Click here to view the embedded video.

«Luso» is the shortening of «lusophonic», the term for Portugese speaking culture (analogous to “frankophonic“, the term for the French speaking world). The digitally produced music genres that are currently emerging from these countries represent some of the most promising and future oriented innovations in worldwide pop and dance culture. Music genres such as baile funk, kuduro, tecno brega, funana or ku house are the music echoes of an increasing digitalisation and networking of former “emerging countries“. Produced on cheap digital instruments, these genres were born in the shanty towns of megalopolises such as Rio De Janeiro, Luanda, Maputo, Belém or Lisbon and are rapidly distributed worlwide through the Internet.

In cooperation with the Kreuzberg situated club Gretchen – a well established club in Berlin´s raucous nightlife culture – artists and representatives of various urban centers of the lusophonic world perform together with German and Berlin-based aritsts. The musical program is complemented by the presentation of various documentary films and lectures which will give a deeper insight in local music styles of the lusophonic world and their hybrid electronic music styles.

For the detailed program click here.

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Co-Organizer Daniel Haaksman from ManRecordings, Edu K and DJ Comrade
produced a mixtape around the main artists of the festival (Playlist see here):

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Some highlights include the following films and live acts:

Brega S/A

Click here to view the embedded video.

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«É Dreda Ser Angolano» (see article on Norient.com here)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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«I‘m Ugly But I‘m Trendy» (see article on Norient.com here)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Titica (Angola)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Dama Do Bling (Mozambique)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Throes & The Shine (Portugal)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Norient is looking for exciting traces of the global and local music of the 21st century. In a monthly live broadcast norient presents interviews, guests, weird sounds and a lot of music: “World Music 2.0”, Neue Volksmusik, Turbo Folk, Baile Funk, Hardcore, Trash Blues, Speed Metal, Noise and more.

Next shows:
1 October 2012
29 October 2012
26 November 2012

Sticks from «Diary of a stranger», as part of Manual for a construction of a sound as a device to elaborate social connection, Atelier Nord, Oslo (© Brandon LaBelle)

As an artist, writer, curator, critic, your research is mainly focused on sound art and its possible social and cultural implications. Referring to the quotation by Anna Fritz «Becoming is desire» which desire(s) led your attention to sound art?

What led me to an interest in sound as an artistic project was certainly its relational potential – for me, sound is ungovenerable, that is, it is at one and the same moment, mine and not mine; it is exactly what may allow for expressions of sharing: it teaches us how to negotiate loss, and how to also be extremely present. Sound for me is always more than I expect, and this I find very suggestive as an artist, as a body. I’m interested in many of my projects to use sound as a vehicle for generating types of interaction, forms of narrative and knowledge production, that are often circulating around or base themselves upon the ephemeral, the transient, the migratory and the associative. Sound and listening are extremely related and generative of such experiences and ideas; they provide a platform for building out processes that question or unsettle the singular, the human-centric, the law and languages of the proper. In my projects I take this as a starting point, a medium, to develop materials and presentations, site constructions and conversations; sound gives me the courage to trespass the limits of particular languages, and especially, my-self.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In your artistic and academic approach, it seems that you apply an «inclusive definition» of sound art. Not defined as «sound for sound’s sake». In your opinion, what does sound art include and what could it be made of?

Absolutely. I would say, a form of «radical inclusion». Because it also may include the excluded – not to speak in riddles! But what I take from sound is an opportunity to embrace uncertainty, interruption, the invisible, languages that migrate, being-one-and-different, associative knowledge, shivers, noise, voices of strangers, the radio within, formlessness, the quiet, you, and certainly, the future. These are also of course the very things a sound art could be made of.

Aesthetically speaking, in your opinion, does sound art require any visual component?

I would never say it requires anything.

I am thinking of the relation between sound art and silence. Let’s focus on your art-work «Diary of a Stranger». It is a silent intervention in public space in Oslo, in which you explore the social figure of the stranger. Participants carry one of ten wooden sticks painted different colours, each with a metal plaque on with written messages, such as: «You don’t know me», «I am lost in the city», «take me with you», etc. Those objects create a casual and participative cartography of the city, inviting people to circulate with the objects from one point of the city to another. In this case, silence and reading evoke the process of listening and the issue of strangeness between your invisible-silent voice and the one of the active spectator. Is this work a piece of sound art and if so, in which sense?

I appreciate your reading of the work, and as you point out, its relation to «sound» is not so direct; rather, it occupies or creates this space of silent recognition, or silent conversation. The object, this stick, for me is precisely a silence that asks for attention. And this is a direction, a path (not the only one…) toward the stranger, or a becoming-stranger, a coming close to the stranger – a figure that has the possibility to shift the lines of social life, that has as its central potential an ability to unsettle the perimeters of the status quo, because the stranger in a way is never fully knowable; he or she (if we can say this…) is a type of circulation, a body without a proper name, a body that migrates; that hovers around, to occupy a zone always on the edge of the center; a body in the dark, or even, at times, in the light – a body that can also be suddenly so close. I would say: it is a poetic-body. These conditions or characteristics for me also suggest the characteristics of sound: is not sound always somehow a stranger? Even the most familiar sound – my own voice… your voice – often appears as if from nowhere; it escapes me. Becoming-stranger is a moment of encounter, a moment of sudden listening.

«Diary of a stranger» (© Brandon LaBelle)

The idea of a silent (thus sound) intervention in public space makes me think about another project, «Calling Card» (1986-1990) by Adrian Piper. In this piece, the Afro-American artist distributed written cards in public spaces with specific messages relating to concrete situations. Those cards, without providing any opportunity to verbally react to her, caused the reader to have an inner-silent-debate with himself about specific issues. We face here, again, what Salome Voegelin defines as «sonic silence» or «beginning of listening» (2010) [1]. What place does listening play in your interpretation of sound art and in your work in particular?

