit mirrored, when chromatic scale is found in a treatise by the 9th ent things and, even then, cumbersomely. Things Persistence is tiring, and sometimes you need a thinking of an octave below, i.e. 200hz and century Iraqi philosopher, mathematician, and mu- were unintuitive and felt limiting. break. But only a short one. 100hz. sician Ishaq Al-Kindi (d. Baghdad c. 874).*3) A cent is the logarithmic unit of One of my major challenges was to try to use a MIDI / MTS AND THE DIGITAL IMPLEMENTATION measurement used for musical intervals. Before ET, all the notes on keyboard, wind, fret- well-known music notation software to notate mu- OF MICROTONALITY It was invented in 1875 by the English ted, or hammered acoustic instruments had to be sic that was unmetered and that used non-standard Mathematician Alexander J. Ellis and tuned to a specific tuning system in a chosen key. key signatures, and to hear playback in tuning sys- Contrary to popular misconception, microtonality defines the octave as a distance of 1200 Wind instruments were another ballgame. Fretless tems other than ET. In order to try and get answers and non-standard tunings have long been accom- cents and an equal-tempered semitone as instruments, such as the violin or the oud, did not for myself, my fellow students, and even staff, I modated in modern music-making technology, the 100 cents. have the same trouble because the musician can contacted the software company’s senior product foundations of which began with electricity-based Microtonality refers to the use of intervals adjust their intonation accordingly. manager and R&D at the time. He very kindly of- instruments – analogue synthesisers and the digi- of less than an equal-tempered semitone, fered to come and give us a workshop at SOAS that tal computer language developed to organise and i.e. a quarter-tone (50 cents). ET was assimilated into Anglo-European music in was specifically tailored to our demands. keep the electricity in check: MIDI. A scale is a series of pitches selected the 18th century for the specific purposes of ena- from a given tuning system, i.e. C Major. bling compositional modulations into distant key The product manager knew the software inside and Musical Instrument Digital Interface was deve­ A mode is a series of pitches selected from signatures without sounding »out of tune,« and to out and was able to show us reasonably straight- loped in the early 1980s, following concerns by a tuning system that have a specific musical allow the transposition of any composition into any forward workarounds to the majority of our needs instrument designers Dave Smith (Sequential Cir- character, expressed through micro- key signature, without having to re-tune the instru- – although playback tuning was unmodifiable. But cuits) and Ikutaru Kakehashi (Roland) that »the lack melodies and central tones highlighting ment every time. when I asked him why, if these musicological needs of compatibility between manufacturers would re- specific interval relationships, i.e. the were easy to accommodate through workarounds, strict people’s use of synthesisers, which would ul- ancient Greek Lydian mode. Contrary to popular misconception, ET was not fa- they weren’t made explicitly possible in the pro- timately inhibit sales growth.«*5) It was an econom- A degree is one of the selected pitches voured amongst all musicians and composers at gramming of the software, his answer was straight ic concern. Throughout 1981 and 1982, there were in the scale or mode, i.e. the sixth. the time. It was in fact a niche tuning system, ne­ to the point: there was no market, and therefore many conferences and meetings between leading cessary for specific types of compositions that resources weren’t assigned to develop this kind of American and Japanese synth manufacturers. By The majority of tuning systems throughout history used extensive and, for the time, experimental functionality at a time when the market was de- January 1983, this new proposed system was born have relied on the division of the octave into a de- modulations.*4) Essentially, it was a practical solu- manding other kinds of developments. and presented at the Los Angeles NAMM show, fined number of parts. These are referred to as oc- tion to a very specific musical problem, for a spe- where the Sequential Prophet 600 and Roland JP6 tave-repeating tuning systems. Some modern tu­ cific set of musical instruments, in a specific genre And so I persisted with my research. were »connected.«*6) ning systems disregard the octave altogether (i.e. of music. But we have been stuck with it for over Bohlen-Pierce scale). 200 years, and it has taken over (almost) every- COMPOSITION, PLAYBACK, AND DIGITAL Ten years later, in January 1992, the MIDI Tuning thing. TECHNOLOGIES Standard (MTS) – an ultra-high-resolution speci- The foundations of most tuning systems were dis- fication for microtuning – was ratified by the MIDI covered by Greek philosopher and mathematician Today, ET is the default system for all fixed-tuning It seems fair to say that very few composers Manufacturers Association (MMA)*7) and included Pythagoras in the 6th century BC. The Pythagorean Western instruments (piano, guitar, most wind in- throughout history have been able to compose as an integral part of the MIDI spec itself. tuning system uses mathematical ratios, more spe- struments, etc.), including all analogue and digi- music completely in their mind, with only paper on cifically, ratios that can be obtained from the musi- tal music-making software or hardware that uses which to write it down. Composers have always Developed together with composers Robert Rich cal tetractys: 1, 2, 3, 4.*1) The ratios are relations of a piano­ keyboard as its principle input device or relied on some form of »playback,« whether that and Carter Scholz, MTS allows the use of both oc- string lengths and intervals: 2:1 to the octave; 3:2 grid. But the fact that it is the »default« does not be an instrument they play themselves, musicians tave-repeating and non-octave-repeating tunings to the fifth, and 4:3 to the fourth. mean it is neutral. to perform something written on paper, or a com- to a resolution of 0.0061 of a cent, which essen- puter. tially divides the octave into 196,608 equal parts. Almost all tuning systems since Pythagoras use the MUSICOLOGY AND NON-WESTERN MUSICS It also allows the changing of the tuning of one mathematics of ratios. It is generally considered After I began studying oud and relying on my ears or more notes in real-time, and even gives the that the larger their numbers, the less pure the re- When I began studying for my BA in Ethnomusi- for intonation, it became really difficult to use com- user the choice of changing all currently sound- sulting sound, hence the reverence of the ratios 2:1 cology at London’s School of Oriental and African puter playback for melodies that I would hear in my ing notes, or only the new notes that follow the (octave), 3:2 (fifth) and 4:3 (fourth) as pure, univer- Studies (SOAS), I quickly became interested in the mind, or that I would develop on the instrument it- tuning change message.*8) This is a phenomenal sal, and in harmony with nature. musicological research and analysis of the musics self. The playback just didn’t sound right. level of detail that covers all the melodic needs 59 of all musics­ from across the world, past, present, tions at the user’s disposal. You can have your mi- HOW MANY NOTES DO YOU USE? Therefore, as opposed to needing a MIDI con- and future. crotonal cake, but you can’t eat it too! troller that can give access to the full x number In the last pages of his complex book on tuning of divisions per octave, what is actually needed But… MICROTONALITY MISUNDERSTOOD systems around the world (written in 1943, revised is a software solution where certain selections of 1994), French historian and musicologist Alain the x number of divisions in a tuning system can The support of MTS within the implementation of The use of microtonality and non-equal tempera- Daniélou concludes that »within one octave we be accessed by a twelve-tone controller and be MIDI by software and hardware manufacturers is ments in the West has often focused on tuning sys- cannot discern more than twenty-two groups of changed at any given time, with or without affect- optional. There is in fact a long list of develo­pers tems that are based on just intonation and its vari- sounds having distinct expressive qualities,« and, ing previously played notes. and manufacturers that provide tuning capabilities ations (see the work of Harry Partch) or systems more importantly, that »all twenty-two divisions in their products: Dave Smith Instruments, Korg, that divide the octave into more than 12 equal parts cannot be used simultaneously in a mode, or in Basically, we need MTS to be properly and intel- Native Instruments, Steinberg, Yamaha, Roland, (see the Microtonal Etudes of Easley Blackwood). any melodic or harmonic combination. At the most ligently implemented, 25+ years after it was rati- u-he, Ensoniq, and Xfer Records are just the tip of But the way these systems are used is most often twelve, and at the least three.«*11) If we set aside fied. The key question here, though, is why it hasn’t the iceberg. In these cases, however, the issue is in line with how scales or keys are used in Western adventurous and experimental music that seeks been already. not whether they support it or not – it’s how. music composition, and the intervals of the scales to break the rules and discover new possibilities, are often treated as fixed, static relationships. Daniélou makes a profound point. The technology of today – and even of the last 30 Secondly, MTS messages are part of a MIDI data years – provides ample provisions to accommo- group called SysEx messages (System Exclusive). In the majority of cultures around the world, the What this helps us understand is that we don’t need date all that I have mentioned above, but it hasn’t Most Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) do not al- use of microtonality is embedded within music it- an input device (a MIDI controller, for example) that done so. I can only imagine that the trope of »lack low for SysEx data to be generated within them or self, in that the tuning systems are ratio-based. In provides more than 12 different notes in an octave of a market« is one that has been consistently le­ pass through them, nor to go from them and out to such contexts, the focus is on the relativity of notes as the main solution for microtonal composition velled at composers and researchers alike. But hardware.*9) The same applies for the majority of to the tonic (root note) and, more importantly, to or performance. More important is which divisions even when a market is identified, or when there is software instruments and samplers. each other. Most often the music is modal, and the within a chosen tuning system our input device is even just a simple realisation of the necessity to note relationships – and therefore the tunings – are triggering. make this provision, it seems that an acute misun- What this means for the practicing musician is that malleable, changing from region to region or even derstanding lies at the heart of its development – there is no unified tuning data system used by the from phrase to phrase within the same melodic se- Another important point to note is that the major- thanks to the Western-centric viewpoint taken on master controller/sequencer, i.e. DAW, and accept- quence. Traditional Arabic and North Indian Classi- ity of music around the world uses octave-repeat- the subject. ed by all hardware or software instruments, that al- cal musics are excellent examples. ing pentatonic (five-note) or diatonic (seven-note) lows the user to set, modify, or change the tuning scales or modes, with some including the use of MICROTONALITY MISIMPLEMENTED across some or all channels, even though this ca- In contemporary music making, microtonality has accidentals. For example: Indian music’s tuning pability exists within MIDI, the unifying language mostly been treated in a similar way to the divide system theoretically uses 22 divisions in an octave As I mentioned earlier, many software and hard- used by all devices. Instead, tunings need to be set between East Coast and West Coast synthesizer (Śrutis), but in practice, the Rāgas are diatonic and ware manufacturers have made provisions to in- on an instrument-by-instrument basis in accord- inventors Moog and Buchla. Bob Moog used a pi- only occasionally do specific ones use extra notes clude microtonal capabilities in their products. The ance with its manufacturers’ implementation, and ano keyboard tuned to ET and Don Buchla used as accidentals, which gives us approximately 8 or pre-loaded tuning files are often generous and in- very often on a preset-by-preset basis. This is to- touch-sensitive plates, giving users the choice of 9 distinct pitches per octave. To get a chromatic clude many historical, modern, and non-Western tally counterintuitive and creatively inhibitive. either rigid ET or free-for-all pitching – a dualis- scale, as is used in Western music today, a maxi- tunings. Unfortunately, though, when any such tun- tic paradigm, essentially. Black or white. Auto-Tune mum of 12 distinct pitches is necessary. ing is loaded up, it is impossible to know how it is A wonderful Dutch mind by the human name of Ma- or Aphex Twin. By this I mean that the way micro- supposed to be used. There is often no documen- nuel Op de Coul invented a digital tuning file for- tonality has been mostly understood, and there- Lastly, the majority of music around the world uses tation on what these tunings are, what their val- mat called Scala, which can be used across the fore often implemented in hardware and software, solmization, the attribution of distinct syllables to ues are, which note on the keyboard they start on... majority of devices available today. Unfortunate- is asymmetrical. It is most often viewed from the each pitch in a scale or a mode, whilst also re­ nothing. The maximum we can find is a little bit of ly, though, it doesn’t solve the issue of getting the perspective of modern Western music-making. Its cognising that the actual values of those pitches a blurb about each tuning in the manuals, but even data to the instrument at any given time. roots, and how the early systems have evolved into can change depending on which mode is being this is usually trivial. many rich ways of making music across the globe, played. These solmization systems are almost al- Lastly, the biggest problem is that DAWs or soft- are less often taken into account. ways diatonic (Modern Western: C, D, E, F, G, A, B; Secondly, the tunings are loaded up and spread ware and hardware instruments lack support for European: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si; Indian: Sa, Re, across the 12-tone piano keyboard/piano roll re- adjusting tunings, and for changing tuning presets Another misconception is that microtonal music Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni), and most of them are adapted gardless of the number of divisions and regardless in real-time, even though this is well accommo- or non-equal temperament tunings sound »out today to include chromatic variations going up to of the way these tunings are supposed to be used dated in MIDI as part of MTS. This may sound like of tune.« While it’s true that a lot of experimental 12 notes per octave (C#, Do diesis, etc.). (which, as I described above, involves choosing nit-picking, but I will get to why this is important Western microtonal composition does sound dis- only certain values for certain notes to create spe- further on. sonant, a lot of it does not.*10) More importantly, the This all goes to prove the accuracy of Daniélou’s cific modes or scales). majority of music around the world is based on mi- observations and tells us that we are almost there. There are a couple of exceptions to the above: crotonal systems that sound perfectly consonant, The result is that almost any tuning loaded immedi- Steinberg’s Cubase and Nuendo include a MIDI if somewhat unusual. Indonesian gamelan is a per- Whilst there is obviously a need for the develop- ately feels unusable in any sense other than weird, ­plugin called Micro Tuner, which allows for the tu­ fect example. ment of MIDI controllers that allow for the tactile exotic, or »other.« This applies just as much to his- ning of individual virtual instruments on their own input of more than 12 notes per octave (see H-Pi torical and modern Western tunings as it does to channels, but the tunings aren’t easily switchable. Lastly and most importantly when it comes to mu- Instruments’s MegaPlex), the majority of non-West- those from across the globe. Apple’s Logic also allows the user to set a mas- sic-making is the misconception that all the notes ern, and even experimental-Western, musics can ter tuning in the »project preferences.« But even in in any given tuning system need to be available for be accommodated using the standard MIDI piano That the inclusion of such capabilities is so token- this scenario, the tuning information can only be the musician to use at all times. It is precisely this keyboard controller available worldwide, and for istic and counter-intuitive is really a shame. Ra­ applied to Logic’s native instruments. Both allow that has held back the implementation of an intui- very cheap. ther than allowing users to discover such wonder- non-ET tuning, then, but both limit the sonic op- tive and accessible microtonal solution today. ful worlds and experiment with them, tunings are 61 treated like stocking-fillers, used to make the main a misconception that the Arabic musical system ­»exotic,« i.e. »other,« that continues to perpetuate composers, and musicians from Greece, China, gift seem bigger and more exciting, knowing they is based on quarter tones, i.e. an octave divided a cultural asymmetry in the tools for cultural pro- Iraq, Iran, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Eng- will be thrown aside within minutes of opening. into 24 equal parts. This is a grave misunderstand- duction, understanding, and engagement. land, America, and many more. In the 20th and More importantly, this »othering,« whether inno- ing and has led to the norm of musicians using 21st centuries it has been developed and studied cent or intentional, is detrimental on many levels. electronic instruments to tune their »quarter tones« If MTS was fully accommodated and properly in great depth, but sadly still remains elusive and to -50 cents, which is not only incorrect but also supported as its inventors Robert Rich and Cart- shrouded in unnecessary mystery. THE PERVASIVENESS OF ET AND CULTURAL sounds horrendous. er Scholz had envisioned, I am certain that there HEGEMONY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY would be a marked difference in the amount of It must also be stated that the treatment and ren- COMMA: AN ATTEMPT AT A WORKAROUND non-hegemonic music available today. I am also dering of the subject is also overtly, if not exclu- The persistence of ET has been astounding. It has certain that the progress and development of non- sively, male-dominated. Aside from composers homogenised and tainted music from across the After years of research and study, I took things into Western music would have been far less inhibited. Elaine Walker, Jacky Ligon, and Ellen Arkbro, in all world. Whilst all music makers are pushing to be my own hands and started developing Comma, the And that cultural and individual identity in adven- of my research on this topic I have come across as original and inventive as possible, they are all Max4Live device at the heart of my current work – turous experimental music would not be limited to very few female contributors to related theoretical submitting to the rigid whitewashing of equal tem- fully aware that it itself is a workaround. the First World. or creative output. perament without questioning it. Kawalees: Part II, the microtonal virtual/acoustic CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS: MIDI 2.0 Tuning is a subject is that should be about the ce­ The truth is, for the majority of music being made piano project that I will present at CTM this year, lebration of difference – of cultures, ideas, me­ today, (especially that which uses exclusively elec- was created using and is performed live with Com- Surprisingly the MIDI specification officially re- thods, opinions, and tastes. It should also be about tronic melodic instruments), unless the music fea- ma – as are many of the other experiments I am mains at 1.0, despite having gained significant en- the celebration of choice, the choice of individuals tures key changes and modulations, ET is totally working on at the moment. It is the culmination of hancements throughout the last 30+ years (its last to sound however they please. unnecessary. With the technology available today, my musical persistence (read: hard-headedness), significant update was in March 2017). But on No- the issues of harmony that faced 17th-century com- and the result of a belief that things can be differ- vember 6, 2018, the MMA announced that a major Modern technology, as much as it seems neutral posers are long gone. We can easily and practi- ent. update was being planned, with many new compa- and empowering, is heavily laden with cultural and cally have any tuning, in any key, at any time, with nies joining, including Ableton and Native Instru- political asymmetries that often go unnoticed and the press of the button. We just need to affect the Comma is designed to allow real-time tuning and ments. unchallenged. In the field of music, its hegemonic change. real-time changing of tuning presets of any virtual reality is destructive, though wrapped in bows of instrument, sampler, or external hardware instru- Apparently, this new update will include »in-de- promised modernisation and advancement. Just as ET is the grid of melody, the quantisation of inflec- ment. But it isn’t perfect. mand options: auto-configuration, new DAW/Web we are learning to become warier of gender and tion and expression, the squaring of melodic iden- integrations, extended resolution, increased ex- racial inequalities, we need also to attune our an- tity. Its seemingly innocent incremental values of Aside from the bugs, it currently only works for pressiveness, and tighter timing – all while main- tennas to cultural inequality. A default »zero« for 100, 200, 300 cents, etc. exude a faux-neutrality 12-tone octave repeating tunings, and the tuning taining a high priority on backward compatibili- one culture does not necessarily mean the same that has become normalised and accepted as »de- data must initially be set manually. The other ma- ty.«*12) It is most likely that this development is what for another. fault.« jor issue is that it has to use MIDI Pitch Bend as a will lead to a thorough adoption of MPE (MIDI Poly- work­around for the actual microtuning (as do many phonic Expression), the future of MIDI based con- And so we continue to persist, and to persevere in It has invaded our very core to the point where, other such solutions), which makes multi-voice or trollers, as already seen in the likes of Roli’s Sea- our persistence, towards the reverence of differ- in today’s mainstream, every single note or sound polyphonic applications a little cumbersome. board Rise. MPE essentially allows for every note ence, of individuality, of fretlessness, and the ac- is being tempered. The paradox is that major tun- to be treated independently, meaning every note ceptance that »we« should mean all – not some, ing software like Antares’ Auto-Tune, Waves Tune, Regardless of these disadvantages, having Com- can have its own CC values (mod, sustain, etc.), and definitely not most. and Celemony’s Melodyne all provide non-equal ma at my disposal has finally opened the door I pitch bend, and so on. It is the ultimate method for temperament tuning capabilities. Yes, that’s right: have been banging on for many years. I am finally allowing maximum musical expression in the pro- it is possible to auto-tune your next trap hit using able to experiment and feel my way through ide- gramming or performance of digitally created mu- the Werckmeister III tuning, Indonesian Slendro, as intuitively and creatively. The Arab maqam sys- sic using MIDI controllers. or Wendy Carlos’s Alpha, which divides the oc- tem I have been studying for the last 15 years is fi- tave into 15.385 parts! But due to the combination nally unlocked in unlimited timbres, colours and But what is the use of all these developments if the of misguided implementation, musicians’ lack of shades, allowing me to explore it in compositional basics of certain musical concepts, such as tun- knowledge and understanding of tuning systems, and sonic ways I could only have dreamed of. ings, and the needs of non-Western musics are so and the overly technical presentations and discus- misunderstood, if not even systematically ignored? Scan this QR code to stream Khyam’s curated playlist of sions of microtonality throughout the years, these ANGLO-EUROPEAN-NORMATIVITY AND microtonal music to accompany this article. possibilities are almost completely disregarded MULTICULTURAL TOKENISM CONCLUSION and often impossible to employ correctly. KHYAM ALLAMI is a multi-instrumentalist musician and Even though MIDI has provided the perfect tech- As we have seen, the subject of tunings goes back composer. He is currently undertaking an AHRC M3C- When looking at non-Western music, the disaster nological foundations for the accurate support and millennia and includes very detailed and specific funded PhD in composition at the Royal Birmingham Con- of ET is even more painful. Not only have microton- implementation of complex tuning systems from contributions from revered philosophers, theorists, servatoire, UK. More on his work can be found at: al tuning systems been bastardised, but listeners’ across the world since 1992, it is still to this day physicists, mathematicians, scholars, engineers, » www.khyamallami.com and musicians’ ears have also been compromised. neglected and misunderstood. I would even go as In the Arab world today, I don’t know a single mu- far as to say that the continued tokenistic inclu- sician that doesn’t use a tuner – set to the default sion of microtonal capabilities in contemporary *1) A triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. *2) James Murray Barbour, Tuning and Temperament: A Historical Survey (Mineola: Dover Publications, 1951), chapter 4. *3) Cris Forster, Musical Mathematics: On the Art and Science of Acous- ET – to tune their instrument. This means that the music software unconsciously maintains the per- tic Instruments (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2010), section 11.46, p. 611. *4) For a great summary, see Ross W. Duffin, How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) (New York, NY: W. W. Norton, 2007). *5) www.midi.org/articles/midi-history-chapter-6-midi-is-born-1980–83 *6) Ibid.­ fundamental tuning of their open strings is set to ET vasion of Western orientalism in the fields of both *7) www.midi.org/articles-old/microtuning-and-alternative-intonation-systems *8) www.microtonal-synthesis.com/MIDItuning.html *9) Reaper is the only exception, as far as I’m aware. *10) For an excellent discussion about this, see Douglas Keislar, Easley Blackwood, John Eaton, Lou Harrison, Ben Johnston, and that their intonation is therefore manipulated. culture and technology. It is precisely this latent Joel Mandelbaum, and William Schottstaedt, »Six American Composers on Nonstandard Tunings,« Perspectives of New Music, 29(1) (1991), p. 176. *11) Alain Daniélou, Music and the Power of Sound: The Influence of Tuning and Interval on Consciousness (Rochester VT: Inner Traditions International, 1995), p. 247. The Arab world is suffering even more because of indifference towards what is seen as »ethnic« and *12) www.midi.org/articles-old/new-mma-members-and-new-mma-specs 63

