Cedrik Fermont aka C-drík (photo: Frank Sebastian Hansen)

Half the World in 49 Songs

Playlist

The musician and composer Cedrik Fermont cuts lanes through the highly constructed geographical and imagined landscapes of our world. The compilation Uchronia from his label Syrphe (2018) consists of 49 songs from artists of 32 different Asian countries. We asked him about his five favorite songs.

«Asia is not a continent». This is not an unusual start in conversations with Cedrik Fermont. If one had to describe the musician, sound artist, and essayist in one term, the most appropriate would probably be: networker. But given the fact that this term is infected by neoliberal’s most beautiful dream (the constant commercial utilization of relationships), it would be better to describe him as personifying crossroads. On his constant tours as a musician and founder of the label Syrphe, Fermont meets hundreds of musicians and sound artists from all over the world, and has established a lot of long term relationships and created a huge network of underground musicians.

The compilation Uchronia consists of 49 artists from noise and free improvised music from 32 Asian countries and the diaspora. With the aim of reaching «beyond the obvious structures as well as beyond the connections to Europe and USA», the compilation shows how music is able to travel without borders, and to create alternative, non-eurocentric maps of the world. Norient editor Philipp Rhensius met him in Berlin to pick out his five favorite songs of the compilation. But before we move on, let’s clarify the statement from the beginning. Fermont writes in the accompanying essay, «geographical Asia is a cultural artifact», later claiming that «Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, South, Central and Southeast Asia, and Russia all shared various cultural and historical events as scientific discoveries and trends.» And this – the compilation – is how experimental music from these countries sound.

Gülce Özen Gürkan: «Fag Boy Jesus»

«It’s a very important piece and it is very political, maybe the only explicit one. Gülce Özen Gürkan is really active in the field of veganism, human rights and LGBT rights. The piece sounds like very old school electro acoustic music. The piece was made for an exhibition in Istanbul but it was censored because of the title, which is a big provocation in Türkiye. It is about a homosexual being bullied but I won’t tell you more because it is important to listen to the text, spoken by a synthetic voice.»

Uchronia by Compilation

Saadet Türköz, Zeynep Sarıkartal, Başar Ünder: «Shine»

«This piece is from a Kazakh Turkish project. It was hard to find musicians from Kazakhstan until somebody recommended Saadet Türköz, an experimental vocalist. But by the time I finally reached her, I just had five days left to finish the compilation. She told me she had no time to provide anything. Then I learned that another musician I know, Başar Ünder, was performing with her in Istanbul. I asked him to record the session. Normally I don’t release live sessions but this one turned out to be very well recorded.»

Uchronia by Saadet Türköz, Zeynep Sarıkartal, Başar Ünder

Children Of Cathode Ray: «Mantracks»

«This band is an audio visual project from the Philippines. I’m really happy that they are on it because they are the pioneers of the Philippine experimental music scene which started in the 1980s. I love their music and they gave me a very old piece, which was probably recorded around 1989/1990. I like the way they experiment with sound and visuals and especially their DIY approach of making music.»

Uchronia by Children Of Cathode Ray

Phu Pham: «What Could»

«This decision is purely based on my personal taste. I really like this piece because it is just beautiful, very emotional and very minimalistic. It is an introspective piece and you need to listen to it in a very quiet environment with all its organic details. It sounds like a living being.»

Uchronia by Phu Pham

Kei Watanabe: «We’ve Forgotten How To Breathe»

«Kei Watanabe is from Sri Lanka and she works with tapes and loops. It is interesting to see that she works like this as it is pretty old fashioned and uncommon nowadays. Her piece reminds me a lot on my past and the tape scene of the 1980s. It was a time when I myself collected a lot of tapes and published tapes as well. The piece sounds a bit broken and it has a very eerie and strange melody, probably made with flutes. It sounds like a melancholic ceremony in a weird way.»

Uchronia by Kei Watanabe

Biography

Philipp Rhensius is an editor for Norient, writer, musician, sound artist, sociologist & musicologist, and curator from Berlin. His work investigates the connections between the micro- and macro-political and is driven by the idea that «feeling the chains» is the moment when emancipation begins. His music and sound art projects (Kl.ne, aphtc, Alienationst) merge sonic fiction with sardonic poetry and visceral sound. His texts are published in i.e. Taz, Spex, FAZ, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, WOZ and several book volumes. He runs the music label Arcane Patterns and hosts a monthly podcast on Noods Radio. Follow him on Instagram, his Website, or LinkedIn.