I think of the listener as someone who is curious but does not know; a body that is searching for what lies behind the scenes, that is suddenly touched by something – a voice, a fiction, a labyrinth to nowhere or to somewhere; I think of listening as a condition of finding association: every sound is already asking us to leave behind who we think we are. To say more about this: we have that feeling that sound comes at us; that it moves into our body, that it floods us. While this is true, I also tend to think that sound beckons us; it calls us toward it, and we move in its direction. It demands from us; it takes us toward a horizon of listening. In this way, sound is really a meeting point, a point toward which I move – yet where I will end up is never really knowable in advance; and further, this meeting point is never only mine. I like to think of it – this sound – as a space inhabited by a community of strangers. We meet here, as bodies associating, assembling – an assemblage… – and yet already on the way to something else, toward another listening. (But something can happen, along the way; this association does have consequence – sound changes me, this community can make something together.)

I would like to come back to your piece «Diary of a Stranger», which ended with a performance based on notes you made during the process. One of the enounced sentences was: «To share – to be». I would like to connect this sentence to the spirit of your last book «Diary of an Imaginary Egyptian» in which you ask for an «agency of the intimate«, «outlining a tender map of the transnational» (from the presentation of the book on the web site). Can we speak about your general work as a «poetic of strangeness»,  as a condition of constant discovery, as a desire to engage toward the other from the difference? Strangeness interpreted as a condition of constant discovery, as a desire to engage through difference, bringing with it a potential for intimacy.

I find this very interesting, and very thoughtful; your perspective definitely resonates with me, and I appreciate this notion, of a «poetics of strangeness». I think difference is about being recognized: there is always that idea that identity is formed only through separation (from the mother…), through a cut, a break (from wholeness…from attachment). To be «self» is to be a body set against a horizon; a figure on a ground, outlined; it is to have a proper name, and to inhabit it, like no one else. Difference then is also the beginning of sharing; for it is what we give to the other – it is what we can offer, and it is also what we can receive: the difference of the other. Intimacy.

Does the fact that you are yourself a stranger in the place where you are based influence your artistic research and your political arrier-plaine? Does being a stranger allow you a more analytical perspective?

I would say maybe something more personal here: being a stranger can also be about carrying a certain loneliness with you (I’m always thinking to write a «history of loneliness»… what can we learn from loneliness, as a thread stretched throughout culture, the body, thinking, etc.? I think there is a great deal of loneliness at the center of all our endeavors…) – so maybe loneliness is the driving force, a backdrop to the necessity to «find the other».

Click here to view the embedded video.

What is your relationship with American mainstream culture? And in particular, with your Los Angeles (sub)cultural background?

It is in me like a thirst.

Another interesting point of your work is the relation with the objects you transform. I am thinking now of your work Counterparts, that you realized in Curitiba (Brasil) in 2006 with Ken Ehrlich & Octavio Camargo [2]. In this project, the final object of the table built with the recollected wood synthetize the whole process. In this case, do you agree with me that the table – the final result – is at the same time the documentation of the whole process? Often working with the ephemeral, time-based or site-specific works, what is your approach to the documentation? Could it be a second artwork?

I would say, yes, it’s interesting to think of the table as the documentation, embodying the process of the entire project. Its material body is the very thing that captures the intention, the imagination, the development of the work. But the table also performed as an event – it stood at a particular location, and generated different interactions; people ate off the table; they talked across it, touched it and also, didn’t notice it. So the table was also a machine for producing conversation.
Generally, I must say that I do not obsess over «documentation»: my focus is on the specific situation, and creating work to speak toward that situation. To document this will always be «less» than the situation; it is a trace, for sure, and in that way, I am ok to let it be a trace. I don’t need another artwork.

«Counterparts», as part of Surface Tension_Curitiba, in collaboration with Octavio Camargo and Ken Ehrlich, Ybakatu Gallery, Curitiba (© Brandon LaBelle)

I certainly appreciate Cavarero’s thinking, and learn a lot from her writings, on voice and histories of western logic. Her notion of the uniqueness of being is really quite beautiful (and brings to mind also the work of Walter Ong…) – at the same time, I miss something from her work as well. She tends to always move towards ideas of «communion», that voice has a certain purity in establishing positive relations; that voice is the essential part of a human. While all this is very enriching and important, I’m also keen to hear in voice aspects of argument, disagreement, lack – voice in other words as «negotiation». In this way, the sonorous relation at the center of voice is also full of struggle, where we don’t necessarily commune, but rather we conflict. This doesn’t move away completely from ideas of «uniqueness», but it does suggest another perspective to the voice, another tonality: that it is not always a given.

Sound is always inside and outside of the body. It is in between isolation and participation. Sound intimidates and requires intimacy. Starting from these points, in 2010 you edited with Errant Bodies «Manual for the construction of a sound as a device to elaborate social connection» [4], a reflection of a residency you and other artists made in Oslo in 2010. What were the main intentions of that project?

The project was aimed at exploring sound as a public material. This was done by bringing together a small group of artists to develop new works, specific to the city of Oslo. We functioned as a working group, expanding on different questions on public space and public life, while each of us worked on our individual projects. Topics such as collaboration, noise, politics of listening and public art generally circulated through the projects, and took shape through public events, interventions in the city, workshops and recording. We thought it important to create this process also as a way to invite public interaction and input. This was given expression also by locating ourselves in a storefront in the city for the final period of the project. This space became a studio, a discussion and presentation space, a meeting point, but also, a potential open space toward the street.