The ARK project began as a drum-machine choir, thrown together ARKESTRATED RHYTHMACHINE in 2018 on the occasion of an exhibition at the Museum of Applied Arts in Hamburg: Mobile Welten oder das Museum unserer transkulturel- KOMPLEXITIES: len Gegenwart [Mobile Worlds or The Museum of Our Transcultural Present], a motley assembly of quaint old-fashioned machines, speak- MACHINIC GEISTERSTUNDE ers, and carrying cases coated in imitation leather or wood veneers, playing synthesised rhythms at the push of a button. It is the epitome AND POST-SOUL PERSISTENCIES of some kind of pseudo techno aesthetic, a sleek machinic imitation of seemingly human artisanship. But there is more to it than meets ARK the eye. Something pervades these unimposing apparatuses like a te- nacious swathe of mist, billowing through their corroded circuits, clinging stubbornly to their dusty surfaces. That’s how it is, with ghosts and machines. Not that the ARK drum-machine choir seeks to exorcise or invoke any ghosts in the machine. It simply lets these restless machinic souls pop up and play their part. It aims to make of them its familiars. Let’s celebrate the machinic Geisterstunde [witch- ing hour]!

But hold on! »Drum machines have no soul!« This pattern is a form of anti-teleological temporal per- old reproach is as persistent as any belief in ghosts sistence. It holds (onto) something inasmuch as it in the machine. And as, for example, Louis Chude- keeps it in perpetual motion. And this something Sokei has recently shown, it imbues the notion of thereby also steps out of line. It drifts. Rhythmic machine with a recurrent diehard trauma. Since time is not hauntologically awestruck by the sub- time immemorial, »The soul« has served as a bru- limity of unredeemed futures past. For it knows that tal battleground for negotiations over »humanity,« such futures always have been, are still, and will one on which a white-male-dominated so-called forever be nestled in the present. »humanism« has denied a soul to all that it deems technologically or racially »other.« Which is why, So just what is it that so persistently clings to when Kodwo Eshun wrote his manifesto More Bril- and pervades these machines, refusing to be dis- liant Than The Sun some twenty years ago, he cele- pelled? Which Post-soul ghosts haunt their sounds brated Post-soul machinic musics as »anti-human- and patterns, or flit around their casings? Perhaps ist« in the emancipatory sense of the term, that is, the truly spooky thing about these machines is how as a sonic refutation of the endlessly brutal pro- much they want us to believe in those little ghosts duction of difference that goes on in the name of a of their own, within them. Certainly this drum-ma- tremulously soulful »humanity.« chine choir invokes the ancient forebears. Long button bars of rhythms conjured on the dusty cas- This is also why the ARK drum-machine choir choos- ing of machines from the 1960s and 70s go un- es not to pursue a classic, glossy, technoid aes- der the name »Afro« or »Latin American,« for ex- thetic. Once again, the Post-soul machine takes a ample. Pre-set categories that, at the mere flick of very different path than the chest-beating, macho, a switch, neatly divide the world of rhythm into a and kitsch techno fetishism of long-outdated futur- discrete series of supposedly clearly rooted pat- isms – kitted out in crumbling vinyl and fake wood terns, and that serve thus to preserve and perpet- veneers instead of highly polished chrome. The fu- uate cultural concepts based on a long-obsolete ture here is no longer synonymous with a teleologi- notion of linear genealogy. These simple switch- cal march headed for apocalypse across the killing es can be read all of a sudden as a postcoloni- fields of history. The future now takes the form of al atlas. They render navigable a wieldy collection rhythmic revolutions per minute in a variety of tem- of allegedly »roots« rhythmic idioms, put a handle poral dimensions. The future is the sheer potential to them, quasi, to make a conveniently packaged

The panel of preset-buttons of the Maestro Rhythm King for other and diverse temporalities. Any rhythmic takeaway. Lineage and ancestry are newly recon- MRK-1. Photo: Hendrik Frank. 65

Top: The preset switch of the Wurlitzer Sideman, the first mass-produced electro-mechanical rhythm machine. Photo: Hendrik Frank. Bottom: A stack of rhythm-machines: the Keio Rockmate, Wurlitzer Swinging Rhythm, BOSS Dr-55, Ace Tone Rhythm Ace FR-2L, Wilgavox 2000. Photo: Hendrik Frank. figured from a pile of transistors, diodes, and resis- plexity than the strict binary counter of the crotch- tors. Yet it is precisely this belief in linear geneal- et, quaver, semiquaver, and so on. So let’s hear it ogy that drives the brutal phantom of distinctions now, one more time: funk has always already been made on grounds of ethnicity and »race« deep into a most complex time machine. the depths of these seemingly innocent and in- genuous machines. And such distinctions are not The devices assembled in the ARK drum-machine found there alone, but also in the latest updates of choir are somewhat younger than the still classi- electronic and digital Musicking Things, the inter- cally modern Rhythmicon, all dating from the 60s faces of which to this day drool with ethno kitsch. and 70s of the last century. And ironically, they do precisely that for which old-fashioned rhythm the- Simultaneously, however, the pattern’s unbroken ory was just – for funk’s sake – reproached above: revolutions per minute or the machines’ incessant namely, they measure musical time by a binary operation blurs the latent brutality of such defin- beat. An array of proto-digital circuitry is hidden itudes, or better: even renders them ambiguous. within their veneer-coated wood cases: cascad- When machines suddenly began grooving in the ing rows of binary switches that are tasked with 1970s – in the hands of Sly Stone or Little Sister, the technical translation of the unceasing passage Shuggie Otis or Eddie Harris, to name but a few – of phenomenological time into a disjunctive se- »getting into the groove« initially and primarily im- quence of singly addressable points in time. One plied riding high on rhythmic ambiguities. Rhythm of the most passionate debates in the philoso- may on the one hand mean nothing but taking the phy of time is turned into hardware at the heart of exact measure of musical time, but it is this act pre- these machines, without skipping a beat. Rhyth- cisely – that of definitively quantifying time – that mic time is technical time is switchable time. In allows time itself to be given shape. Groove is ac- the rhythm machines of the 1960s and 70s we find cordingly the creative play with and within the am- a phenomenon which, in computer technology of biguities that occur in the interstices of any strict that same period, had long-since disappeared be- beat. While the binary counter of classical music low the narrow frequency bands of human percep- theory eradicates such interstices – or in-between tion: time is technically discretised, and at such a spaces, one might say – machinic interplay lets speed, moreover, as to span a new (dis-)continuum their patterns groove. of technical feasibility above and beyond the gap- ridden sequence of points in time. Funk has always already been a machine in this regard. And the reverse likewise holds true, as in: Hence, technical circuitry too opens up an inter- technology has always already been funky, inas- stice, an in-between space that is vastly more com- much as it can never be reduced solely to the logic plex and diverse than its strictly binary ambiguity of its circuitry, i.e. to its technologic. So let’s spin ever suggests. Eleni Ikoniadou writes that »Rhythm that one more time: funk has always already been a may be one way humans have of accessing the machine. Just take, for instance, Anne Danielsen’s subsistence of a more ‘ghostly’ or subterranean work on the pleasure politics of James Brown and temporality lurking in the shadows of the actual- Parliament/Funkadelic. Take Tony Bolden’s work on ised digital event« (Ikoniadou 2014, 7) in this era the kinetic epistemologies of funk. Funk has always of universal digitisation, in her view, rhythm – and ranked among the most progressive rhythm tech- hence technical time, too – becomes the Geister- nologies ever deployed to interweave several di- stunde [witching hour] of the undead fuzziness of vergent temporal levels in the strictly binary-based binary code. In the latter’s timing, a specific ghost- logical beat of established music theory. »Every- liness of the still supposedly soulless realm of (not body on The One!« On the fundamental count of only digital) technology becomes apparent. For »The One,« everything comes (back) together. Be- after all, even the strictest binary switching takes fore and after that there is room for all kinds of time, just as the smoothest ever technical process- cross- and counter-rhythmic complexities, but ing takes time. But technical operating time, one they all come (back) together on »The One.« In- of the primary features of any technology, is a key cidentally, the Rhythmicon – the first ever elec- guideline for any »human« operational procedures, tronic rhythm machine that the avant-garde com- as anyone who has ever found themselves stuck in poser Henry Cowell commissioned Leon Theremin front of a frozen monitor knows. Rhythm is haunted to build for him around 1930 – works in a similar by the Post-soul Maschinenseele [machinic soul]. yet totally different fashion, simultaneously letting What this might mean for sound culture can be loose sixteen different rhythmic pulses that, as in gleaned for example from Sly & The Family Stone’s the overtone series, make an integral multiple of a uncanny album of 1971, There’s A Riot Going On. basic beat. Cowell used the machine to develop Without his Family Stone, indeed more or less ex- a kind of rhythmic harmonics; and he also strove clusively accompanied by his non-human Maestro to compose rhythmic constructs of greater com- Rhythm King – or funk box, as he lovingly called it­ –­ 67