Published on August 14, 2018

Last updated on June 27, 2023

Topics

Colonialism

New Geographies

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Filmstill: Sinofuturism (1839–2046 AD) (2016, HD Video, 60 Min – Copyright: Lawrence Lek, Courtesy Sadie Coles HQ, London)

China – Made in Europe

Review

by Philipp Rhensius

The movie Sinofuturism (1839–2046 AD) by Lawrence Lek is an essay; it is science fiction; it is radical realism. The Basic message: while Europe is stuck in the past, China leaps into the future. In the anxious eyes of the Europeans, the «superpower» represents the fully-automated world of tomorrow, found in products, server farms, and artificial intelligence. Does Sinofuturism confront us with an inhuman dystopia? No, says Norient author Philipp Rhensius. It all just depends on the perspective on our world.

I remember exactly the uneasy feeling when I watched the horror movie 28 Days Later. The scariest thing was not the dystopian scenes of zombies killing humans killing zombies, it was the post-apocalyptic, confusingly calm beginning: in a long single shot, the main character wakes up from his coma in a hospital, steps out on the street as the camera floats above a deserted London, while he gradually learns that the world has declined. It is this image of a city devoid of any signs of a living civilization that I am reminded of when watching the essay film Sinofuturism (1839–2046 AD). The difference, though, is that the few humans present are not in fear of extermination by monsters, but of being replaced by machines – which is far more likely to happen.

Lawrence Lek’s essay movie is not a nostalgic lament about us poor humans becoming superfluous in the face of superior technologies. It is – on the contrary – a cynical affirmation of the idea that technology, at least in East Asia, has won. By taking the Eurocentric stereotypes about China seriously, Sinofuturism deals with the entire catalogue of clichés, from gambling to addiction, labour, fake, and not to forget: dehumanization.

Through the Eyes of a Gamer

Sinofuturism shows what's left when humans are gone: a world inhabited by data cables, server farms, robots, games, and a few humans who are either pitiful characters or catatonic creatures wearing VR headsets. To emphasize this, Lek, who was born in Germany of Malaysian-Chinese decent, uses the first person rather than third person perspective. This point of view is similar to one of a gamer. It throws the spectator into a mode of observing, suggesting: if the machines have taken over, we are doomed to be passive observers of a world that is out of (human) control.

But isn't this «future» already here? And if yes, does it have to be bleak? If we desperately hold on to the idea that humans are the center of our world, it surely is. Sinofuturism, however, is not interested in cultural pessimism. Instead, it is more in line with sociologist Bruno Latour’s theory developed in the 1980s, in which he describes life on earth as a dynamic relationship between heterogenic entities. The «Actor-Network Theory» resists any dichotomies (object/subject, nature/society) in social theory, and instead assigns equal amounts of agency to both human and non-humans.

Welcome to the Digital Future

According to this theory, everything has a certain agency to shape the world, from data cables to a human brain or an organizational structure. Having this in mind, the world devoid of humans in 28 Days Later is different from the one in Lek's film. It isn't necessarily a dystopia that we fear, but a (new) reality of which we are conscious.

Therefore, Sinofuturism communicates two important aspects. It not only deconstructs Eurocentric stereotypes towards a nation of more than 1,386 billion people, but it also invites us to accept the contingency of a digital and alienated future that China represents. Contemporary China might already have won the battle of modernity, and in its efforts to be a political world power it is far more oriented towards a (better?) future than the nostalgic west.

If we understand this in line with a more non-anthropocentric and accelerationist point of view that seeks, for example, a fully automated economy, this alienation of humans from their «immediate» world has enormous potential. A potential for enonomic and social emancipation from a world in which we are not replaced, but radically complemented by machines.

Biography

Philipp Rhensius is an editor for Norient, writer, musician, sound artist, sociologist & musicologist, and curator from Berlin. His work investigates the connections between the micro- and macro-political and is driven by the idea that «feeling the chains» is the moment when emancipation begins. His music and sound art projects (Kl.ne, aphtc, Alienationst) merge sonic fiction with sardonic poetry and visceral sound. His texts are published in i.e. Taz, Spex, FAZ, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, WOZ and several book volumes. He runs the music label Arcane Patterns and hosts a monthly podcast on Noods Radio. Follow him on Instagram, his Website, or LinkedIn.