 

In my opinion, «Dirty Ear» (January 2013), the last project you organised at «Errant Bodies» during «Transmediale» seems to be a continuation of the reflections that arose in «Manual for the construction of a sound as a device to elaborate social connection». In both projects, it seems to me that the main questions are how sound can be a tool, a method, a device to engage political landscapes. In both projects, there is a collaborative space-time among artists, in where to build new knowledge through a work-in-progress. Can you tell us more about if and how the last experience you had in Oslo guided you to the articulation of «Dirty Ear»?

Certainly part of all this work is really about developing strategies and methods of self-organizing, and of collective process, and over the years I’ve had the chance to experience this in different ways, in different locations. You might say it does become an education on how to facilitate and also direct informal collectivity and collaboration. This also appears in Errant Bodies, as a publishing platform, as well as Surface Tension, from which the Manual project grew. I’m not sure about any direct links between the Dirty Ear Forum and the Manual project, but of course there are resonances, in terms of a focus on sound, on questions of publicness, or group work. And the attempt to expand practices connected to this. In this way, how listening can function as a platform for a type of social and political engagement.

Coming back to «Dirty Ear», it was mainly a working-thinking space in which you invited another seven artists to join you in a reflection on sound as a social tool. Can you describe how you structured the project and why? And how did you select the invited artists?

I find it increasingly important to focus more on process, and to create platforms for types of experimental research, and this definitely requires discussion and exchange with others. The Dirty Ear Forum was an attempt to nurture such exchange, particularly on the question of sound and listening; I’d say it was about fostering and collecting a diversity of working methods and issues, and to do so by structuring it around the notion of «multiplicity», or ideas of «publicness» – the «public» being an arena for diversity, interaction, processes of conversation: searching for commonality through difference. These then became also the themes for the Forum, and I thought of each participant as representing a certain perspective. To bring together a diverse group of practitioners whose work is also infected by discursive energy, by curiosity and inquisitiveness, and by an engagement with process. I didn’t want to get rid of these differences, but to amplify them in the work itself, in the sharing and occupying of a single space, together.

The project, in different phases, ended with a collective sound installation made of eight speakers, one speaker for each artist. From a curatorial point of view, it was an interventionist, provisional setting. How does the curatorial approach reflect the relationship between multiplicity and isolation?

I thought the idea of the eight speakers occupying a single space would operate to generate a sense for individual work, for individual process, while also forcing this into a process of negotiation, of sharing and of working together. I always have this sense that sound is always crossing over between the private and the public – we might say, it shows us this as a dynamic event, as a channel for the relational; it reminds me that my body is not my own. The structure of the Forum in a way was simply an analogy to this: that to make a sound is already to enter the public sphere, and so the question becomes, what can be made from this collectivity?

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the text that accompanies the project you mention that «Dirty Ear» was also about Radical listening. What do you mean by this definition? Is there a connexion with political movements?

I would not insist on any specific relation to political movements – part of the project was not to pre-determine a particular affiliation, a particular politics, other than a type of «anarchy». But more, to insist on the potentiality of listening to act or contribute to today’s political environment. A method of inclusion that also does not insist on cohesion.

What are the next steps of this project?

I’m very interested to continue this project by relocating it within different places and different contexts. I think what’s important is to continue – it’s clear that one of the most difficult things is how to sustain the conversation, how to extend the project so it might grow and in a way, realize some of its embedded complexity. There is always this great unfolding of energy at first, of perspectives, of sharing that goes with these projects, and that in itself is extremely enriching and significant. But I’m searching for what can happen once that energy is there, once we know each other: what can we do next.

Errant Bodies is a publisher based in Berlin, with a multi-disciplinary interest in sonic and spatial practices. How would you describe it?

I think of Errant Bodies as a project of publishing in the expanded sense – of making public, which definitely includes a politics of association, a type of active poetics, which takes shape mainly through the book. The experience of the book is something I’m very interested in, and I find the book to be an extremely powerful tool, a powerful weapon, a powerful space of gathering, and for poetics – precisely what Edouard Glissant calls a «poetics of relation». It is a public space, a shared space, of the page and its reverberations, into conversations and the civic. So, the book has a particular resonance that I do think offers an important opportunity for deepening reflection on society, as well as for leading the imagination. I like the slowness of the book, which in relation to the quickness of digital culture may offer a valuable counter-balance today.

I’m also interested in how Errant Bodies can operate as a platform for collaboration, for extending the idea of «authorship» – this has been developing through different project series, for instance, the Setting for an Open Source series, which is staged as a performative installation where visitors contribute to a collective writing action. For me, the physical book, and the act of publishing, is also a perfect articulation of the union of the actual and the virtual (and always has been) – the book is already so palpable, and yet so immaterial; it invades this room with its silent energy, while remaining always already elsewhere; it is pure network, pure potentiality, whose materiality is both fixed and yet entirely open to sampling, referencing, reading. For a multiplicity of uses, and certainly, for types of action.