­Sly rasps his way through a fantastically spine-tin- a non-human memory: rhythmatic random-access Top: The Korg/Keio Minipops 3 (left) and one of its many copycats, the Aria Diamond. Photo: Hendrik Frank. gling multi-track duet with himself on »Just Like memory. Against the backdrop of such rhythmic Bottom: The Korg Rhythm 33. Photo: Hendrik Frank. A Baby,« albeit swathed in the protective drapes memories, the currently pressing questions about of tape noise. The same rhythm machine runs in the potential for new collectives in light of digital absolute slow motion also during Shuggie Otis’s cultures may well take a different course. However, spectrally drawn-out instrumental track »Pling,« on the witching hour that the choir announces marks a his Inspiration Information LP of 1974. Otis stretch- call neither for techno-utopian hopes nor machinic es to the max that in-between time of the rhythm voodoo likely to appease the destructive forces of machine while throwing in some tough and tight technological agency. The ARK choir aims instead Fender Rhodes chords for good measure. And it’s to familiarise itself with those distressed and ee- probably nothing other than a Maestro Rhythm King rie patterns and problems disgorged in the most clattering away below the mighty horns on Bob unexpected places by that »difference machine« Marley & The Wailer’s Rastafari proclamation »So known as humankind: those built from a heap of Jah Seh,« likewise from 1974. transistors and resistors, for example, and packed into slowly yellowing plastic coatings. These early forms of machinic music never stood in awe of the shift-shaping ghosts in the machine. They simply played along with them, invited them to join the band, took them seriously as non-hu- man players. Hence the recordings and gigs of that era attest to wholly new collectives built around ARK (Arkestrated Rhythmachine Complexities) is a the machines – collectives that functioned in other changing association of musicians, producers, writers, sci- ways than the familial model of the band. In 1972, entists, and electronic MusickingThings, who*which per- at the height of the Vietnam War, Timmy Thomas form heterochronicity and multi-track knowledge, looking sat down alone at his electronic Lowrey Organ with for post-representative sound formats. It consists, among its in-built drum patterns and asked: »Why can’t we other, of Johannes Ismaiel-Wendt, Sebastian Kunas, Malte live together?« There may be a certain pathos to Pelleter, the Maestro Rhythm King, Sarah-Indriyati Hard- channelling major questions about the potential jowirogo, Ole Schwabe, and the Wurlitzer Side Man. for (no longer only human) co-existence through a few trivial technical devices – and yet, on the oth- REFERENCES er hand, Anna Loewenhaupt Tsing’s parable, The Mushroom At The End of The World (2017) marks a → Bolden, Tony, »Groove Theory: A Vamp on the most urgent endeavour, if not so much to answer Epistemology of Funk«. In: American Studies, 52(4) these haunting questions then at least to articulate (2013), p. 9–34. them afresh; for the anthropologist draws artfully on → Chude-Sokei, Louis, The Sound of Culture. Dias- the matsutake mushroom to explore a radical post- pora and Black Technopoetics (Middletown: Wes- anthropomorphic collective. In light of this unlikely leyan University Press, 2016). candidate, a mushroom that thrives in landscapes → Danielsen, Anne, Presence and Pleasure. The disrupted or ruined by capitalism, Loewenhaupt Funk Grooves of James Brown and Parliament Tsing inquires into what it might mean to live with (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2006). all the uncertainties that accompany the inescap- → Eshun, Kodwo, More Brilliant than the Sun. Ad- able co-existence of so-called humankind and all ventures in Sonic Fiction (London: Quartet Books, other creatures on a ravaged Planet Earth. (1998). → Ikoniadou, Eleni, The Rhythmic Event. Art, Media, The ARK drum-machine choir makes a similar en- and the Sonic (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2014). deavour but by other means. The machines it as- → Ismaiel-Wendt, Johannes, tracks ‘n’ treks. Pop- sembles are all allowed to bring along the faces uläre Musik und Postkoloniale Analyse (Münster: and ghosts that stubbornly haunt them. Yet their Unrast, 2011). incantatory revolving patterns sing the praises nei- → Loewenhaupt Tsing, Anna, The Mushroom at the ther of the motherland nor of ancient forebears but End of the World. On the Possibility of Life in Capi- of the critical knowledge circling palpably on their talist Ruins (Princeton: Princeton University Press, surfaces, detectable in their sounds: a knowledge 2017). of the legitimacy of technological agency; a knowl- edge of the incessant flow of topophilia and the lo- Translated from the German by Jill Denton, Berlin. calisation patterns of sound technologies (Ismaiel- Wendt 2011); and, not least, a knowledge of the depredations and traumata spawned by »human« constructions of difference. The rhythm pattern is 69

Nusasonic is a multi-year project that plunges into a broad spectrum 200 BPM ORGASM of experimental sound and music cultures in Southeast Asia. Dur- ing the initiative's 2018 kick-off in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, CTM co- CLUB MUSIC founder Jan Rohlf spoke to Bali-based duo Gabber Modus Operandi, who create potent fusions of club music and Indonesian tradition.

GABBER MODUS OPERANDI IN The duo describe their love of footwork, jathilan, and gabber; the CONVERSATION WITH JAN ROHLF thrill of Indonesian soundsystem culture; and colonialism’s persis- tent legacy.

KASIMYN We’re Gabber Modus Operandi, cur- JR Can you explain what jathilan is? rently based in Bali. We play… IH It’s like a trance dance in which a spirit pos- ICAN HAREM 200bpm orgasm club music! That’s sesses your body – an animal spirit, mostly. It chal- our goal. lenges our humanness to become more animal and wild. There are no rules, and it’s filled with really KAS Gabber Modus Operandi explores sound crazy movement. It emerged from a really common healing and sarcasm sounds. We want to exam- Javanese culture. Nowadays a lot of jathilan just ine the differences between the sacred, the stu- happens in the corner of someone’s house, per- pid, and the fun. formed by someone in a trance.

JAN ROHLF Where do these interests come from? Do JR So what you do is close to something like contempo- you both come from punk backgrounds? rary folk culture?

KAS Yeah, we’re punk musicians, but I’d some- IH I’m afraid to say »contemporary« and »folk,« how ended up as a house DJ in Bali. I didn’t find actually. that so challenging, and eventually Gabber Modus Operandi started from a discussion we had about KAS We don’t really want to say that we celebrate what we wanted to do. these things, exactly. We just want to take part in them, somehow. One of our friends actually said, IH We started playing at random punk gigs in the »you have higher education than these guys. Why library in Denpasar [the capital of Bali]; it was kind do you want to be part of this?« of an accident. The first time we played together was because of one of my projects – my partner In the end, it’s about jealousy. We have a real jeal- back in the day cancelled three hours before a gig, ousy towards people who can genuinely enjoy their so I asked Kas to help me. The answer was yes. culture without all the filters that we have – com- plaints about the DJ, the outfit, the sound, or the KAS We don’t actually have very much gabber venue. All of these questions bring you out of the stuff, so we just push everything to 200 bpm. And experience. it sounds better. This also emerged from late-night discussions we had about how we work and what IH It’s kind of like a rave. These motherfuckers are we’re interested in – we’re both excited about all of raving harder than us! these street improvisations happening across In- donesia. Both of us love jathilan [a traditional ritu- KAS There’s no flyer, no lineup, and no main star alistic Indonesian trance dance], but we don’t real- that you need to wait for. It’s just constant beats ly appreciate it with the whole cultural outfit. We’re and sounds that can suddenly flip and do batshit more interested in how it is practiced by people things without even needing to be categorised by on the street. any genre or style. This also applies to the the fash- ion; people wear stuff that is completely unrelated We love it when kids wearing Sepultura or Rancid to the jathilan tradition. Someone might wear… t-shirts and Adidas shoes are suddenly doing jathi- lan. It’s the best crossover. IH A black metal t-shirt. Customized scooter in Bali. Photo: alithieslarymnas blog. IH It’s like mixing subcultures. 71

KAS And the next guy is wearing Yonex – it’s like, demonic speeds. The best part is that they deco- »how?!« You wouldn’t see that kind of crowd in the rate them; it’s just mind-blowing. They might use club, at least not in my kind of circle. patterns like those seen on fabrics on buffalos at Karapan Sapi [a traditional bull racing festival on JR I guess that’s what I mean by folk culture – you take the island of Madura], but they carve them into the what’s available to you in your surroundings, and you bike, like on a Kris [a traditional dagger that might make some kind of collage, crafting what’s important to be a weapon or a spiritual object]. Maybe they you. What is your process in playing with these elements? started copying Japanese styles, but then realised, »oh, we’re Indonesian, we love to carve things,« KAS We try to set out rules. First, everything and they end up creating these weirdly decorated needs to be pentatonic, because Indonesian mu- neon and chrome bikes. These street improvisa- sic is based on pentatonic scales. And most of the tions are one of our main inspirations. folk music in Indonesia uses fast bpms. We tried 100bpm and it wasn’t working. So we looked at tra- JR What I admire about all of that stuff is that people ditional music and realised it is all very fast. Some are creating their own worlds – their own means of ex- part of us, our inner demons or something, just isn’t pression. They take from many sources, of course, but then sparked by 100 or 120 bpm stuff, by balearic house transform it and make it their own. music, or chill-out. IH It’s like a cultural orgy. So the rules are that we start at 200 bpm, use pen- tatonic scales only, and use certain sounds that JR You definitely seem most fascinated by anything replicate things from the past, like the trumpet. The that’s strong, brazen, outrageous, and crazy. beat is kind of constant, but we make it sound like it’s on steroids through digital sound effects. And IH I guess that’s because Bali tends to present Ican provides provocations as the MC. softer sounds, like bikini music or koplo house.

IH It’s more demonic. If you see our folk culture, KAS It’s touristy, we need to feed the tour- there’s always something like a handshake with a ist pocket. There’s this thing called »ketimuran,« demon. That’s the point. I love that part. which is meant to describe an Eastern mentality. People who talk like that don’t actually know what We’ve been influenced a lot by stuff like Senyawa, the fuck’s happening in the East. There’s a lot of vi- who opened up so many new pathways for Indo- olence, certainly sonically – if jathilan was played nesian music. on a proper sound system, then I think it would be more intense than any other sound. But they just KAS It’s so weird that we got to release on Yes No have this crap stuff, like what you have for wed- Wave Music – the same label as Senyawa. dings, and with that it’s already very intense. If one of the jathilan groups played on a club system, it There’s this post-Senyawa Indo stuff happening would destroy everything. now, which has inspired a lot of people who have realised, »it’s ok to be Indonesian!« It’s ok to pro- There’s this new trend around DIY sound culture duce sounds that don’t sound like Miami or Berlin. happening across central to east Java, where peo- They proved that we can be accepting of it. ple make their own sound systems, load a stack of speakers onto a truck, and just blast them. There’s a big identity crisis for Indonesian kids, maybe even Southeast Asian kids. When people IH They meet and blast their big sound systems. say »underground,« it’s always referring to stuff The day before Idul Fitri [an Islamic holiday that from the outside world – in hiphop it’s about »oh, marks the end of Ramadhan], all of these sound are you playing in a Brooklyn style, or West Coast systems come to this one field and battle, blasting style?« Or some techno guy will claim to play Ber- »Allahu Akbar« and »bang bang bang, ddrrrrang…« lin style... It’s like a blessing – Islamic culture, but with mon- strous DIY sound systems and dangdut [the most JR You want to find something – or maybe you’ve al- widespread pop music in Indonesia, with roots in ready found it – something that expresses what Indonesia local musical traditions]. is for you? KAS There’s definitely a hunger for loudness. KAS Yeah, these elements of contemporary Indo- I asked one of the people involved, »what is the nesian culture are right there. They’re all around us main goal?« The answer was, »if we see a neigh- – we just usually don’t think about them, and don’t bor’s window broken, that’s enough.« I thought that Gabber Modus Operandi with banner by recognize them. For example, some kids street was amazing, I love these small, genuine goals. Alwa Art Spanduk. Photo courtesy of the race. They use regular 100cc scooters, basically artists. a mum’s scooter, since that’s all they can afford. JR Could you speak a bit more about this contrast? There They are boosting them, cranking them up to really is this stereotype of politeness, on the one hand, that is 73