Published on January 07, 2019

Last updated on April 10, 2024

Topics

Alienation

Capitalism

Colonialism

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Specials

Norient Musikfilm Festival NMFF 9 (2019)

Norient Festival

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photo: Silke Bauer, CC-BY-3.0-de-license

A Protest Song Without a Slogan

Short Essay

by Philipp Rhensius

Often, the politics of a song are carried in its lyrics. However, can instrumental electronic music also create concrete criticism? Or provoke feelings that the listener can link to specific realities? Norient author Philipp Rhensius investigates the song «Gentrification Death Certificate» by experimental drone musician D. Glare and ends up in claustrophobic spaces built by transforming acoustics.

A dripping sound, like leaking water, amplified and warped, soon transforms into a low, sonoros drone. Its amplitude, therefore the musical movement, slowly moves up and down, creating sequences as the pitch gradually changes. Soon after, an alienated piano climbs up the scale, before suddenly, a poorly tuned bass guitar plays a few unrelated tones that reverberate through the air, reflecting back and forth with long decays, as if the player had beamed himself to a big, empty space. Something is wrong here. The room is radically changing in size, expanding and contracting like a deep breath in slow motion.

Instrumental music is abstract by nature. Sound is not as precise as words, at least in a semantic sense. Instead, sound always entails thousands of possible meanings. But is pure instrumental music able to express concrete criticism or social injustice? A simple reproduction of reality would not suffice. This is where abstraction plays an important role.

The experimental drone music of D. Glare, whose song I described above, surely does not copy the reality. Instead, it bends, cuts, comments and stretches it. It invites us into an imaginary setting that is, at least, hinting on real things. Here, it might refer to a space that is transforming constantly in size and volume, probably with the use of room modulating effects and specific recording techniques - while the drone might have been made by a recorded instrument that is manipulated afterwards. The bass guitar seems to be recorded with a microphone that is placed in the room.

Style Synonymous With Technique by D. Glare

With this in mind, but even more with the title of the song, «Gentrification Death Certificate», the abstract turns into something concrete. The immanent structure of the music communicates a certain distress and makes it a protest song without a slogan. We feel the precariousness of the living situation, hinted at by the sudden change of room size, resulting in a strange feeling between claustrophobia and freedom. Is this feeling intended? Not really, if we follow D. Glare: «There wasn't a grand idea behind making the record», he says in an email interview. Still, the song contains traces of Glare's experience. These traces might be vague in their meaning, but take shape after investigating the context, the album Style Synonymous With Technique (Zona Watusa 2018), which the song is on, is, in Glare's words, «a sort of diary of a strange existence, fleeting, slipping in and out of security gates late at night». It is, he writes in an email, about how «the effects of gentrification seemed intensely magnified, a society twisted in a way that shoves unwelcomed poverty into the front lines of where the money is».

If instrumental music is able to express criticism, the form and content has to coincide as it does here. The form would be the perceptible difficulties of the recording process resulting from the change of places, whereas the content is the dissonant, arhythmic sounds and, most importantly, the song title, as it is this that leads the perception in a quite explicit direction.

Music always contains a certain time and space, and the conditions that it is made in. «Gentrification Death Certificate» is a story about gentrification and its symptoms, the rise of rental costs and the eviction of people who are dependent on low rents. This story is musically aestheticised and therefore artificial, but by that it is able to express an alternative, more distanced, even less victimizing perspective. In this context, dripping water can turn into the leading motif of a protest song.

Biography

Philipp Rhensius is an editor for Norient, writer, musician, sound artist, sociologist & musicologist, and curator from Berlin. His work investigates the connections between the micro- and macro-political and is driven by the idea that «feeling the chains» is the moment when emancipation begins. His music and sound art projects (Kl.ne, aphtc, Alienationst) merge sonic fiction with sardonic poetry and visceral sound. His texts are published in i.e. Taz, Spex, FAZ, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, WOZ and several book volumes. He runs the music label Arcane Patterns and hosts a monthly podcast on Noods Radio. Follow him on Instagram, his Website, or LinkedIn.

Published on June 15, 2018

Last updated on April 10, 2024

Topics

Protest

City

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