NEW GEOGRAPHIES R EAD, SEARCH AND DOWNLOAD E v ERy ISSUE O f T HE W IRE E v ER p U b LISHED f OR j UST € 3.50 A MONTH Search & The Wire The 383 | JANUARY JANUARY 2016 2015 r ewind Cosmic jazz Cosmic 2016 ANUARY | J Femalepressure | 383 9 770952 068106 01 068106 770952 9 | The Wire The New Perspectives On Music On Perspectives New £4.50 | Conceptalbums | r egional sounds egional records of the year | Musicians’ reflections | Critics’ opinions ofc-wire-jan-AW2TH.indd 1 04/12/2015 16:01 Download THE GREATEST MUSIC MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD SINCE 1982 exacteditions.com/read/the-wire NEW GEOGRAPHIES CTM FESTIVAL 2016 FESTIVAL FOR ADVENTUROUS MUSIC & ART 17TH EDITION X BERLIN 201 6 04 NEW GEOGRAPHIES 44 POWER THROUGH NETWORKING: RESHAPING THE Introduction by Jan Rohlf UNDERGROUND ELECTRONIC AND EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC SCENES IN EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA 06 THE BANALISATION OF THE EXOTIC By C-drík Fermont An interview with Martin Stokes by Thomas Burkhalter 50 THE FIRST SOUND OF THE FUTURE 13 LOCATING MUSIC By Mari Matsutoya By Dahlia Borsche 55 AKIHIKO TANIGUCHI — THE EVERYDAY VORTEX 18 ON NATIVE ALIENS By Annie Gårlid By Sandeep Bhagwati 60 Naafi — RITMOS PERIFÉRICOS 22 PLAYING WITH THE DUSTBIN OF HISTORY By Max Pearl By Thomas Burkhalter 66 MUSIC'S MORAL GEOGRaphies — AFRICAN 26 EPIPHANIES dRUMMING, MINIMALISM AND DJ CULTURE By Radwan Ghazi Moumneh By Sebastian Klotz 28 BEYOND 72 JUMPING THE GAP: THE DISTANCE BETWEEN Aïsha Devi in conversation with Lendita Kashtanjeva and TAONGA PUORO AND EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC Guy Schwegler of Zweikommasieben Magazine By Rob Thorne 34 tHE GREAT INVENTION 76 RETRO-FUTURISTIC MACHINE MUSIC Drawings by Tianzhuo Chen by gamut inc 40 »RITUAL, NOISE AND THE CUT-UP: 80 THE IMPORTANCE OF DANCING ACROSS BORDERS THE ART OF TARA TRANSITORY By Luke Turner By Justyna Stasiowska 102 IMPRINT / CREDITS 3 5 NEW GEOGRAPHIES BY JAN ROHLF UNDER THE SHADOW OF A GLOBAL CONFLICT CENTRED ON THE RADICAL DRAWING Contemporary music outside the listener's cultural sphere not I — would like to give our heartfelt thanks to our many part- only confronts him or her with the differences that distinguish ners and sponsors: the Capital Culture Foundation Berlin for its OR DISSOLVING OF PHYSICAL AND CULTURAL BORDERS, AND THE DEEPENING SOCIAL its »otherness«, but also allows the listener to experience a support of the music programme, the German Federal Cultur- RIFTS AND POLARISATION THIS BRINGS IN ITS WAKE, IT IS IMPERATIVE TO CALL TO MIND shared contemporaneity that straddles local and global prac- al Foundation for facilitating the presentation of the »Seismo- tices, particular identity and cosmopolitan aspiration, concrete graphic Sounds« exhibition, the Creative Europe programme THE POSITIVE POTENTIAL IN THE NEW GEOGRAPHIES OF OUR INCREASINGLY INTER- locations and the virtual spaces of global communication, and of the European Union, the Federal Commissioner for Culture CONNECTED AND HYBRID WORLD. WITHIN THE REALM OF A MUSIC FESTIVAL'S CAPA- local knowledge production and globally available technolo- and the Media, the MusicBoard Berlin, many embassies, con- gies. Precisely therein lies a chance for genuine and open en- sulates and cultural institutions, and our media partners and BILITIES, CTM 2016 ATTEMPTS TO RESPOND TO THIS CURRENT CRISIS. IN GERMANY AND counters, in the course of which a conscious and realistic eval- supporters in the private sector. We also sincerely thank the ELSEWHERE, INITIATIVES THAT OPPOSE THIS NEW HYBRIDITY AND AIM TO REVIVE ES- uation of difference and sameness may deepen empathy and authors of this publication for sharing inspiring reflections in- understanding. formed by their broad range of disciplines and walks of life. SENTIALIST BELIEFS OF CLEARLY DEFINED CULTURES AND IDENTITIES ARE ON THE RISE And, last but not least, we thank our guests, all the participants AGAIN. MUSIC IS NOT ONLY AN EXCELLENT VEHICLE FOR EXPERIENCING OF HOW EN- All of this is part of a profoundly changing perception of our and artists, our dedicated team, and the numerous volunteers world, from the old Eurocentric model of a universal modernity and fans of CTM, without whom the festival could not have RICHING INTERCULTURAL ENCOUNTER AND EXCHANGE CAN BE, BUT ALSO A FINELY that radiates from the center to the periphery, to the realisation been realised. TUNED SEISMOGRAPH THAT CAN OPEN OUR EYES TO GLOBAL SHIFTs — anD ALLOW US that we are subject to a complex tapestry of multiple moder- nities, temporalities and geographies that question the hereto TO APPROACH THESE WITH GREATER OPENNESS. accepted notions of culture, identity and community. These tra- ditional concepts and the power relations between producers Jan Rohlf is co-founder of the CTM Festival. and consumers, the global North, South, East and West, main- stream and cultural niches, and the dominant and the margin- alised are undergoing a reconfiguration (not only in music) that Musicologists have long recognised that music is not a fixed sicians from all parts of the