For the last two years we’ve also had a project space in Berlin. While the publications function as platforms for collaboration, for sharing and disseminating, for developing conversations and extending work into the space of the book, the project space for me is important as a platform for more direct meeting. I see it as a way of supporting artists and the processes of research and experimental production, in sonic and spatial work, in text production and critical and poetical thought, and also, a way to invite the influence of these artists into the work we’re doing. So, the project space is about opening Errant Bodies up to others, to also contributing something to the city of Berlin, to act as a meeting point, and to extend Errant Bodies as a platform, and to be surprised by what may still happen.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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[1] Listening to noise and silence, Salome Voegelin, 2010, Continuum

[2] The project took shape in relation to the city of Curitiba’s recycling program, and specifically how this relates to “unofficial” waste collectors living in barrio communities and functioning within an informal economy. 
Researching this community and culture of trash and recycling the work functioned as an act of shadowing. This involved building a cart similar to those used by the “unofficial” collectors and circulating through the city to collect discarded wood.
The cart was built in collaboration with a local craftsman and aimed to intervene within this circuit of trash collecting, which comes to normalize the cheap and partially forced labor of an impoverished community. The cart functioned literally as a vehicle for creating interactions, and was finally exhibited at a local gallery space, along with additional works and artifacts, such as a table built from the collected wood and used for meals served during the exhibition.

[3] Adriana cavarero, for more tan one voice: toward a phylosophy of vocal expression, stansford university press, 2005, p.173

[4] «Manual for the construction of a sound as a device to elaborate social connectio»; Errant Bodies Press, Berlin & Atelier Nord, Oslo, 2010; 108 pages.

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Mahragan (electro sha‘bi)

Sadat (Photo by Thomas Burkhalter)

Mahragan is the current hype in Cairo. I met Sadat and rapper MC Amin who just recently started touring in Europe too. Mahragan comes with ecstatic live performances and often humorous and ironic lyrics.

The people want something new [to think about]
The people want five pounds’ phone credit
The people want to topple the regime
But the people are so damn tired.

Currently, several documentary movies on Mahragan are in the making. We plan to show at least one of them at our 5. Norient Musikfilm Festival.

Click here to view the embedded video.

MC Amin (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

See these two articles about Mahragan by Soraya Morayef and Ted Swedenburg. Plus enjoy one track by MC Amin and Sadat, and a mixtape by the Dutch collective Cairo Liberation Front:

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Islam Chipsy

Islam Chipsy became popular through his extravagant techniques of playing the keyboard. His dream is to receive an Egyptian passport, to travel abroad and to show his music worldwide.

Islam Chipsy in Markez Nightclub, Cairo (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Tamer Abu Ghazaleh and Maryam Saleh

I met Tamer Abu Ghazaleh and Maryam Saleh from the EKA3 label. They are working throughout the Middle East, trying to create a cross-regional platform for alternative music.

Tamer Abu Ghazaleh (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Maryam Saleh (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

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Egyptian Aliens

There is a growing circle of young musicians who experiment with sound art. Many of them were introduced to sound art through Ahmed Basiony who was killed on 28. January 2011 on Tharir Square.

Artist Yara Mekawei (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

Sound artist Ola Saad (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

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100Copies Music

Not to be missed: Mahmoud Refat. I met him for the first time in 2003 – see article here. Since then he founded his 100 Copies label (see article on norient), and today he runs the 100Copies space. Enjoy one track from his group Bikya too, and a live recording from his band mate and friend Maurice Louca.

Mahmoud Refat, 2013 (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

Mahmoud Refat, 2003 (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Wetrobots

Ismael Hosny and Hussein El-Sherbini from the collective Wetrobots are part of an upcoming electronic music circle in Cairo. They toured Switzerland early 2013 – see article on norient here -, and they might come back soon. They often work with Bosaina and Zuli from the Electro-Rap duo Quit Together.

Ismael Hosny and Hussein El-Sherbini (Wetrobots) (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Mohammad Antar

It was great to again meet flutist Mohammad Antar, he was one of the main voices in my podcast about Islam and Music that I did one year ago – see here:

Mohammad Antar (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Last but not least, I met Sherine Amr from the rock group Massive Scar Era – read our reportage about them and the Egyptian metal scene here.

Sherine Amr (Photo: Thomas Burkhalter)

Songs of the new Arab Revolution

I just received this great video from Michael Frishkopf – a collaborative documentary film by members of the Society for Arab Music Research (http://www.ethnomusicology.org/?Group…) and the Facebook group “Songs of the New Arab Revolutions”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Taking pictures of Bikya (Photo: Nadia Mounier)

… More to come soon ….

Various artists. Waking Up Scheherazade, vol. 2. 2010. Grey Past Records: Nether- lands. Design: Milan Hulsing.

Today a growing number of artists in Africa, Latin America and Asia have rediscovered the appeal of “exotic” sounds and stage them in a colorful play – drawing on irony, sarcasm as well as anger. Ethnomusicologist Veit Erlmann (1995, 14) sheds light on the different approaches: He defines the intercultural modus of “world music” (the “old” formula) with the term pastiche, which he defines as a form of parody that lacks the polemical or satirical aspect. World music tries to highlight unspoiled musical forms and idioms. It, however, mixes sounds of the completely commercialized present with the pseudo-historical patina of different places and times. Some contemporary musicians have replaced pastiche with parody: They play joyfully with some of the Euro-American fetishizing and leitmotifing of the East or the South.

This call for the 3rd volume of the Norient Academic Online Journal (NAOJ) aims to explore representations of otherness that have emerged in the 21st century. Through what Wayne Marshall (2007) labels “global ghettotech” a new generation of musics drawing on local traditions, electronic dance music and other forms of popular music have emerged. The submitted articles should discuss these contemporary renderings of exoticism and discuss them from “local”, “transnational”, “political”, post-colonial”, “economical” or other perspectives. What questions of representation do these cultural products generate? How do contemporary musicians from outside the Euro-American centers play on previous representations of the “other”? Who are they aimed at? What role do global migration patterns play? How do these musical representation incorporate tonal, rhythmic and harmonic structures foreign to the dominant Euro-American foundation of popular music? How has the internet and social media influenced these developments? What are the technological challenges?

