Books
As a practice performed by human beings, music is connected to politics in manifold ways. One way of bringing the political into music is the technique of sampling. With this method, music producers take sound snippets from external sources and incorporate them into new musical compositions. In this first issue of the Norient Sound Series, we examine how political contexts of our time are transformed into musical production. Among many further accounts, we follow the sampling of car horns in Indonesia, read about an Italian refugee project that uses smartphones as sampling resources, and reflect on ethical questions such as: Can one sample sounds of war? With case studies from all around the world, this Norient Special approaches sampling as a tool for critical thought and a way of alternative storytelling.
Info:
Thomas Burkhalter/Hannes Liechti/Philipp Rhensius (Ed.): Sampling Politics Today (Norient Sound Series 1). Norient: Bern 2020 (Digital/Open Access). More info and shop via Norient.
«Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World» introduces you to a contemporary world of distinct music, sounds and music videos. Scholars, journalists, bloggers and musicians from Bolivia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Switzerland and forty-six other countries discuss artistic expressions that may not make big headlines yet, but anticipate major changes to come. Produced in oftentimes small studios from Jakarta to La Paz, Cape Town to Helsinki, these works experiment with the new possibilities of the Internet age and illuminate new spaces beyond the confines of commercialism, propaganda, and bigotry. They foresee a changing geography of multi-layered modernities, far beyond old ideas of North versus South, West versus East. Discover this through a collage of articles, quotations, photographs and lyrics.
Info:
Thomas Burkhalter/Theresa Beyer/Hannes Liechti (Ed.): Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World. Norient: Bern 2015. More info and shop via Norient.
This book offers the first in-depth study of experimental and popular music scenes in Beirut, looking at musicians working towards a new understanding of musical creativity and music culture in a country that is dominated by mass-mediated pop music, and propaganda. Burkhalter studies the generation of musicians born at the beginning of the Civil War in the Lebanese capital, an urban and cosmopolitan center with a long tradition of cultural activities and exchanges with the Arab world, Europe, the US, and the former Soviet Union. These Lebanese rappers, rockers, death-metal, jazz, and electro-acoustic musicians and free improvisers choose local and transnational forms to express their connection to the broader musical, cultural, social, and political environment. Burkhalter explores how these musicians organize their own small concerts for ‘insider’ audiences, set up music labels, and network with like-minded musicians in Europe, the US, and the Arab world. Several key tracks are analyzed with methods from ethnomusicology, and popular music studies, and contextualized through interviews with the musicians. Discussing key references from belly dance culture (1960s), psychedelic rock in Beirut (1970s), the noises of the Lebanese Civil war (1975-1990), and transnational Pop-Avant-Gardes and World Music 2.0 networks, this book contributes to the study of localization and globalization processes in music in an increasingly digitalized and transnational world. At the core, this music from Beirut challenges "ethnocentric" perceptions of "locality" in music. It attacks both "Orientalist" readings of the Arab world, the Middle East, and Lebanon, and the focus on musical "difference" in Euro-American music and culture markets. On theoretical grounds, this music is a small, but passionate attempt to re-shape the world into a place where "modernity" is not "euro-modernity" or "euro-american modernity," but where possible new configurations of modernity exist next to each other.
Info:
Thomas Burkhalter: Local Music Scenes and Globalization – Transnational Platforms in Beirut. Routledge: New York 2013. Info and shop via Routlege and Norient.
From jazz trumpeters drawing on the noises of warfare in Beirut to female heavy metallers in Alexandria, the Arab culture offers a wealth of exciting, challenging, and diverse musics. The essays in this collection investigate the plethora of compositional and improvisational techniques, performance styles, political motivations, professional trainings, and inter-continental collaborations that claim the mantle of "innovation" within Arab and Arab diaspora music. While most books on Middle Eastern music-making focus on notions of tradition and regionally specific genres, The Arab Avant Garde presents a radically hybrid and globally dialectic set of practices. Engaging the "avant-garde"a term with Eurocentric resonancesthis anthology disturbs that presumed exclusivity, drawing on and challenging a growing body of literature about alternative modernities.
Chapters delve into genres and modes as diverse as jazz, musical theatre, improvisation, hip hop, and heavy metal as performed in countries like Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and the United States. Focusing on multiple ways in which the "Arab avant-garde" becomes manifest, this anthology brings together international writers with eclectic disciplinary trainingspracticing musicians, area studies specialists, ethnomusicologists, and scholars of popular culture and media. Contributors include Sami W. Asmar, Michael Khoury, Saed Muhssin, Marina Peterson, Kamran Rastegar, Caroline Rooney, and Shayna Silverstein, as well as the editors.
Info:
Thomas Burkhalter/Kay Dickinson/Benjamin Harbert (Ed.): The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East. Wesleyan University Press: Middletown 2013. Info and shop via Wesleyan University Press and Norient.
Das erste Buch des Online-Netzwerkes Norient diskutiert Zeitfragen und Trends im globalisierten Musikschaffen zwischen Europa, Afrika, Lateinamerika, Asien und den USA. In diesem Buch hinterfragen Journalistinnen und Wissenschaftler, Künstlerinnen und Fotografen Protest und Provokation in den USA, Ghana und England. Sie tauchen ein in die schrillen Partywelten von São Paolo, zeichnen die Neuerfindung des syrischen Synthesizer-Pops nach und diskutieren das Provokationspotenzial lateinamerikanischer Kopulationstänze. Journalistisch und wissenschaftlich. Auf Deutsch und Englisch. Mit kritischem Geist und Liebe zur Nische.
Info:
TB/Theresa Beyer (Ed.): Out of the Absurdity of Life – Globale Musik. Norient 012, Solothurn 2012. Info and shop via Norient.
Photo Diary (soon)