­projected as an »official« image, while on the other, there IH I guess it started from funkot. Funkot is really KAS There’s a lot of experimentation in Bali. JR And this environment also brings about different mu- is all this anarchic street culture that often seems rather similar to happy hardcore in Europe, but based on There’s a guy who makes this weird, synth pop sic? rough and disturbing – at least from the outside. Do you different rhythm styles and bass lines that are clos- stuff, but at the same time there are a few amaz- think that tension is not expressed enough? er to dangdut. I only recently started listening to ing composers, like Dewa Alit, Wayan Gde Yudane, KAS Yes, it’s on its way. There is a fetish of being gabber when a friend of mine from France told me or Made Subandi. I once saw Yudane put a mas- really stuck in one genre – it’s always punk or met- KAS I don’t think there’s much of a discussion that our funkot really sounds like these Thunder- sive angle grinder to a giant gong, it was next lev- al. I think it’s related to how society works there; about this, really. But I think Indonesia is a coun- dome records. And when I listen to this stuff, I was el stuff! Or Dewa Alit, who, for example, created a small caste system still exists. It’s not »official,« try that’s dealt with a lot of catastrophe. Histori- like, yeah, this is actually really similar to funkot. a piece for 9 performers, playing with the after- but people still look at you differently depending cally, there’s Krakatoa, the volcano that erupted I used to be really into psytrance, but Kas wasn’t. sounds of gamelan with different tunings. on your name. Now it’s slowly starting to dissipate, and killed half the population. Then there was the He said, fuck, we need gabber. Its energy is much and there are some amazing musicians crossing 2004 tsunami which killed an estimated 160,000. more evil. This doesn’t really suit the tourists. It is not like this castes. So death is really close; it’s always with us. And could officially represent »Indonesian culture,« yet, in this dangerous place, where you could die KAS But also we’re influenced a lot by footwork so they don’t really want to deal with Jakarta. You IH People used to only visit Bali as a pleasure at any time, there is also an abundance of resourc- – we grew up hearing a lot of percussive sounds. need the approval of [the Ministry of Culture in] Ja- place – it was kind of the end of hippie trails from es. A lot of food, energy, and minerals. I think that’s It’s familiar. Ultimately, we don’t really know if we karta to represent Indonesia. So it’s mostly DIY, but India. But now we found techno people, and broad- what creates this contrast, but that’s just my per- play gabber… now they’ve gotten their own funding. Dewa Alit is er cultural discussions. It’s not just people finding sonal gut feeling. now at MIT [in Boston, USA]. Yudane did a project spirituality or being surfers, and we’ve been influ- IH The name »Gabber« is kind of a joke. We’re in New Zealand. So personally, I think experimen- enced a lot by that. Now, there are other reasons JR And do you find this contrast and tension expressed in the mocking this seminal Yogyakarta new media art tal music from Bali is more established outside of to come to Bali. current versions of jathilan, and in other popular youth cultures collective from the 90s; they called themselves Bali. They could not really spread their ideas in Bali, like punk, metal, gabber, etc.? Is Gabber Modus Operandi some- Geber Modus Operandi. because it falls in a sensitive area between the cul- JR You said the funkot parties are too dangerous – what how your way of navigating this? tural norm and the traditional kind of stuff. would happen if you played there? KAS They were really important for the develop- IH It sucks when people see us and think, »oh ment of underground new media arts in Indonesia. But one of the reasons why we love Bali so much IH I guess they would accept what we do for they’re Indonesian guys, so they’re polite.« I don’t is that it’s one of the places that still lives with sure, and they’d maybe even be kind of happy. But agree with stuff like that. I mean, I grew up in a re- IS When we were making fun of it, it became Gab- music. There’s a social system called Banjar, [so- they’re really sexist. We’re too soft to hear that. ally Islamic environment. When I found music, it ber Modus. cial groups that host community meetings, sports, became my way of reclaiming myself. The mother- dance, and music at places they run, which are KAS There is a strong gang mentality, too. You fucker is dangerous now – I think that’s the source JR How are things for you in Bali? Do you feel like mav- known as Bale Banjar], each of which brings hun- bump into one and you have to mess with the of the power and that is my manifesto. ericks, or is there a group of like-minded people around dreds of people together to play gamelan. whole gang. you – a scene of artists making fast, energetic music? KAS I think this gets assigned both ways. What’s IH Don’t forget to mention the techno banjar! Be- IH If we agreed to play somewhere, I guess the projected onto us by outsiders? I think we still feel KAS It’s tricky in Bali. Each region of Indonesia fore the silence day [Nyepi day is part of the New club would be kind of happy about it. But for the colonised – there are still so many whitening prod- has its own style. In Bali, we have genjek, then you Year celebrations according to the Balinese cal- average person going to funkot clubs, if you aren’t ucts. Just recently, a couple of clubs in Bali enact- have koplo. There are different sounds and func- endar – a day of silence, fasting, and meditation, a foreigner, it’s another story. ed policies that state if you’re local you need to tions, but they all carry the same intensity. And then where all routine activities come to a complete pay, and if you’re foreign, you don’t. And it’s just there is pop Bali. So there’s Balinese pop music halt] all the kids just hang out and get drunk in KAS They also serve cheap booze, and I don’t acceptable – it’s not seen as racist. that started in the 80s and 90s, but there’s also the banjar and they play really loud funkot all night think we could handle those substances. We’re not hardcore, the koplo version of Bali. long. They make their own rave, you know? It makes young enough anymore to handle that shit. The way we see ourselves, it seems like there’s a us jealous. lot of inverted racism. It’s chaotic. Colonisation Is what we’re doing new? For sure, but that’s also We kind of obsess over soundsystem culture. One isn’t over, though that also depends on which col- a tricky answer. When people talk about music in KAS It’s impossible to say there’s no experimen- of our goals is to play on top of one of those trucks ony you’re in. Malaysia was colonised by the Brit- Bali, it’s usually about the clubs in the touristy area tation in Bali. I’d say 80% of Bali is playing gamelan; we mentioned earlier. Blasting things like that ap- ish and they have some kind of pride there, as op- in the South. But there is also the North; places pentatonic music is in their breath. There’s this band peals more to us than a funkot club. posed to if you’re in a former Dutch colony, you’re like Singaraja play a lot of funkot – it’s on its way we really love called Aardvark – they’re kind of like kind of fucked. If you’re Vietnamese, at least you to gabber, but they don’t know of that connection math rock. But the way the drummer plays, it’s like have this nice French cuisine... yet. It’s kind of like breakbeat dangdut, though it’s gamelan. They think they’re playing metal, but they like gabber to me – it is 200 bpm. aren’t; the composition is more like gamelan than IH It’s funny ‘cause gabber is so big in the Neth- metal. That’s why I am saying it’s tricky. The cultural » www.instagram.com/gabbermodusoperandi erlands. [LAUGHS] IH Honestly, I never go to funkot clubs in the north environment is bending the music. » www.yesnowave.com of Bali. We’re too »South.« For us it’s too dangerous; KAS Maybe the Netherlands got it from jathilan! we are too soft for them. That’s partially why jeal- JR Bali isn’t majority Muslim. Is this one of the reasons JAN ROHLF is one of the founders and artistic directors Maybe some Dutch guy was like »I recorded some ousy has been building in us – we always end up why there is a more liberal club culture in Bali? of CTM Festival. shit from some village in Java, let’s crank it up hanging out with and pleasing the tourists. Some loads.« [LAUGHS] of the gigs are changing right now, especially in KAS Yes. It’s even become a gay refuge. If you are Denpasar, where there’s punk and underground gay, you’d get persecuted in Java, so you need to JR How did you get into gabber, hardcore, and similar and death metal. The noise scene is growing, Bali run away to Bali. sounds? is quite late for sure in comparison to Java’s scene. 75

To complement the appearance of various musicians from Southeast JOGJA NOISE BOMBING: THE Asia at CTM 2019, Indra Menus and Sean Stellfox take a look at the origins and development of the noise music scene in Yogyakarta, In- SPIRIT OF STREET NOISE donesia. A much more detailed account of Jogja Noise Bombing and the local scene can be found in their forthcoming book, Jogja Noise INDRA MENUS & SEAN STELLFOX Bombing: From The Street To The Stage (Warning Books).

WHAT IS NOISE BOMBING? But what is »noise bombing«?

The concept of noise bombing is something that We like to define noise bombing as a performance can baffle the uninitiated, those whose daily rou- concept in which we host illegal noise gigs in pub- tines are momentarily interrupted by dissonance. lic areas with stolen electricity. Noise bombing is Screeching sounds emerge from a mess of elec- inspired by graffiti bombing, and basically involves tronics, which are connected to small guitar am- playing an impromptu collaborative set in public plifiers in front of traditional markets, college until security or local thugs stop us, after which classrooms, or local parks. Onlookers might pass we move to another site. We usually bring a mini- a judgemental eye on us and just see a strange mal amount of gear and small combo amplifiers group, all decked out in black clothing, circling un- on our motorbikes, find an outlet, and then plug in usual electronics. We cheer each other on as we and play. abuse our speakers. However, it is much more than that. Noise bomb- Sometimes security guards and local gangsters, ing is a community banding together around a pas- known as preman, get involved in the action and sion. It’s a way to infiltrate our local art and music try to shut down the jarring noise. When this hap- scenes and bring exposure to the sounds of the un- pens, we quickly pack our gear and head for the derground. Noise bombing is a way to relieve the next available electricity outlet, away from the pre- day-to-day problems and stresses we encounter. vious confrontation. Noise bombing is also a reflection of the noisy city in which it was founded; like noise bombing, Yog- Other times, curiosity strikes and observers find yakarta is loud, unusual, and intriguing. themselves participating in the noise bombing. They enthusiastically twist knobs, or hit metal ob- THE EXPERIMENTAL NOISE SCENE IN ­YOGYAKARTA jects connected to piezo microphones. These are the interactions that help us initiate more partici- Before discussing Jogja Noise Bombing (JNB), it pants into noise; we welcome these encounters. would be helpful to outline a brief history of noise and experimental music in the city that gave JNB Noise bombing can be undertaken by a larger its name. group, who might stake out locations over a few days, map out routes, and strategise their use of Musically, Yogyakarta can be divided into two ter- gear until it’s time to perform. It can also just be a ritories: the south and the north. In the south, the few friends sitting around at a coffee shop using music scene is predominantly comprised of artists apps on their smartphones to create unusual com- and art students, as the art college, Institut Seni positions, to the dismay of other customers. Indonesia (ISI Yogyakarta), is a central influence. This part of the Yogyakarta music scene is filled Anyone can join in noise bombing. There aren’t any with experimentation, art, and political discourse. real rules about participating. Noise bombers may In the past, many experimental noise bands and seem unapproachable, but that is far from the case. musicians in the south often performed at art ex- We’re just a group of people who like to approach hibition openings. Conversely, the music scene in life from a different perspective. the north has traditionally focused less on experi- mentation and art, instead emphasising music for Noise bombings can happen anywhere. Of course, parties and the music industry. Most of the musi- it’s helpful to find locations where power won’t cians in the north are students of the many col- be an issue, so it’s best to find an exposed public leges throughout Yogyakarta. Despite these differ- electrical outlet. It’s also a good idea to test the ences, both scenes have recently started working outlets before we all gather and set up. Some re- together in organising music events, and the bor- connaissance and planning is smart, but not nec- ders between north and south are starting to blur. essary.

Indra Menus performing during Nusasonic Yogyakarta in October 2018. Photo: Doni Maulistya. 77

Experimental music is nothing new to the city. perimental artists in the 2000s. Many of the band’s One of the earliest examples of experimental mu- younger fans developed an interest in noise and Top: Sarana performing at a Jogja Noise Bombing event within Nusasonic Yogyakarta in Octo- ber 2018. Photo: Doni Maulistya. Bottom: Giga Destroyer at Nusasonic Yogyakarta in October sic performance in Yogyakarta happened in 1995, fell down the rabbit hole. This is true for many of 2018. Photo: Doni Maulistya. at the Recycle Music event held in ISI Yogyakarta. the founding members of Jogja Noise Bombing, Recycle Music was an event that tried to combine who used the chaotic sounds of Seek Six Sick as a the conventional format of a stage show with fine launching point for their own noise projects. Jim- art concepts. Music at the event was very different my Mahardikha and Sony Irawan, the core line up from the usual local stylings of sampak, dangdut, of the band, call their music »Asian noise rock.« or traditional rock music. This marked the emer- gence of a new spirit among the students – an al- One of Seek Six Sick’s vocalists, Bofag, also plays ternative spirit that was focused on being "different with Jimmy and Levoy (who drums in grindcore from the others." This alternative spirit was demon- bands Extreme Hate and Proletar) in the noise- strated in the way Recycle Music’s stage was set grindcore band Sound of Human Pollution. They up; musicians were locked up in a cage under a appended noise samples to the starts and ends of large tree, while spectators arrived in all manner of their fast, short old school grindcore tunes – some- unusual costumes. In the past, a few art students thing that had never been done before in Indone- from the south had become familiar with musicians sia. Sound of Human Pollution's discography is from the north, for example the group SKM (Seju- now considered to be very influential in this realm. ta Kata Makian) fronted by Ari Wulu and Jompet, as well as Marjuki »Kill The DJ« (through the "Men- The influence of Seek Six Sick's brand of Asian cari Harmoni" and "Parkinsound" series of events). noise rock was first evident in the younger genera- Prior to that, there was also a phenomenal experi- tion at ISI Yogyakarta, specifically the group Black mental rock band known as Steak Daging Kacang Ribbon. They started integrating noisy parts into Ijo, who ransacked many different styles of music their rock music, and added a noise component via to create their own. Members Bob Sick, S. Teddy, Krisna Widhiatama, who rounded out the sound of Yustoni Volunteero, and Edo Pillu created interest- Black Ribbon DJing cassettes and playing circuit­ ing music not only because they didn’t know how bent instruments. to »properly« play their musical instruments, but also because they were active during Soeharto's Krisna Widhiatama himself then founded the harsh New Order. The members of Steak Daging Kacang noise acts Feces Anatomy and Sodadosa. Togeth- Ijo were artists whose artistic approach was very er with Dyah »Woro« Isaka, Krisna later formed the different from conventional musicians. "It's a hap- drone noise duo Sulfur. He would eventually play a pening band," said Toni, drawing on the concept pivotal role in the emergence of Yogyakarta noise in the art world. In between 1990 and 2000, there acts in the late 2010s, such as Asangata, Bangkai were many bands that went »beyond the band,« in Angsa, Liwoth, Bleak, and many more. the sense that they also worked with visuals and stage performance, as evidenced in the work of Wednes Mandra, another key figure in the Yogya- political techno/digital hardcore band Techno Shit. karta experimental music scene, was involved in countless noise projects including noise-focused Yogyakarta art exhibitions are enlivened by crea- netlabel called Pati Rasa Records, and was also a tive music performances exploring experimental founding member of Jogja Noise Bombing, partici- sonics, noise art, and sound art. One early example pating in the very first street noise bombing. How- of this took place in 2003, when Yogyakarta visual ever, after forming the dark folk duo Rabu, he dis- artist Eko Nugroho hosted an exhibition at Gelar- banded all of his noise projects. an Budaya called Sound Garden, which combined sound art with visual art. In the late 2000s and early 2010s, several initia- tives started to make connections between experi- In the heyday of the internet, the phenomenon has mental noise music and new media art. Breakcore_ reemerged as a result of internet-savvy artists har- LABS, a platform for experimental audiovisual nessing the magic of the network. Wok The Rock performance, formed. Lifepatch, an independent started his net label Yes No Wave, which provided community-based organisation working in art, sci- a space for the production of music not absorbed ence, and technology, was founded by a team that by major labels. He focused on Yogyakarta groups, includes Andreas Siagian (Ucok). giving them a platform through which to share their music with larger audiences outside the city. One Bukan Musik Bukan Seni Rupa (BMBSR) was held in of the biggest and most influential bands to be re- 2013 at ISI Yogyakarta campus and curated by Rain leased on Yes No Wave is Seek Six Sick, a noise Rosidi, Krisna Widiathama, Ahmad Oka, and Ko- rock band founded in 1999 and made up of art stu- skow Widyatmoko. Initiated to showcase the latest dents. developments in Yogyakarta’s creative arts scene, the event was presented in two sessions: the first This band would go on to be one of the core in- consisted of a noise performance, followed by fluences for the next generation of noise and ex- sound art interventions, while the second was an 79