Parallel to the thematic call that will result in the third issue of the NAOJ we also welcome ethnographic articles on popular musics from around the world.

Articles can be submitted in any language the editors can read (currently English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavian, Russian, Dutch, Esperanto) but must include an abstract in either English or German.

Please submit your abstracts to
journal_submission at norient.com

Tentative schedule
June 30th, 2013: Deadline for abstracts (maximum 200 words), see submission guideline here.
October 1st, 2013: Deadline for articles (maximum 6.000 words, Chicago Manual of Style with the author-date system and endnotes)
Spring 2014: Articles published.

Literature
Erlmann, Veit. 1995. Ideologie Der Differenz: Zur Ästhetik Der World Music. PopScriptum 3 (World Music): 6-29, http://www2.hu-berlin.de/fpm/popscrip/themen/pst03/pst03_erlmann.htm (accessed 27.04.2013).
Marshall, Wayne. 2007. Global Ghettotech Vs. Indie Rock: The Contempo Cartography of Hip. wayne&wax. http://wayneandwax.com/?p=205 (accessed 27.04.2013).

Norient Academic Online Journal (NAOJ)
NAOJ (ISSN: 2296-049X) is part of Norient – Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture (http://norient.com). Editors for this 3rd call are: Thomas Burkhalter, Jeroen De Kloet, Julio Mendivil, Oliver Seibt, Jesse Wheeler and David-Emil Wickström. For inquiries regarding the journal you can contact the editor-in-chief David-Emil Wickström (dew at norient.com).

P.S.: The planned publishing date of the second volume of the NAOJ is June 2013.

¿Quién Quiere Tuki? | Who Wants Tuki?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Directed by Mostro Contenidos, 2012 (Link)

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The Harp of King David – a portrait of Alemu Aga in Addis Abeba

Click here to view the embedded video.

Directed by by Vincent Moon & Jacob Kirkegaard (Link)

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Ostentation Funk

Click here to view the embedded video.

Directed by Renato Barreiros und Konrad Dantas, 2013

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Raving in the Black Sea

VBS, 2007

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100% Galsen’

Click here to view the embedded video.

Directed by Keyti (Cheikh Sene), 2008.

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Ein Kurzfilm über Murray Schafer

Listen by David New, National Film Board of Canada

Directed by David New, 2009 (Link)

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5. Norient Musikfilm Festival

The 5th Norient Music-Film-Festival is going to take place from 9th to 12th January 2014. The program is online in December 2013. Please send us your movies! Info: Here!

Click here to view the embedded video.

There were Holi Fests in Cape Town and Durban (both equally silly), but the Jozi leg left us at AIAC wondering if the stars of «Jersey Shore» were sent on a cheap version of Spring Break with some ground up chalk dust. Someone has already taken down the video, which was playing freely on Youtube last week—most likely, a featured performer was embarrassed enough that she/he asked to have it taken down—but not before Dylan Valley, Sean Jacobs, Tom Devriend, and I got to see it before shyness suddenly descended on the featured players. The video featured young South Africans (overwhelmingly white) being predictably drunk, embarrassing themselves at the Johannesburg Holi «We Are One» Festival. It basically looks like «a piss up where people throw coloured powder at each other,» said Dylan, by way of introduction. Indeed, the video featured (again, yes, mostly those of largely European descent) people plastered in what appears to be very cheap pastel powders, mouthing such gems as (which we jotted down before the video was pulled):

«I actually went to the real Holi fest in India and I have to say this is much better»; «I hope I don’t turn Indian» and: «Get super colourful and get pictures and get DRUNK! Fuck girls sideways!»; «YOLO!». Then this dude: «There’s plenty bitches but they all look the same because they’re all so colourful.»

 
Three black guys also make their debut – so it is diverse like a «rainbow» we suppose. There’s that awkward moment that one dude gets what he’s doing: «besides the really fucking terrible music, and exploiting someone’s else’s sacred festival…I get to get drunk with my friends for a massive fee.» Later he says, «Everything that’s wrong about the world is perfectly and succinctly and sophisticatedly expressed here today» and «all this really is a bunch of privileged whit kids with shoes and nice clothes walking around and pretending we know anything about any other culture.» It’s true that he says these things when prompted by the makers of the video, but it’s difficult to know how an intelligent person like this man can create a small space of amnesia in order to participate in the very things he critiques.

Its one redeeming quality: Dylan said, «At least the makers of the video seemed to intend to show it up for the farce that it » And I have to agree, though they don’t seem to know much about the mythologies surrounding Holi, why it is a significant moment of revelry and merrymaking, or about the music they picked as the soundtrack. The song played at the opening of the video is an invocation to Lord Shiva: «Satyam Shivam Sundaram» (Truth is Eternal and Beautiful; «shivam» can refer directly to Shiva, or to the idea of the eternal. The songstress is Lata Mangeshkar, who is as beloved and famously mythologised as any goddess, singing in a style that truly does invoke the sacred. Here’s the original, created for a movie directed by Raj Kapoor (1978).

Click here to view the embedded video.

In our first viewings of the Youtube video of Jozi’s Holi Fest, some neo-Punjabi dance music is cued in after Lata Mangeshkar sings her invocation to Shiva. That’s also somewhat accidentally appropriate, because bhangra is traditionally played at revelries following harvest, though morons shouting «bitches are so colourful» are a rarity at such moments of celebrations.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In Cape Town, things went down like this officially, and like this in reality. And Durban’s version boasted free entrance to the beach (glaringly obvious that the festival of Holi should never require an «entrance» fee…since… well, like one of Dylan Valley’s friends said: its like getting people to pay to fast for Ramadan. Apparently, no liquor was involved, but «herb», however, may have made a strong appearance. The presence of marijuana wouldn’t be a serious problem in any case – or somehow make Holi ‘inauthentic’: some in northern India drink a heady mix of sweet, full-cream milk and ground up marijuana buds to really experience a trance-like state. In India, too, there are millions who are not Hindu—people who come from long traditions of Islam, Christianity and Sikhism—who celebrate together with their Hindu neighbours, throwing coloured powder on each other while wearing old clothes when Holi rolls around in the springtime.