globe are creatively challenged benefits a new diversity of voices. object or thing that exists independently from the contexts in to position themselves in an interplay between the dynamics which it is produced, disseminated and received. Nor is music and speed of global processes and their own perspective, lo- To do justice to a global polyphony of this sort demands a mul- a universal language that can operate and be read in the same cality, identity and time. Worldwide, ideas and input distribut- titude of perspectives, and this is why this year we have placed way everywhere. It is rather an activity that is highly specific ed through global media networks are not only appropriated more emphasis than ever before on inviting artists from regions and responsive to the environment in which it is produced or and mingled with local practices, but also instantly recirculated that are off the radar of electronic and experimental music's heard. And although music is extremely mobile, transferring it without filters and subjected to further transformation. Every- usual hotspots, to spatially and temporally remote music prac- to different locations thus necessarily alters the multiple mean- one that participates in this open-ended conversation therefore tices, culturally hybrid sound forms, queer and minority posi- ings it encrypts. increasingly ingests elements of other cultures. These multifar- tions, and new online music cultures. All of this was possible ious yet always unique cultural modulations are described by thanks to the steadfast cooperation of a large number of part- The act of performing, staging or listening to music is an act the term transculturality. ners and guest curators, among them Rabih Beaini, co-curator of contemporaneity. We must discard the idea of pristine and of this year's music programme, and Norient, the Internation- immutable musical traditions that need to be preserved or to Transcultural processes and the great variety of perspectives al Network for Local and Global Music and Media Cultures, which we might be able to return. Music must be regarded in- they imply sharpen appreciation of »one's own« while simulta- which made a crucial contribution to this year's discourse pro- stead as a practice of musicking that is constantly updated and neously acknowledging a broader world. Pluralism is a condi- gramme and also conceived and realised the exhibition titled reinvented in the current moment. tion of freedom, including the freedom to not belong, to take »Seismographic Sounds. Visions of a New World«, on show distance, to not identify, to be in between. A transcultural un- throughout the festival. We highly recommend the namesake The boundary-expanding processes of digitalisation and glo- derstanding of music and of other cultural processes there- book to any readers in search of even more points of entry into balisation intensify the relational aspect of music and render it fore contradicts essentialist notions of distinct cultural entities, the themes we were only able to touch upon in this magazine. more visible than ever. Yet despite fostering cultural hybridi- their attendant emphasis on difference and compulsory exclu- sation, these processes do not lead to the homogenisation of sion or inclusion. For their support of our venture and in particular of this 17th culture foretold and feared by pessimists. On the contrary, mu- festival edition we — Oliver Baurhenn, Remco Schuurbiers and 7 THE BANALISATION OF THE EXOTIC AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN StOKES BY THOMAS BURKHALTER MARTIN StOKES HAS BEEN RESEARCHING MIDDLE EASTERN MUSIC FOR OVER THIRTY TB: Philosopher Barbara Engh wrote: »The racist love for cul- confusion, that signs have become unstuck from meanings, and tural difference is mostly linked to woman, and to music«. To that ironic distance is the ethical sensibility appropriate to our YEARS NOW. OVER THE COURSE OF SEVERAL EMAILS, NORIENT'S THOMAS BURKHALTER what extent is exoticism simply a human phenomenon? To what times. Philosophically I don't find this terribly interesting, and ENGAGED HIM IN A CONVERSATION ABOUT EXOTICA, ASKING FOR HIS EXPERIENCE extent is it a result of colonialism? certainly not new, I'm afraid. I think these micro-genres prob- ably do function, though, as an interesting space of cross-cul- AND KNOWLEDGE. HOW HAS THE SUbjECT OF EXOTICA BEEN DISCUSSED IN ETHNO- MS: Western musical ideologies, since the 19th Century, have tural communication, technology sharing and creative sociabil- MUSICOLOGY? IS LISTENING TO »FOREIGN« MUSIC A PRIVATE MATTER OR A POLITICAL posited music as a space of intellectual and emotional play ity. As for where this will lead, as usual I think it is far too soon beyond the reach of »politics«. What we do there, according to say! We are learning to imagine only now the important re- ACTIVITY? AND WHAT HAPPENS TO EXOTICA WHEN UNFAMILIAR SOUNDS ARE ONLY A to these ideologies, »doesn't count,« in one sense, but on the lationships between the counterculture of the 1970s (including FEW MOUSE CLICKS AWAY? other is all-important as a site of self-making.