attempt to present the a meeting between sound Today, Yogyakarta’s experimental noise scene is and visuals. The event attempted to explore the un- more developed, consisting of a wide array of par- named, hazy area of »non-music non-art«, hence ticipants. Musicians from other genres have started the title of the event, Bukan Musik Bukan Seni Rupa. noise projects; enthusiasts from the grunge, metal, and hip-hop scenes have crossed over. A fan of J- Electrocore, an act comprised of Venzha and Ista- pop idol groups now uses samples from AKB48 in sius, is one of the key bridges between noise and noise compositions. new media art. Both members helped found the House of Natural Fiber (HONF), an international In the mid-2010s, Jimmy Mahardikha of Seek Six new media art organisation based in Yogyakarta. As Sick and Satya »Panca« Prapanca launched a se- Electrocore, they toured Europe in the early 2000s, ries of improvised music concerts known as Kom- gaining notoriety because of their interest in UFOs. bo. The concept was simple: feature a number of I remember watching Electrocore back in the early musicians from different communities, have them 2000s, when Venzha wore a big instrument remi- form duos, and then improvise together. Each per- niscent of a space suit that could capture sound formance would last about 10 to 15 minutes, and waves using various sensors. The instrument gen- there would be several combinations of performers erated sound using signals and frequencies from during an event. At the end, all performers would the human body, plants, water, and the surround- come together for a final improv session. Kombo ing environment. successfully brought musicians from different dis- ciplines together, providing musicians with the SKM, the brainchild of Ari Wulu and Jompet, is an- chance to experiment with their approach toward other influential project from Yogyakarta. Formed music writing for the first time. back in the early 2000s, the act performed their compositions on a bicycle. Jompet is an artist and Experimental music projects continue to exist in also a pioneer of electronic music in Yogyakarta Yogyakarta, one example being Raung Jagat – an who started Garden of the Blind together with Ven- experimental choir led by Rully of Senyawa. Devel- zha. Ari Wulu is known as the godfather of electron- oping a unique code system with which to conduct ic music in Yogyakarta in addition to founding the the ensemble, Rully also established an offshoot underground DJ collective Soundboutique. His fa- instrumental project called Gaung Jagat. ther, Sapto Raharjo, was probably the first person to bring a synthesizer to Indonesia. Ari Wulu is also Meanwhile, the Yogyakarta Synth Ensemble, which known for mixing electronic music with gamelan, started as a synthesizer-building workshop con- and establishing acts Second Floor, Midi Junkie, ducted by Kenali Rangkai Pakai, is still active. The and WVLV. ensemble uses their own DIY synths as well as a particular notation system they created. At the In the mid-2000s, the indie-pop scene in Yogya- same time, Klithih Bunyi began to fill a computer karta flourished thanks to influential communities music vacuum with their laptop-driven improvised such as Common People. The band Melcyd found compositions. The Ruang Gulma collective organ- themselves more drawn to noise than indie-pop, ises regular experimental noise jam sessions un- and their sound grew noisier over the course of der the Ngaji Swara banner. Ruang Gulma is also their career. behind Terik Berisik, which organises gigs for out- of-town experimental noise projects that come to Bhakti, Melcyd’s bass player, went on to play in ex- Yogyakarta. perimental outfit Zoo with Rully Shabara, who would later form the influential Senyawa with Wukir Sury- The city enjoys an array of experimental music adi. Their singular sound combines Wukir's hand- events, such as the legendary Yes No Klub. Estab- made bamboo instruments, guitar effects pedals, lished by Wok The Rock of Yes No Wave and Tim and Rully's diverse vocal stylings, embracing Indo- Puk of Performance Klub/Oxen Free, Yes No Klub, nesian ethnic music with hints of noise. in their own words, is »a curated series of events concentrating on cultural and musical exchange To Die was started as a three-piece hardcore punk between visiting and local artists.« They »range band in 1998 by me (Indra Menus) and my high from experimental/sound orientated performanc- school friends. Our interest in Man Is the Bastard es through to more conventional band and elec- and Bastard Noise led us to shed our hardcore punk tronic performances,« and try to expose the people sound and embrace the spectrum of noise. Now we of Yogyakarta to new and unfamiliar sounds. They are cited as the band that bridged the gap between also »aim to link artists from Indonesia to an inter- the Indonesian hardcore punk scene and the Indo- national network of experimental/other musicians nesian experimental and noise scenes, and To Die and sound producers.« was also one of the initiators of Jogja Noise Bomb- ing alongside younger members of the local noise As for record labels, my own Relamati Records, Top: Dyah »Woro« Isaka aka Menstrual Synthdrone performing at Sonic Wilderness within Nusa- established in 2002, is still actively releasing sonic Yogyakarta in October 2018. Photo: Doni Maulistya. Bottom: Noise bombing a public bus community. at Nusasonic Yogyakarta in October 2018. Photo: Doni Maulistya. 81

­experimental noise music in a variety of physical This concept is part Occupy, part punk rock, and formance with each other and create music that Aside from the first generation of noise bombers formats. Tilis Records, a new record label, releas- part DIY synth culture. is unique for the festival. We believe that with this who started in 2009, there are newer members of es improvised experimental music from projects concept, both musicians will be able to establish the scene that have become core members of JNB, such as Potro Joyo, Wukir Suryadi, and Ikbal S Lu- The gear and instruments JNB artists use tend to be a strong connection, with the hope that they can such as Mahamboro (who also plays sax in To Die), bys of Sangkakala. 10 PM Project, run by Rio Nurk- mostly homemade. This is in part due to the cost build on this after the festival. This concept has Made Dharma (Mad Dharma, (((...)))), Rio Nurkholis holis of Coffee Faith, focuses on CD-r, while Mind- of imported guitar pedals and electronic music been especially great in recent years, as we have (Coffee Faith, 10 PM Project), Bodhi (Rupagangga), blasting Netlabel releases free digital downloads. equipment, but also because of the scene’s DIY- been able to connect local and international art- Gendes (Tsaatan, ASU(USA)), Lansanese (drums in New net labels such as Watch Pineapple Press are focused creative culture. Some musicians use in- ists. in To Die), Dea Karina, and Sean Stellfox (Bossbat- now active, trying to help experimental bands re- struments built from scrap metal and springs, while tle, ASU(USA), Lansanese, Stellfox). lease their albums digitally. others use DIY synthesizers and pedals built from Many international noise acts have come to play various makers around Indonesia. Many of these in the annual Jogja Noise Bombing Festival. So far, At this point, JNB has been around for almost a Challenging, caustic sounds were around Yogya- synths are made by Yogyakarta native Lintang Ra- we've had artists from USA, France, Australia, New decade. We started bombing the streets of Yogya- karta well before JNB filled the streets with a ca- dittya and his company Kenali Rangkai Pakai (KRP). Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Belgium, Hol- karta with noise as a result of not being able to find cophony of noises. Art was fundamental in expos- These instruments have played an important role land, Myanmar, and many other countries. Some of a welcoming space to perform. As we performed ing the sounds and concepts found in these styles in shaping the sound and tone of many JNB artists, the artists who have played with us or at our shows our street noise, we gathered more and more inter- of music to a wider audience. This, coupled with and Lintang has also helped inspire plenty of in- include DJ Sniff, Bob Ostertag, Ora Iso, Gisle Frois- est. While we may have made a few security guards a continued desire to push boundaries, has also strument building. land, Tzii, DJ Urine, Jerk Kerouac, sIn, and Circuit- angry in the process, this just served as validation. helped move these sounds from art to music com- rip. The positive reception from casual observers was munities. With members rooted in both scenes, JNB has conducted noise bombings almost any- always much stronger than the negative. Eventu- Jogja Noise Bombing was also able to influence where power can be found, such as university cam- Some return time and time again. The camaraderie ally, we were able to transition from street noise current trends, and has helped to bring more na- puses, parks, and street intersections. Other note- between them and the hosts, as well as the fam- bombing into becoming one of the staple exper- tional and international recognition to Yogyakarta worthy venues include the Taman Kuliner (Culinary ily vibe, are part of why these artists keep coming imental music communities in Yogyakarta. We’ve as a city filled to the brim with experimental and Park) where a video of local security kicking us out back, and why they champion JNB back home. Af- found acceptance from the same places that once noise music. went viral; a Tong Setan (Wall of Death), where mo- ter the festival, we usually go to local food stalls shunned us. However, we’re still on the fringe. Oth- torcycles ran in circles above us; and Tugu, a sa- such as Angkringan Padang Amien Rais to enjoy a ers might accept what we do, but that doesn’t mean HOW JOGJA NOISE BOMBING EXPLODED ONTO cred and historical monument in Yogyakarta. For delicious wrapped rice with petai and jengkol in they fully understand it. To be honest, we wouldn’t THE SCENE noise bombings, we don't care where we play. Padang style chilli, and the sound of noise is then have it any other way. As long as we can find an replaced by conversation between friends. open electrical outlet, we will continue to plug in Jogja Noise Bombing (JNB) is an open community Our early noise gigs received full support from lo- our amps and just have fun making noise. and collective known for organising performances, cal promoter Irvin Domi, who organised a gig for us In addition to the annual noise festival, JNB also or- exhibitions, and workshops. Also heavily involved called XYZ. He also helped us with our noise bomb- ganised the Jogja Noise Bombing Week – a week full in the international noise network, JNB organises ing efforts by providing a pickup truck to take the of workshops, exhibitions, movie screenings, gigs, festivals, tours internationally, and contributes to artists and equipment all around Yogyakarta. Irvin and discussions that revolved around the experi- releases with international acts. Domi also documented the early JNB performanc- mental noise scene. Another JNB-organised event es and street performances through his produc- was Persami Eksperimental (Experimental Week- » www.jog janoisebombing.tumblr.com The seeds of JNB were planted in the years 2009 tion company, Snoop Doc. After a little while, Domi end), which was a two-day camping excursion at and 2010 by affiliates of net labels Ear Alert Re- moved to Jakarta for work. His role of documenting Kampung Edukasi Watu Lumbung (Watu Lumbung INDRA MENUS is a musician, organiser and merchant in cords, run by Hilman Fathoni, and Pati Rasa Re- JNB events was then taken over by Udin (Otakotor Educational Camp), near Parangtritis Beach. This the Yogyakarta underground scene. In 1998 he founded cords, run by Wednes Mandra. Records) and Fahrul (Disgusting Tapes). event saw the debut screening of Hilman Fathoni’s the hardcore punk band To Die. In addition, he runs the la- documentary about the development of noise in bel Relamati Records; actively promotes shows with Kong- Both labels have shared music from Yogyakar- In the early days, JNB mostly held illegal noise Yogyakarta, Noise Is a Serious Shit. si Jahat Syndicate; books bands with YK Booking; serves as ta noise artists such as Martinus Indra »Menus« shows in public and on the streets. Now, we’re no the General Manager for independent label Doggy House Hermawan (To Die, Relamati Records), Hendra longer limited to stealing electricity from outlets. In addition to being accepted by the art and mu- Records; and archives zines with Jog jakarta Zine Attak! Adythiawan (Anxiety/Anxiety Alone), Rangga Nas- We have performed in art galleries, fried chicken sic scenes, JNB has also attracted the attention In 2009 he was one of the founders of Jog ja Noise Bomb- rullah (Anxiety), Krisna Widiathama (Sulfur, Soda- restaurants, coffee shops, and abandoned build- of Yogyakarta’s academics, becoming the subject ing. Indra has also published writing on the Southeast dosa), Hilman Fathoni (Palasick, Ear Alert Records), ings. Even when we do noise bombing in indoor of several student theses, and receiving media at- Asian music scene, mainly as a contributor to Malaysia- Wednes Mandra (Asangata, Liwoth, Bangkai Angsa, venues, we still try to apply the concept of our tention. based zine Shock & Awe, and he is the author of Pekak!, Pati Rasa Records, amongst many others), Pandu Hi- street performances to the venues we play in. This a book about the connections between the Southeast Asian dayat (Control Z, KontrolJet), Taufik »Arie« Aribowo means that we try to make sure performances are As of 2018, JNB has undergone many changes in and Japanese noise scenes (Warning Books 2017). (Hartz Hertz, Suffer In Vietnam, Mindblasting Netla- short (usually 20–30 minutes maximum), and in- membership. Some of the earlier noise bombers » www.relamatirecords.bandcamp.com/music bel), Akbar Adi Wibowo (ULO, Evil Jazz Mortus, Ra- volve impromptu collaborative sets between per- are no longer associated with noise music, while dio Active Morbid, Giga Destroyer), Vitus Yogi Pra- formers. The idea is to keep our shows similar to some continue to keep the spirit of street noise SEAN STELLFOX is an experimental musician original- setya (Obluda, Jurumeya), and Dyah »Woro« Isaka how we would play when we were on the street. alive. Some still live in Yogyakarta, while others ly from the United States who goes under the artist name (Sulfur, Menstrual Synthdrone). have now left for other cities or countries. The flu- Bossbattle. He moved to Indonesia in 2014 and, soon after We also host the yearly Jogja Noise Bombing Festi- id nature of JNB makes it easy to for acts to be- arriving in Yogyakarta, found himself involved with the In the early days of JNB, local noise musicians al- val, where we try to bring the atmosphere of street- come part of community, but also it means that Jog ja Noise Bombing community. ways faced difficulties in booking shows, because level noise bombings to larger venues. We pair two they might not be willing to prioritise it. It’s bet- » www.bossbattle.bandcamp.com organisers and venue owners feared that noise different noise acts (that have never collaborated ter to think of JNB as a loose collective of outsid- » www.stellfox.bandcamp.com would destroy their amplifiers and PA systems. This before) together, and have them play a 30-minute ers who gather around a love for strange sounds, » www.asuusa.bandcamp.com lack of venues drove us to create something new. set. With this concept, we want to encourage per- rather than a professional organisation with strict Once we got kicked out of a spot, we would then forming artists to create new connections. Pair- guidelines for membership. move to another location and do it all over again. ing artists also allows them to discuss their per- 83