Subversion and escape

Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian critic, described «carnival» as a literary mode evident in Medieval and Renaissance works. Using humour, subversion of hierarchies and chaos to disrupt dominant modes of structuring society, carnival frees – if only for a moment – those who are beholden to those structures. He stressed that carnival was distinct from any official or sanctioned ceremonies, providing a different space than did theatrical performances. Whereas theatre, at least that which follows western conventions, is based on creating distinctions between spectators and actors, in carnival, all are participants, experiencing a sort of «second-life» or alternate, upside-down moment in which all may, without impunity, temporarily suspend social hierarchies. Here, the actor is the spectator, and vice versa; master may be servant, the bishop a layperson, and the maid could don a man’s clothing and harass the master with the same level of disdain that power makes available in intimate zones. Such festivities provided a practical release for repressed and regimented societies, but they also had spiritual and ideological functions. Laughter, the most important part of revelry in carnival, could be directed towards anyone without impunity, and with multiplicitous meaning: happy and inclusive at one moment; mocking and disparaging in another. Thus, the grotesque is intrinsic to carnival: while there are elements of ideal and utopian in such moments of abandon and revelry, they are also open to the possibility of alienation and hostility.

CC Copyright © Shanepedia 2012

What we’re objecting to people tapping into another culture’s way of experiencing carnivalesque escape. The whole reason festivals and carnivals exist is so that we can forget distinctions of caste and creed – upend hierarchies, as Bakhtin wrote. Carnival is meant to – temporarily, at least – give us that opportunity to peek into a life in which we can live as one. And hopefully, that glimpse will prompt some lifelong transformations. I’m almost sure no such thing happened here.

Like the infamous Jersey Shorites, who frequent the boardwalks of the US’ Eastern Seaboard every summer – to score deep orange tans, attempt to ‘DJ’, throw up while riding bikes completely smashed, proudly display their douchebag abs for the camera at a moment’s notice, dance with the occasional hotel lobby plant, and then put it all on television – anyone can see that these kids in the Johannesburg «fest» are posers doing their best to do the dance of youthful bravado. Their nod to carnivalesque hedonism – however tame – is no different from that of tens of thousands of others around the world who are privileged enough to be able to indulge themselves in such expensive escapism. And in any case, one can’t stop assholes from putting a statue of a «fat Buddha» in a bar, any more than one can stop these desecrators, who are busily—and completely unawares—are agreeing to the commodification of their own youthful lives: that’s hardly revelry and rebel-ry. We get what the post-racials are looking for: to be «colourful». Without the trouble that comes with being Colourful. Sadly, rather than upending social conventions, and questioning hierarchies, this slew of commercial Holi fests simply re-inscribe and reinforce them.

How to deal with this observation?

When I wrote this post for Africa’s a Country, we, as a team, expected a lot of pushback on this one – one doesn’t critique the privileged practices of people who are used to ownership (of others, their practices, etc.) without meeting their ire. Most were angry that I’d referred to Bakhtin—this made the post open to criticism centred around half-formulated rants about its «pseudo-intellectualism» and «self-importance». To them, all I could say was, «You may want to revisit critical theory, so that you get it, without me having to spoon feed you.»

Others felt that people all over the world have adopted the bright lights of Christmas, and the chocolate bunnies of Easter, so what’s the harm in «us» adopting traditions from «others»? First, I have to say that the chocolate bunny and eggs business hasn’t caught on in the Indian subcontinent, though the commercialisation of Christmas (which has spread to nearly every corner of the globe), is something common. This is largely owing to the fact that Christianity, and the attendant commercialisation of Christmas, is part of the hegemonic culture of the geopolitical west. Christmas arrived with blue jeans, missionaries, and neo-liberal policies: it’s just a part of how a powerful, hegemonic culture enters the everyday practices of far-away places. However, when powerful cultures appropriate, they do so in order to post their stamp on it—and this practice of taking ownership of the other’s symbols, stamping it as one’s own, and erasing any trace of the Other is already evident in Christianity. Many of us might already know this: the bunny and eggs during springtime, and the fir-tree decorations and lights at winter were Pagan rituals; Christians, who swept into northern Europe (often killing Pagans and forcing their beliefs out), appropriated their practices, and made them «Christian».

Click here to view the embedded video.

However, other people who went to the festival also wrote us. Alexandra Searle wrote that she was «so excited to be able to show my 18 year old brother some fragment of India»; she even made him miss some classes at his university for this festival. They went, expecting «a multi cultural event, drawing liberals and leftys, old and young, [hoping for] authentic food and explanations of the festival, and some grounding in the India version of Holi.» But it turned out to be «a mortifying experience». The only multi cultural dynamic was bought – tragically and seemingly unnoticed – by the cleaners, who desperately scrambled between, around and through drunk, disrespectful and inappropriate white youth – trying to pick up the empty used packets from the ‘paint/powder/chalk’…. these cleaners where pushed, cajoled, heckled and of course not assisted in any way in their job (despite the large numbers of maxi sized plastic bins around the circumference of the paint area)…
My partner toyed with the idea of taking a picture of this ‘multi cultural’ (cleaners) dyamic and posting it where ever we could – with a bit of commentary about the festival… but in the end – he was unsure how it would be received in this ‘new’ South Africa, and decided against it.
 We poured out ‘paint/powder/chalk’ and left rather rapidly….
We were the only people walking out, against a sea of white (also dressed) intoxicated youth swarming in to ‘celebrate Holi’!
 «I have some beautiful pictures…and perhaps one day I can show Francis (my 18 year old) Holi in India… because – this was certainly not it.»

Others, too, like Indira, wrote to say that though she agreed with our observations, she thought that «the substance of the critique will probably bounce off the people who pay money to indulge in this ‘revelry’»…[this] is no different from all the other festivals we’ve gone to or continue to go to in [South Africa] that promote: peace, love, unity, respect for each other and the earth but turn out to be large white dominated carbon footprints filled with beer bottles, vomit and misogyny. Personally, I can’t stand the sight of another nature reserve littered with trash after a weekend festival supposedly promoting the above values. This festival is just another excuse to make money, another commodification, as the writer describes it. There are still rules and regulations, still hierarchies.»

Click here to view the embedded video.

To conclude: the complex Holi-story

Yes, cultures are shifting things, so the practices surrounding Holi has undoubtedly changed over time – so this isn’t about saying that you must have some sort of ‘authentic’ pass to practice my ancient, pure tradition. But when people «use» without context or understanding, without even an inkling of respect, they’re usually performing that special kind of willful ignorance intrinsic to believing that all shit is there for them to take – and this video is a particularly gross piece of evidence displaying South Africa’s own brand of crass privilege.

An apt American proverb may say it best here: you can put lipstick on a pig, but that don’t make it Marylin Monroe. Likewise, throwing some coloured powder, shouting «bitches» at every other sentence, and having only the desire to get wasted is not going to make this mess Holi. Holi has its origins in a couple of myths that, like many legends and fairytales, are not altogether savoury. It is generally seen as the celebration of the victory of good over evil, but much of the content of these legends favours the triumphant arrival of a new pantheon of Hindu gods over the ‘demonic’ creatures that were part of the belief system of the subcontinent’s indigenous people. The roots of one myth involve the story of «demon» king Hiranyakashyap, who, with the help of his demon sister, Holika, wished to end the life of his son, Prahlad. Prahlad, despite his father’s demonic and arrogant nature, was a faithful devotee of the god Vishnu: this terrified his powerful father, who believed himself to be the ruler of the universe, and thus, above all the gods. Holika, the sister, was enlisted to destroy the holy Prahlad. She had the magical power of immunity to fire granted her by the gods, so she leapt into a fire, and held Prahlad in middle of the conflageration. But no harm occurred to Prahlad; instead, Holika burnt in the fire: one must never use a gift from the gods for evil purposes.

Holika, Narasimha Avtar, Prahlad and Hiranyakasyapa (Source:
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, http://ignca.nic.in)

see more Photos here and here.

Holi in Germany, video-report here.

Swiss-Fondue-Fufu-Mix

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Sonic Traces: From Switzerland

The Swiss-Fondue-Fufu-Mix is part of the audio-visuel performance project «Sonic Traces: From Switzerland» that mixes and manipulates music, sounds, noise and voices from Switzerland. More Info: Here. Next Performance:

> 17.08.13, Alpentöne – Internationales Musikfestival, Altdorf

Click here to view the embedded video.

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In the the Sonic Traces: From Switzerland On-Line Dossier we posted various articles and podcasts on Swiss music:

> Oy, Berlin
> The National Fanfare of Kadebostany, Genf
> Schweizer Nationalphonotek, Lugano
> La Gale, Lausanne
>Wildlife!, Bern
>Swiss Conspiracy, Melbourne, Paris
> Patricia Bosshard, Lausanne
> Elina Duni, Bern
> Müslüm, Bern
> Tim & Puma Mimi, Zürich
> Kate Wax, Genf
> Boris Previsic, Zürich
> Superterz, Zürich
> Simon Berz, Zürich
> Ruedi Häusermann, Lenzburg
> Joke Lanz, Berlin
> Ot Asoy, Bern
> Stini Arn, Bern
> Imperial Tiger Orchestra, Genf
> Eidgenössisches Jodelfest, Interlaken
> Festival Alpentöne, Altdorf
> Praed, Beirut/Bern
> Da Cruz, Bern
> Jonas Kocher, Biel
> Reverend Beat-Man, Bern
> Round Table Knights, Bern
> Dieter Ringli, Aathal-Seegräben
> Kara Sylla Ka, Genf
> Manuel Stahlberger, St. Gallen
> Heidi Happy, Luzern
> Yang Jing, Aarburg
> Wael Sami, Bern
> Meduoteran, Trimbach
> Festival Ear We Are, Biel

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Various Podcasts

Lost in a music archive in the capital of Niger was the first I heard of the legendary Mammane Sanni Abdoulaye. The space was overflowing with dusty CDs, cassettes, and Nagra reels, and hunkering down from the insufferable heat outside, I prepared to spend a long week in research. Mammane’s cassette was the first I pulled from the shelf, and I almost passed over in lieu of something more obscure. But I was captured by the photograph — a black and white picture of a young man with a goatee and a knit cap, posing in front of faux backdrop, hands on what appeared to be an organ. The music proved equally intriguing. The instrumental compositions were simple but dreamy, repetitive but hypnotic. It was esoteric and bizarre, unlike anything I had ever head – the imaginary audio track to an arcade game of desert caravans trek through an pastoral landscape of 8-bit acacias and pixelized sand.