FROM SOUTHWEST ESSEX TO NEW YORK of the Sixth Happiness set in Japan [it was, in fact, *1) China] and they had these houses where you could PEEPING THROUGH A FROWN: It’s the early 1960s and Penny Rimbaud, a sheltered travel from one to the next. And if you were a poet middle-class kid from Northwood, Middlesex, has you earned your bed for the night by reciting po- just graduated from art school. He works briefly etry or if you were a cook you cooked a meal. I A DÉRIVE THROUGH as an art teacher and then, following a success- think the original ideology was to have places like ful exhibition in 1964, turns down a job opportuni- Dial House dotted all over England, Wales & Scot- ty in Andy Warhol’s Factory, claiming he has better land.«*1) Evidently, Rimbaud was quick to see the THE PUNK CONTINUUM things to do. Inspired by Pop Art of the early 1960s, importance of self-run autonomous locations dot- socialised by Bauhaus and Fluxus, and radicalised ted across decentralised network structures – lo- by the Situationist International, Rimbaud founds cations that later became key in the squat move- TIM TETZNER a commune with his pal Gee Vaucher in 1967. Re- ments of the 70s and 80s. Even then, when the siding at Dial House, a farm in southwest Essex, it appropriation of (primarily urban) spaces really is one of the first independent anarchic-pacifist- gathers momentum, Dial House stays in the wings: oriented centres in shared use and under collec- avant-garde in strategic terms yet geographically tive management. Dial House helps propel a hand- under the radar. From the activities of Penny Rimbaud in the 1970s to non-places ful of seminal festivals that have the character of happenings – The ICES 72 (International Carnival It is with a similarly panoptic perspective that searched for via Google Street View in 2019, Berlin-based artist Tim of Experimental Sound) and the Stonehenge Free French sociologist Michel de Certeau opens his Tetzner takes readers on a time-warping ramble traversing the shim- Festival of 1974 see themselves as soziale Plastik 1980 essay Walking in the City, describing how the [social sculpture], and their influence on later sub- city, when seen from the 110th floor of the World mering force fields of autonomous zones and the multilocality of dig- cultures, particularly in relation to public space, Trade Center in New York, is transformed into an ital ubiquity. proves substantial. »immense texturology spread out before one’s eyes.«*2) Whether he thought about Crass at that It’s 1977 now, and in reaction to the first eruption moment is impossible to say, but it cannot be ruled of punk in the UK, Penny Rimbaud and his 20-year- out, as Crass played several gigs in New York that old Dial House-mate Steve Ignorant pull together a year. Gee Vaucher, who lived in New York at the loose music collective with the aim of doing some- time and was tasked to book shows for Crass, says, thing a bit like punk. Tentative improvisation and »I avoided booking the obvious. I said I’m not go- a few recordings give rise to Crass, which quickly ing to book CBGBs or Max’s. So I booked the Puerto establishes itself as an authentic counterweight to Rican Club and the Polish Club.«*3) That de Certeau a punk movement that is already selling out. Ig- hung out at CBGB during his time in New York is a Recall the opening night of CTM 2018, exactly one rips through the wall of indefinable odours. Apart norant’s juvenile energy combines with Rimbaud’s little improbable. But it’s easy to imagine that one year ago now. Upstairs in the recently opened Club from the shredded newspapers, Cuntroaches do theoretical foundations in a dynamic nexus that of his endless dérives in the city swept him into OST, noise-punk idioms erupt in a shuddering, siz- nothing differently here. And yet the room is crack- clearly puts its stamp on the further evolution of the Puerto Rican Club one night when Crass was zling mass. Berlin trio Cuntroaches are heating ling with raw energy; bodies glow, and after each punk. Initially a cell of subversion, Crass soon be- on stage. Thanks to their common obsession with things up. The band is loud, and between each electrifying jolt, embers smoulder with relish like comes a prime example of anarchic self-manage- avoiding the limelight, de Certeau and Crass may number, feedback sears the air and snaps at but- the reactor room on the USS Thresher. ment – and, incidentally, one of the most success- well have run into one another, a case that would tocks. There’s a hint of truculence, too, with news- ful DIY businesses of the post-punk decade. Their put flesh on the bones of de Certeau’s sketch of the papers torn up and stuff chucked into the audience There is a point to this juxtaposition, of course – records sell in tens of thousands and Crass con- city as a chance encounter of »paroxysmal plac- (before being thrown back). After 20 minutes, it’s to examine these two spaces side by side. CTM certs sell out faster than the Sex Pistols can break es…clasped by the streets [and] possessed by the all over – but there’s something weird about this is a festival, built to neutrally showcase whatev- up. Rimbaud’s agitprop-inspired vision of consol- rumble of so many differences.«*4) He thereby in- too. Something doesn’t seem to fit in the venue. Is er content is pumped into it; Koma F is an emo- idating links between art and activism to craft a vokes a term from neoplatonic dialectics, coin- the audience too attentive? Has it failed to com- tional multiplier that raises mercury exponentially social tool for the influence of politics certainly cidatio oppositorum:*5) the coincidence of oppo- prehend the Fuck You message? Or is it still waiting once action hits its peak. Socio-economically, of comes true. Crass becomes a critical voice in eve- sites. Here, the coincidence of opposites resolves expectantly, unable to sense the music’s inherent course, both spaces operate within complemen- ryday British politics, taking a stance on everything the arbitrariness of the city as construct. urge to destroy? tary sets of rules. The crucial point is what melds from the Falkland crisis and social welfare cuts to them, namely their common aspiration to give au- gender inequality and animal rights. In response to But to return to the idea of the city as text: the For five euros we grab a cab from Club OST that diences a unique experience a million miles re- ascendant Thatcherism, Crass turns the spotlight premise that urban planning, hypertext, and virtu- takes us back in time to Koma F, where Cuntroach- moved from the everyday. Urban sociologists have towards the mechanisms driving an increasingly al space are structurally similar (as »path,« »link,« es had played some months earlier along with Pol- long been researching Berlin’s autonomous zones pervasive, multi-national corporate capitalism. »node,« »interface,« »point,« »marker,« »intersec- ish hardcore band Ohyda. Koma F is one of several since the 1990s – and you need look no further than tion,« and similar terms suggest) is nothing new in cellar clubs in the Köpi complex, a place that wears the history of CTM itself to understand how essen- Owing to a bogus interview tape, Crass goes un- contemporary media studies. The transition from its 28-year history on its crusted sleeve. It is a time tial these zones and spaces are to festivals. Spaces der observation by MI5 in 1983 and splits up, as an- the analogue to the digital has been equally as de- capsule in which layer after layer of history settles like Koma F have emerged from a tradition-bound ticipated, in the Orwellian year of 1984. Yet despite cisive in urban planning as for network research. democratically, a convulsive organism whose ani- sociosphere that is neither likely nor (in principle) turbulent times, Crass continues to return to Dial mal magnetism has pulled in generations of out- even remotely willing to receive any form of state House, where Penny Rimbaud still runs his opera- Yet we are in the year 1982. Now, from Dial House’s laws and exiles – and partied with them too, as support. How such spaces function and persist to- tions to date. Steve Ignorant describes how Rim- hippie grassroots approach sprouts the agile and Jabba the Hutt and his crowd do. It’s a dark descent day, in 2019, can only be explained phenomeno- baud came to be at Dial House: »Pen’s idea of Dial efficient Crass Records, which shelters bands such into Koma F. The familiar feedback of Cuntroaches logically if at all. House was that he’d seen a movie called The Inn as Rudimentary Peni, The Cravats, Flux of Pink In- 85

dians, Poison Girls, Zounds, and even Björk’s first Ever since, EA80 has done its thing as persis- combo, Kukl. And while all these bands are fired by tently as any exemplary socialist workers’ brigade the raw urgency of punk, their aesthetic and musi- could hope to. It has recorded 13 albums, released cal manifestations are highly idiosyncratic. Slap- countless singles, and played in every squatted ping on labels like »anarchic punk« or »peace punk« youth centre – never for more than a fiver, as is only is handy for marketing, but what really melds all right and proper for a punk band that feels morally the artists on Crass Records’ roster is their shared bound to carry the cultural torch and pass it on to faith in a liberal, utopian anarchy, and in the right others in its network. This is almost conspiratorial; of each and every individual to interpret and live hence Moldenhauer’s remark. as they please. This itself spawns the scene’s pri- mary, vital network: bands now can go on tour and, And the background to the conspiracy is this: while once on the road, they forge links between other- punk in the UK grows out of a tradition in which pop wise-disparate places. For networking, countless culture is always in sync with a cultural industry hours are spent in copy shops, letters are hand- that churns out youth cultures and markets them as written, telephone calls are made by prior arrange- products, the cultural landscape of post-war Ger- ment from public phone boxes. Everyone involved many is dominated by the Frankfurter Schule’s fin- in those ventures is at least absolutely sure that the er points of social analysis: a highly idealistic and snail mail dispatched from A to B and beyond will cantankerously moralistic philosophy of right and be of immeasurable value to whoever received it. wrong, authenticity and alienation, that lays a veil of cognitive dissonance across the land and soon Left: »Crass font,« Crass’ stencil aesthetic rendered as a typeface. Moreover, there is a byproduct of all these ac- culminates in both bitterness and a yawning gen- Right: Crass Avenue in Handford, California tivities, for they leave behind a paper trail: line- eration gap. Even the radical movements that en- ar streams of text channeling ideas and injecting sue – from the APO and RAF to the anti-nuclear new blood into the network sustain it and foster its movement – prove to be fertile soil for what is in growth. This communication – an architecture of essence an anti-hedonistic punk scene (and hence the intellect, so to speak – is the very lifeblood of the very opposite of its UK counterpart). Acting in a fast-growing virtual network. The texts underpin- total refusal of social norms, the scene outrages ning it hence acquire geographical import, con- the moral majority from the early 80s on, squatting solidating thoughts and intentions in ways that the fountains of Germany’s market squares, swig- shrink the spaces between villages, towns, and ging beer from bottles, and taking part in orgies of cities, building communities of like-minded souls. nihilistic self-destruction.*7) De Certeau’s primary premise, the city-as-text, is hence suddenly turned on its head. For now we But good things come out of battles on the mar- have text-as-city – a city in which people have very gins. Every young generation must define its own consciously decided to live together, to trust one freedoms; the urge to appropriate and defend another, and to cooperate. space is always also a means of expanding it. That’s how houses get squatted and self-run youth NEXT STOP: MÖNCHENGLADBACH (AND THEN centres get set up. These are places for fledgling Left: The once-squatted Köpi in Berlin, blurred ON TO VENICE BY BOAT)… communities committed to solidarity, equal rights, on Google Street View. Right: K19 on Kreutziger- and sharing – for creating space beyond repres- strasse in Berlin, obscured on Google Street View due to privacy laws. But let’s now leave the British Isles, return to 2019, sion. And punk plays a role in this: it fuels many and enter an address into Google Street View: Bee- of those movements. Punk empowers the kids; it thovenstraße 6, 4050 Mönchengladbach. This must gives them energy, vision, and the chance to ex- ring a bell for anyone who ever laid their hands on a periment with viable networks that are worlds apart record by EA80: there hasn't been a more mythical from the mainstream dream. With »If the Kids Are German address in punk since 1981. The Beethoven United Then We’ll Never be Divided,« Sham 69 de- reference and the post-war gloom that stubborn- livers a prophetic take on what punks should aspire ly pervades the town of Mönchengladbach on the to: namely to put an end to individuals’ isolation Lower Rhine undoubtedly play their part. The fact is within the capitalist system, whether for a fleeting that EA80 has been permanently based there since moment of personal freedom or for entire lifetimes. 1981, with barely a change in line-up. This is a punk continuum of which Germany has never seen the But let’s get back to the hyper-capitalised present Image: Excerpt of lyrics from »Häuser« off EA80’s first LP Vorsicht Schreie (1983). Listen to »Häuser« live at Hamburg’s Hafenstraße likes before – a clandestine force field in Xeroxed and see what’s going on over at Beethovenstraße » www.youtube.com/watch?v=i77QUPGhoic black and white, melancholic, angry, and aggres- 6, not that this address was ever an actual centre or sive. Any hint of reconciliation is at a distant theo- public venue – just a postal address at which EA80 logical remove. Benjamin Moldenhauer once wrote could be reached. The more you encountered it – in the German newspaper taz that »EA80 play in whether through sending something to it or receiv- a league most people don’t even know exists;«*6) ing post from it – the more real it seemed, even and this is a fair comment on the non-place where without ever visiting. Over time, the text of this ad- EA80 has its roots: off the zeitgeist map, safe from dress became an emblem that conjures a picture co-optation. of the place. And now, tracking it down via hyper- 87