Finding Mammane was surprisingly easy. Immediately after asking about him to the archive director, I had him on the phone. The next day, Mammane arrived. Much older than in the photo, with greying hair and in a pressed shirt and slacks, he had a laugh when I showed him the cassette, and he said it was best if we spent the day talking – he was retired, and didn’t have much to do anyways. Moments later were running through the streets to catch a bus, followed by a taxi, that soon carried us outside of Niamey into the surrounding Sahel of scrubs and brown plains, where Mammane lives today. Inside the tiny house, interrupted intermittently by the persistent crow of a rooster, Mammane told me his story as we listened to his cassettes and paged through books of old photographs.

Mammane is well known throughout Niger, but his synth music was never hugely popular. He came from a privileged place in Niger society – his maternal grandfather was a chief in Ghana, his paternal grandfather a Colonel in the first World War, and Mammane’s father was a librarian for the American Cultural Center. As a young man, Mammane became a functionary for UNESCO, during which he traveled to Japan and Europe. During one of the UNESCO meetings, a delegate from Rwanda had brought along his Italian «Orlo» organ. Mammane was captivated by the sound and convinced him to sell it. «It was possibly the first Organ in Niger», he explained. He began to compose songs on the organ. Many of these songs were interpretations of Niger folkloric classics. «I wanted to make the Wodaabe songs on the keyboard, make the Tuareg tendé with the rhythm» he said. Some were his own compositions. Salamatu, one his most popular songs, was created for his girlfriend. He stopped as he came across her photo, how he once lay with his head in her lap, and tears came to his eyes. When she asked him why he was crying, he answered «Because I’ve never been so happy as I am in this moment.» He sits quietly, before I asked what happened to Salamatu, and he smiles before shaking his head and turning the page.

His first and only album was recorded in 1978. Mammane stepped into the studio of the National Radio with his organ, where it was transposed and overdubbed in two takes. In coordination with the Minister of Culture, the album was released in a limited series of cassettes showcasing modern Niger music. The cassette project unfortunately did not progress as planned, and merely a handful were released. Perhaps 100 were made – Mammane is unsure – fabricated in Nigeria. The copy that he owns and the one at the archive are the only ones he knows are left. Nevertheless, for over 30 years, Mammane continued to play. For a short while he even had a television show called «Mammane Sani et son Orgue Électronique» on Niger’s television. He digs out a short clip, a black and white video transfer playing in front of the same backdrop that graces the cover of the cassette. Mammane is hardly esoteric or forgotten in Niger. His music today is known by everyone – it forms much of the repertoire of televised intermissions, radio segue-ways, and background music. And Mammane has continued to update his organs and pianos when they fall apart, benefiting from generous contributions from high society, gifts of presidents and ministers.

I left Mammane’s house in the evening, ducking out of his house to catch transport back into town before the night came. And it was nearly a year later when we started to talk about releasing it on record. Mammane was nonchalant about it, only insisting that the proceeds could be used to upgrade his computer and get a new copy of audio software. But one of his musician friends I recently spoke to in New York was more adamant in his idea of the vinyl release. «He’s been waiting over 30 years», he said. «It’s about time.»

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Grab the vinyl at the new Sahelsounds shop or Mississippi Records – and of course, the music is available on Bandcamp. Proceeds of the sales will go to Mammane’s new computer and a copy of Reason, so stay tuned for future recordings.

This Post was first published on Sahelsounds.com.

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Listen to the Podcast SIM Cards from Northern Mali about the MP3-Blog Sahelsounds, by Thomas Burkhalter:

Gert-Jan Prins

«Irtijal means improvisation in Arabic, although since its creation in 2001, the festival has never been strictly a free improv festival and pretty much evolved to have a much wider musical reach, trying to cover all types of new and innovative music making, always seeking to cover new ground. But we like to think that Improvisation has remained the spirit that animates the festival.» (Sharif Sehnaoui, 2013)

Upperground Orchestra (Rabih Beaini, Piero Bittolo Bon, Alvise Seggi, Tommaso Cappellato)

Osman Arabi

«The 2013 edition is in some ways much smaller than the 2012 one. This is very much due to the local and regional situation. There is so much uncertainty in the area that while planning ahead for Irtijal, I decided to stay on the safe side. Still the four day festival was quite dense and very rich in styles and figures: modern and experimental electronic music (Gert-Jan Prins; Miles; Morphosis…); avant-rock and noise (There is no Why; Shalabi Effect; Balazs Pandi…); finally and probably for the first time in our 13 year history there was a strong presence of new and free oriental music!!! (Khyam Allami & Maurice Louca with Lukas Ligeti; City of Salt…)» (Sharif Sehnaoui, 2013)

City Of Salt (Paed Conca, Omar Dewachi, Sam Shalabi)

Lukas Ligeti

Shalabi Effect (Sam Shalabi, Anthony Von Seck, Alexandre St-Onge, Will Eizlini)

Balazs Pandi

Gert-Jan Prins & Raed Yassin

Raed Yassin / Mazen Kerbaj / Gert-Jan Prins

Dao

Morphosis

Miles

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Festival Reviews in Lebanese Media

> The Daily Star, 5.4.2013, Jim Quilty (Link)
> The Daily Star, 8.4.2013, Jim Quilty (Link)

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New and Related Releases from Beirut

> V.A. «The Ruptured Sessions Vol.5» (Ruptured) (Listen Here)
> Charbel Haber. «It Ended Up Being a Great Day, Mr. Allende» (Al Maslakh)(Listen Here)

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Check Norient articles around music in Beirut here. And recommend the book «Local Music Scenes and Globalization – Transnational Platforms in Beirut», by Thomas Burkhalter (Editor-in-Chief, Norient.com), to your library – or order it. Info Here.