links (thanks to Google’s virtual map), it’s possible Even in 2019, however, punk is infinitely more than to see how far reality and imagination overlap. But a spectral apparition. Whatever aura of anachro- Google disappoints: Mönchengladbach doesn’t nism it may conjure, and however often Google even feature on Street View, just like the many oth- Street View depicts places like the Köpi as a blur, er towns in Germany too minor to guarantee a req- punk is still an ark on the rough seas of late capi- uisite number of clicks. Hopes of being beamed to talism. It is, perhaps, a phantom vessel adrift, but a ghostly blurred house, a further facet in the EA80 one nevertheless still willing to succour the mot- myth, are suddenly dashed. ley non-conformists its network built over the past forty years – those united by the triumph of punk's And there’s another building in Mönchengladbach. idealism over the materialist world around it. No more than a few streets away, and also hid- den on Street View, is Unterheydener Straße 12 in And the way this network operates is anything but the Rheyd district. The artist Gregor Schneider has anachronistic. The aforementioned communica- (re)converted it many times over since 1985. Sch- tion skills of the still-analogue world have been neider has practically taken it apart, in fact, while transposed to the digital present without friction- Left: A couple on Google Street View in front of the just-torn- down ABC No Rio in New York’s Lower East Side, not far from managing somehow to retain its aura. The Haus u al loss – and are able now to turn over much more the former World Trade Center. Right: A couple on the cover of r concept could easily have stemmed from EA80, information at far quicker speeds. True, bands to- the first EA80 single, Der Mord fällt aus, from 1983. but it is not known whether Schneider and EA80 day still have to lug their backline from venue to ever met. In aesthetic terms, however, and despite venue to play live for audiences that trek home their roots in contrasting cultural spheres, the two happily clutching some handmade merch. Yet on projects couldn’t be more alike. For one, Schneider the whole, things suddenly became a lot more too uses his house to communicate with the wid- peer-to-peer and direct. So if, say, the Berlin punk er world. At the invitation of the Venice Biennale scene’s Facebook page, Pech gehabt Keule!,*8) had 2001 (respectively its curator, Udo Kittelmann), announced yesterday that Cuntroaches would be he reconstructs the entire building in the German playing at the Köpi tomorrow, word would have Pavilion. Some 150 tons of building material are spread like wildfire and comments would be post- shipped from Mönchengladbach to Venice, to be ed too. Likewise, if projects and squats like the Pot- resurrected there as Totes Haus u r [»Dead House u se, Drugstore, or Liebig 34 were about to be evict- r«]. Thereafter, the project takes on a life of its own. ed, instant response, activity, and feedback would Schneider tours with Totes Haus u r, travelling the be guaranteed. Because nothing but feedback can art world in much the same way as EA80 travels the ever cut through the compartmentalised dimen- world of punk. sions of time and space to forge vital spaces of collective experience. The comparison is rhetorical, of course, for a house is not a punk band. The point of this excursion is to fathom the utopian potential of certain places and, on the basis of that »immense texturology,« also the very letters that compose it. We drift – as in dérive – through the endless scope of contempo- TIM TETZNER is a Berlin-based writer and visual artist. rary multilocality while remaining focused on the individuals that link each point within it; the crucial Translated from the German by Jill Denton, Berlin. factor here being the energetic structure of each place or – to cite Rupert Sheldrake – the morpho- genetic field which psychogeographically under- Left: Crass and friends take over the Rainbow Venue in North pins it and configures its synapses. London’s Finsbury Park, December 1982. Right: Gregor Schneider’s Haus u r, Unterheydener Strasse 12, Mönchengladbach-Rheydt.

*1) George Berger, The Story of Crass (Oakland: PM Press, 2009), p. 78. *2) Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, 1984); translated by Steven Randall. *3) George Berger, The Story of Crass, p. 93. *4) Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, p. 91–92. *5) Coincidatio Oppositorum is a term from medieval theology which psychoanalysis has preserved for contemporary usage and which Michel de Certeau subsequently adopted and adapted for this essay. *6) Benjamin Moldenhauer, »Was geblieben ist«, 12.1.2013, taz – die tageszeitung, Bremen Ak- tuell, p. 47 *7) A thorough documentation of this state of affairs is available on the extremely entertaining archive platform run by Karl Nagel, www.punkfoto. de. *8) The full name of the Facebook group is: PECH GEHABT KEULE! AKA PICK YOUR PARTY BERLIN punk, etc. and is available here: www.facebook.com/ groups/827697427273137/ [last accessed January 2019]. 89

Inasmuch as I make a distinction in this context be- ravelling of imaginary imperialisms given that this tween non-humans and humans, the focus of my »queen of instruments« was once deemed the very ENCOUNTERS WITH observations is the discontinuity fundamental to – epitome of Western civilisation’s progressiveness and generally acknowledged within – this dichoto- in the musical field. Amid this »especial foam« of my, as well as the consequences thereof, and po- religious-aesthetic particularity and in light of the BEELZEBUB’S ORGANS tential alternatives to it. The separation of nature Christian-European »church laboratory,«, more and culture is established by and through the »au- specifically, of a former German-Protestant eth- tonomous ability of language.« (Descola) Separa- nic minority, I examine the disappearance of the QUELLGEISTER #3: BUSSD tion – the garden fence, so to speak – is likewise borders between nature and culture(s). The Heimat the method by which particularity (or particulari- [homeland] of a population, hitherto defined in so- ties) and their attendant nationalism(s) are created. cial and geographic terms, here becomes a Heimat This sort of exclusionary cosmology/ontology is anthem from the beyond: human and non-human STEFAN FRAUNBERGER taught to us in schools, perpetuated by the media, sound conjoined in the persistence of things. The and further debated and elaborated in academic »well-tempered piano« becomes the »inhuman or- discourse. Humans form collectives and differen- gan,« but at the end of the day nothing but music tiate themselves from one another in terms of their happens »to play out abroad.« Austrian artist Stefan Fraunberger takes us into the fundamental respective language and customs – which is to say, in terms of their culture. To the greatest possi- If everybody knows how the machine is function- acousmatic reverse cosmology that is his Quellgeister project. The ble extent, they thereby exclude from the thus de- ing – where is the use of it, if we don't know what it long-term alchemical research series sees the artist collaborate with limited realm anything and everything exterior to it is for? — John G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe, – nature. This dichotomy of pure and impure sourc- 1956*4) the non-human that he encounters in the persistence of decaying or- es in »natural cultures« and »cultural natures,« »an- gans in derelict Transylvanian churches. In eliciting a language from imate« and »inanimate objects,« »monistic univer- For Quellgeister #2, I investigated the church or- salism and relative particularities« (Descola) – and, gan in a Transylvanian village with the German states beyond, Quellgeister observes the disappearance of the borders ultimately, of »non-human« and »human« – is fun- name of Wurmloch, which means wormhole. The between nature and culture, a dichotomy that has long been rudi- damental to the founding myth of Western civili- organ had been modernised and equipped with sation. Nature is accordingly everything we deem an electric motor-driven bellows that would sup- mental for Western thought. to be external to ourselves, an object that we ex- posedly assure a constant airflow. No such electric amine and exploit on the assumption of our own bellows has ever been installed in Bussd – to use, position as subject, an object from which we dis- here too, the German name for the place where Quellgeister*1) is a long-term project devoted to in- stitutes a fundamental acousmatic reverse cos- tinguish ourselves »objectively« and that we sup- the event horizon of the present ends.*5) The or- vestigating the states of mechanical pipe organs in mology. The Quellgeister project participates in posedly should seek to control. gan there – our protagonist in Quellgeister #3 – deserted and derelict churches in Transylvania – the ascension of an abandoned world view. An ex- has barely been altered or modernised since its organs belonging to a realm that neither nature nor cerpt from the phenomena implicit in this process But there is now more to gain from trying to situ- redesign by the organ builder, K. Einschenk, in the culture can unambiguously define. Over the course is played back, medially – in what I call a non-hu- ate our own exoticism as one particular case with- early 19th century. This is why the Bussd bellows of the project I visit them; I seek them out. Why? Well, man mass. And the fact that I’ve had a violent aver- in a general grammar of cosmologies rather than is still pumped full of air by human hand while its in order to help them evade the drudgery of serving sion to recording studios ever since I first became continuing to attribute to our own vision of the »inner life« – the wooden mechanism that opens at the rite of mass, although it has been many years preoccupied with electronic music also prompt- world the value of a standard by which to judge and closes the stops and pallet (valves) — is a fi­ since this obligation weighed upon them. But first ed my quest for new event horizons in the forsak- the manner in which thousands of civilizations ligree arrangement of wooden rods. In the Evan- and foremost, my intent is to playfully pursue the en fortified churches of Transylvania. Within their have managed to acquire some obscure inkling of gelical Register of Organs in Siebenburgen (to use rapture of their sound and the changes therein, so ramparts, I ask the Lord of the Flies (or Beelzebub, that vision. — Philippe Descola, Beyond Nature and the German name for Transylvania), the instrument as to give voice to the relations of non-human lan- in Aramaic) about the language that has inscribed Culture, 2005*3) is described as follows: »Action: Registertraktur: guage purportedly hiding behind the veil of mod- itself in tongues and the vortex, as well as in the mechanical; Spieltraktur: mechanical; classicist in ernism, in the crypt of this cultural context. Insofar dust dwelling in the organ. It is not for nothing that Folk music is classified today as a national and cul- design with painted columns: red-gold-greenish; my Quellgeister project is thematically, formally, he remarked in Georges I. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s tural phenomenon. However, if we take the sepa- tin pipes, some front pipes are missing;« and it is and conceptually a collaboration – or interaction Tales to his Grandson (1934): »Any writer can write ration of nature and culture to be just one varia- said to be overall in an »unplayable/rundown« con- – between the uncanny and myself. This is evident on the scale of the Earth, but I am not any writer«. tion in this »grammar of cosmologies,« then certain dition. From the classic viewpoint, this may well not least from the series title, Quellgeister, which random facts might lead us to suppose that it is hold true, but in my view, this is precisely where suggests spectral visitations animated by or within Indeed, this is perhaps the most important ques- nothing but a caprice of the zeitgeist cemented the Quellgeisters’ work of alchemy begins. The church pipe organs ravaged by the elements and tion to confront culture in the broadest sense. Let in our minds. Our predecessors were wholly un- question being, once the event horizon is reached the passage of time. Once bereft of their estab- us make no mistake: the climate crisis is also a familiar with this model – no ritual music in their at last, how non-humans regard and influence our lished sacral acoustic function, these organs be- crisis of culture, and thus of the imagination...so day was considered a dogmatically established mechanical devices, as well as how they find shel- come markers of liminality. No longer shackled by the real mystery in relation to the agency of non- form of »cultural heritage.« This is why I explore ter in them, and thereby wreak change. human demands, they stand, exposed and expect- humans lies not in the renewed recognition of it, the acoustic states of non-human transformation, ant, on squares and »wastelands« on the margins but rather in how this awareness came to be sup- thereby predicating music, the discontinuity of The sixth Quellgeist in the divine power is the of the European present. pressed in the first place, at least within the modes which is never-ending and emphatic, because it sound, tone, tune or noise, wherein all soundeth of thought and expression that have come to dom- is composed together with non-humans and un- and tuneth whence ensued speech, language, and While the recording process is about perception of inate over the last couple of centuries. — Amitav folds beyond the score of the cultural boundaries the distinction of everything…Thou shall ask, What and play with the altered signatures of a pipe or- Ghosh, The Great Derangement, 2016*2) inscribed on maps. The church pipe organ is a fit- is the tone or sound? Or how taketh this spirit its gan, my performative practice in Quellgeister con- ting partner in this sonic investigation of an un- source and original? All the seven Quellgeister are 91

generated one in another, the one continually gen- the Federal Republic of Germany long before the erateth the other, not one of them is the first, nor Iron Curtain opened – indeed, the West German is any one of them the last; for the last genera- government paid the Romanian government to al- Bussd church interior by even- teth as well the first as the second, third, fourth, low such Volksdeutsche to leave. They »sought ref- ing. Photo: Johanna Magdalena uge,« as we would say nowadays, in that enticing Guggenberger. and so on to the last…Hardness is the Quellgeist of the tone…And now when the spirits do move and paradise of »Modern Talking,« a European bastion would speak, the hard quality must open itself; for of freedom and opportunity, and the last of them the bitter spirit with its flash breaketh it open, and followed suit after the political turn of 1989. The de- then there the tone goeth forth, and is impregnat- serted village was then taken over by Roma fami- ed with all the seven Quellgeister. — Jakob Böhme, lies, mainly from the south of Romania. Traditional Aurora, 1612*6) family ties in their case extend from Wallachia to Turkey, Syria, and Russia as well as into Western Owing to the punctured and decayed state of its Europe. Yet the church organ, now abandoned to air dampers, wooden pipes, and no longer upright its fate by its original benefactors, has found no tin pipes, the Bussd organ’s air vortex properties role to play in these developments. in the spatial phase, vortex turmoil and frequency rotations are not quite what we might expect. Em- But physical similarities no longer determine the United church in Abrud, Romania Photo: Stefan Fraunberger. piric deduction suggests a non-human influence course of events in the case of Bussd’s church or- on the properties of these acoustic phenomena. I gan, last redesigned and restored by K. Einschenk. call the changed air vortex and the spatial phase As a shifting discontinuity, the language from be- phenomena to which it gives rise a language from yond of the non-humans dwelling in the organ states beyond. The church in Bussd has not been constitutes a sonic relation to the cultural object used for celebrations of mass for several decades, »human« which, in turn, given its wraithlike ap- and today constitutes an isolated object within the pearance, generates a similarity to interiority. Its existing village order. In this respect it is practi- behaviour thereby is similar to that in its relation cally a neutral temple for celebration of non-hu- to the »language of birds.« (Attar) The Quellgeis- man masses. ter project draws on mental states and emotional processes to examine similarities in the interiority And the Horn will be blown; and at once from the of non-humans and humans. In societies shaped graves to their Lord they will hasten. They will say, by animism, there is nothing extraordinary about O woe to us! Who has raised us up from our sleep- non-humans speaking in altered states or tongues ing place? — Quran 36:51, 620 through human beings. Any subject not distin- guished from an object may be found to be in many Eight hundred years ago, a German-Saxon minority things. followed the lure of tax relief, leaving what is now Luxembourg to make a new home in the village of Animist subjects are everywhere, in a bird that is Bussd, in Transylvania. Successive rulers – from lo- disturbed and that, protesting, takes to flight, in the cal herding dynasties to Hungarian counts, from north wind and rumbling thunder, in a hunted cari- Ottoman governors to Austro-Hungarian monarchs bou that suddenly turns to look at the hunter, in the – have put their stamp on the human cultural his- silk-cotton tree, swaying slightly in a light breeze… tory of the place. Following the demise of the last Existing beings, endowed with an interiority ana­ of them – the multinational imperial and royal »k. logous to that of humans are all subjects that are u. k.« Empire – there arose around this »organ« the animated by a will of their own, and, depending nation state of Romania, which was shortly there- on their position in the economy of exchanges of after steamrollered by National Socialism, before energy and on the physical abilities that they pos- vanishing just as rapidly into the icebox of Cold sess, hold a point of view on the world that deter- War-era Communism until, finally, it could be ush- mines how much they can accomplish, know, and ered into the Social Darwinist modern times of anticipate. — Philippe Descola, Beyond Nature and dog-eat-dog capitalism – although this last in- Culture, 2013*7) stance never really made it as far as Bussd. De- scendants of these settlers were able to move to

Bussd church interior by day. Photo: Johanna Magdalena Guggenberger. 93

My work on these instruments is no museum piece, Pigs roaming the inner courtyard and the entrance no attempt at sentimental restoration of things to the church were reassuring heralds of the fact long since lost to us but, rather, an investigation that no villager need go hungry in wintertime. And by means of sound and composition into changes while we worked inside the church on deciphering 16th century wall paint- in tonal properties within the body of the organs. the signature of non-humans, village life went on ing in the wooden or- thodox church in Rogoz, The term sonic archaeology springs to mind in this outside, as it has always done. Romania. Photo: Stefan regard, but could prove misleading, just as the no- Fraunberger. tion of science fiction might. For the Quellgeis- We humans feel it is our prerogative to interrogate ter afford creative potential for a feat of cosmo- inanimate (natural) objects and keep them under logical reverse engineering, a non-human mass, close observation; and so we overlook that we in the celebration of which rings forth the states ourselves have long been under surveillance by of a language of signatures. The work according- watchful eyes and attentive ears – almost as if our ly describes »a landing strip for incoming states.« own familiar Earth had become that mind-altering The incoming sonic signatures speak sentences planet painted by Stanislav Lem in Solaris. And who from the »far side of the Horn«*8) about the altered among us can safely say that they have never ex- states within the acoustic body of the organ. They perienced one of those moments when seemingly inscribe the presence of the arrivals in its dust. inanimate objects suddenly come to life? As when a pattern in the carpet reveals itself to be a dog’s Musical intonation began as a sonic representation tail – a tail, moreover, inadvertently stepped on… of a human cosmology, as a conceptual system of In such moments the call of The Simurgh is sud- relational natural intervals that spurs our emotional denly closer than we think. states in a coherent manner. In pre-modern times this system was taken to be »the language of an- All of this [reality] – praise be to God – is in ac- gels« (the Brethren of Purity).*9) Yet trace the scant tual fact imagination, since it never has any fixity available proof and it becomes apparent that rela- in a single state. But people are asleep, and the tional intervals and the aural spirits flitting between sleeper may recognize everything he sees and the them have increasingly become the »objectified presence in which he sees it, and when they die, mechanisms« of a naturalistic »interval crisis« they awake from this dream within a dream. They Bussd church organ manual (Pleşu) in our self-contained »culture machines.« will never cease being sleepers, so they will ne­ by K. Einschenk. ver cease being dreamers. Hence they will never Photo: Stefan Fraunberger. The audio material on which the work is based cease undergoing constant changes within them- was recorded during two sojourns, in September selves. Nor will that which they see with their eyes 2016 and 2018 respectively. In the space of these ever cease its constant changing. The situation has two years the organ had deteriorated considerably always been such, and it will be such in this life and and, undoubtedly, will soon fall silent forever. In the hereafter. — Ibn Arabī, al-Futuhat al-Makkiyah 2016 Johanna Magdalena Guggenberger operated (The Meccan Illuminations), 12th century.*10) the organ bellows by hand-pump and so played her part in interpreting with me the varying tim- bres that the instrument offered us. In 2018, two children and their father, Antonio – of the Roma family now living in the guardian’s quarters on the STEFAN FRAUNBERGER is an Austrian composer and outer ring of the fortified church grounds – lent me sound performer. a hand with this exhausting and challenging task. » www.stefan.fraunberger.at

*1) Here, as also in John Sparrow’s first English translation of Jakob Böhme’s Aurora, which was published in 1656, only forty years after the original, we re- tain the original German term for source spirits.*2) Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement (Harayana: Penguin Random House India, 2016), p. 87–88 *3) Phillippe Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), translated by Janet Lloyd, p. 87–88 *4) John G. Bennett, The Dramatic Universe (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1956). *5) ... and which happens to be pronounced like the English word »boost«. *6) Jakob Böhme, Auro- ra, ed. Gerhard Wehr (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1992), p. 185 *7) Phillippe Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), translated by Janet Lloyd, p. 282.*8) This phrase is taken from Ibn Arabi’s Meccan Revelations, Chapter 26: »Concerning the inner understanding of how people remain between this world and the Resurrection.« There, he writes of the Horn of the Imagination, the wahdat al-wujud (unity of being) of which represents the entire conceivable cosmos, creation itself. The manifest part that we are able to physically perceive he describes as »the broad side of the Horn«. »It is breathed into the Horn/forms« (6:73, etc.) and »it is blown upon the Trumpet« (74:8). And the two of them (the »Horn« and »Trumpet«) are exact- ly the same thing, differing only in the names because of the various states and attributes (of the underlying reality) … Since the Imagination gives form to the Real, as well as everything in the world around it, including even nothingness, its highest section (horn of imagination) is the narrow one and its lowest section is the wide one.« Quoted from James W Morris, »Spiritual Imagination and the »Liminal« World: Ibn 'Arabi on the Barzakh«, POSTDATA, Vol. 15, No. 2 Bekhal waterfalls in Rawanduz, north Iraq in the year 2013. , translit. Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā), this was a secret society of Muslimافصلا ناوخإ :pp. 42–49 and 104–109. *9) Also known as the Brethren of Sincerity (Arabic ,(1995) philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 8th or 10th century CE. *10) English translation from William C. Chittick, Sufi Path of Knowledge – Ibn Arabi’s Metaphysics Photo: Stefan Fraunberger. of Imagination, (Albany: State University of New York, 1989) p. 231 95 FIn d thE FemI Kuti & the Positive Force, Tellavision & D e r ya yildirIm, M a r c h 21–24 Stella Chiweshe, FilE Dur-Dur BaNd Concerts, international, Talks, films, DJ Raph, Baba Commandant, i n s ta l l at i o n s Alan Bishop, HaYvanlar AlemI, AND many more GET YOURSELF OUT OF WHATEVER CAGE YOU FIND YOURSELF IN. JOHN CAGE GOODREADS.COM

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CTM 2019 VIDEO TRAILER Diana Arce; Elisabeth Zimmermann; Enna Kruse- Oliver Thomas & Marius Rehmet (image), Kim & team at Geier-Tronic; Esther Scheland- Slikback (sound) er; Fabian Ludwig & team at FLB Backline; Fe- PERSISTENCE MAGAZINE lipe Frozza; Gerhard Behles, Chris Woods, Jesse WEB PROGRAMMING Abayomi, Simon Halstead, Claudia Weidner at Stefan Schreck (Feature Laden) Ableton; Gratia Napier, William Russell, and all at MONOM; Ian Warner; Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag; Jo- Published on the occasion of CTM 2019 — Festival for Adventurous Music & Art, www.ctm-festival.de EDITORS WEBSITE, SOCIAL MEDIA, MAGAZINE hannes Braun, Julie Gayard, and the ACUD team; Taïca Replansky, Ollie Zhang, Jan Rohlf, Annie John Connell and Paul Oomen of 4DSOUND; Jo- PUBLISHER Gårlid, Jon Davies nas Sudendorf, Tahl Klainman, Daniel Richter, DISK — Initiative Bild & Ton e.V., Veteranenstraße 21, 10119 Berlin, Germany, ©2019 and all at Native Instruments; Jörg Süßenbach TRANSLATION and the Goethe-Institut music department; Jus- EDITORS Henning Lahmann tus M. Kemper, Ghazaleh Ebrahimi at the Cultural Jan Rohlf, Annie Gårlid, Taïca Replansky, Ollie Zhang, Dahlia Borsche, Andreas L. Hofbauer Section of the German embassy Tehran; Thomas PHOTOGRAPHERS Karsten and Alexandra Erhard of Studio Karhard; CONTRIBUTORS Camille Blake, selflovetribute, Stefanie Kulisch, Kathrin Berghäuser for WALL AG; Katja Lucker, A Tribe Called Red, ARK, Gabber Modus Operandi, Indra Menus & Sean Stellfox, Jan Rohlf, Jessica Udo Siegfriedt, Melike Öztürk, Maureen Noe for Berlin Music- ­Edwards, Jon Davies, Josh Kun, Kamila Metwaly, Khyam Allami, Lindsay Nixon, Linn da Quebrada, Luise board; Klaus Lederer – Mayor and Senator for Wolf, Mariana Berezovska, Ollie Zhang, Salomé Voegelin, Stefan Fraunberger, Tai Linhares, Tim Tetzner VIDEO DOCUMENTATION Culture and Europe in Berlin; Kristoffer Gansing, Zoe Kahlert & team Filippo Gianetta, Inga Seidler, Amelie Buchinger, TRANSLATORS and everybody at transmediale; Marcus Gam- Jill Denton, Alexander Paulick-Thiel, Hailey Kaas PRODUCTION TEAM mel; Meike Höpfner for STARCAR; Marcel We- Afrah Bayan, André Schulz, Anika Neubauer, ber, Daniel Kralj, Tim Wildemann, Ingo Spanka GRAPHIC DESIGN Annika Wilfer, Doro Becker, Dorothea Spörri, and everybody at SchwuZ; Mike Gaasbeek and Marius Rehmet (VOJD) Eduardo Conceicao, Elie Peuvrel, Elisabeth Enke, team at Stager; Mo Loschelder; Einar Idsøe Eids- Frank Marr, Frédéric Hartmann, Hannah Haraldsen, våg and Jonas Vebner of Music Norway; Caro- ISBN 978-3-9817928-5-0 Hugo Esquinca, Jan Behrendt, Jan Löbig, ­Jonas lin Schulz and Lilian Engelmann at nGbK; Nik Klaassen, Jonathan Gamers, Jordane Coquart, Ka- Nowak and team; Norbert Jackschenties and ori Kimura, Krischan Makswitat, Lena Reisner, Lou- Heimathafen Neukölln team; Norbert Thormann, PRODUCTION, FESTIVAL MANAGERS ise Nguyen, Luis Frank, Luis Löffler, Luka Murovec, Andre Jürgens, Tim Rosenberger, Frank Marr, CTM TEAM Amelie Lill, Birgit Voigt, Lilli Ebert, Nai Fowler, Mascha Wendel, Manon Moyart, Mario Schwerdt, Krischan Makswitat, Walter Wacht, Grinni Stang- Sara Smet, Sarah Lauzemis Markus Bader, Martin Grzesko, Martin Maischein, ner and everybody at Berghain; Olaf Bender, Ole Bolz, Patrick Tucholski, Paul Maisel, Philipp Bettina Bender and Markus Altmann at Raster; PROGRAMME CURATORS & FESTIVAL DIRECTION COMMUNICATIONS & PR Sehm, Remco Packbiers, Steffen Wolf, Sören Rabih Beaini; Ricardo Talaia; Robert Schulz; Sa- Oliver Baurhenn, Jan Rohlf, Remco Schuurbiers Taïca Replansky, Jan Rohlf, Ollie Zhang Schnakenberg, Susanne Görres, Sylvia Sadzins- rah Drame, Lukas Walter, Kwame Manu-Bio and ki, Timo Luitz, Theres Laux, Torsten Oetken, Ulrich Through My Speakers crew; Sarah Miles and Al- CO-CURATORS MUSIC PROGRAMME GUEST MANAGEMENT & SPONSORSHIPS Hofmann, Valentin Peitz. exandra Zakharenko of Berlin Community Ra- James Grabsch, Michail Stangl Zuri Maria Daiß dio; Jessika Petrusch at Sennheiser; Sidney Yu- THANK YOU dah and the team of WAU; Silvia Fehrmann and CO-CURATORS DISCOURSE PROGRAMME IMPLEMENTATION COORDINATOR André Rauhut for Complete Audio; Angela Kow- daadgalerie team; Veronika Natter, Johanna Wal- Dahlia Borsche, Taïca Replansky, Ollie Zhang, Veit Gebhardt alewski (primeline); Anna-Maria Strauss, Maya, lenborn and Christian Rauch at State; Stéphane Peter Kirn Tengal, Yuen Chee Wai, Wok the Rock, and Hein- Bauer and everyone at Kunstraum Kreuzberg / FESTIVAL ASSISTANTS rich Blömecke for Nusasonic; Annemie Vanack- Bethanien; Steven Walter and Lukas Onken at Po- MUSICMAKERS HACKLAB Alexandra Langendorf, Johanna Wenzel, ere, Robert Gather, Hannes Frey, and everybody at dium Musikstiftung Esslingen; Susanna Nieder- Peter Kirn, Lintang Radittya, Andreas Siagian Julian Kraus HAU Hebbel am Ufer; Antonia Alampi, Beya Othm- mayr; Thomas Krüger; Anders Olesen, Ulf Eriks- ani, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Kamila son, Tommy Ose of Up Node Network; Viestarts CURATORS PERSISTING REALITIES EXHIBITION EXHIBITION DESIGN Metwaly, Ola Zielinska at SAVVY Contemporary; Gailitis, Rihards Endriksons, Lucia Udvardyová, Martin Craciun, Natalia Fuchs, Nicole Gingras, Raumlabor Berlin Arlen Dilsizian & Derek Debru of Nyege Nyege; and Michal Brenner of SHAPE; Wolfgang Sinha- Eric Mattson, Antje Weitzel Ata Ebtekar, Hesam Ohadi, Amir B. Ashrafzadeh, rt and the team at 3 Schwestern; all 2019 artists TECHNICAL COORDINATOR Shahin Entezami of SET Festival; Baptiste Vérine and contributors, our audience, 2019 volunteers, PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTORS Tobias von zur Gathen & team at Moxy Hotel; Paul Döcker of OSTMOST Vorspiel partners and contributors, to all who Amir B. Ashrafzadeh, Ata Ebtekar, Hesam Berlin & team; Beatrice Babin; Birgit Herda, Ma- supported us throughout the years, and especial- Ohadi, Gratia Napier, LSDXOXO, Paul Oomen, PRESS OFFICE teusz Mondalski, Kevin Halpin, and Simon Wojan ly to our friends and family. Shahin Entezami, Tengal, Through My Speakers, Guido Möbius, Birgit Raija Merkel at DISK Agency; Björn von Swieykowsky, Christo- William Russell, Wok the Rock, Yuen Chee Wai, pher Schaper, Ingo Ohm & everybody at Festsaal Zviad Gelbakhiani SOCIAL COMMUNITY MANAGER Kreuzberg & Paloma; Boris Kummerer & all SAE Maria van den Berg, Daniel Jones volunteers; Christopher Bauder & WhiteVoid team; »PERSISTENCE IS ALL« FESTIVAL MANAGEMENT, FINANCE & Conny Lohmann & the Ask Helmut team; Claudia – Coil – ADMINISTRATION GRAPHIC DESIGN Sennecke at Michelberger team; David C. Ciura Karen Grzemba, Philip Gann Marius Rehmet (VOJD) & Jan Henschen for Griessmuehle; Detlef Dieder- ichsen, Gabriele Tuch, Pia Thilmann at the HKW; 107 Start playing.

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