United by gestures: how revolutions may look like (photo: Max Pixel)

Musicians and the Revolution

Quotation

The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the political turmoil in the years since have changed the country. How did underground musicians, DJs and songwriters from Cairo react, and how did the events influence their art? Thoughts recorded by Thomas Burkhalter in Cairo. From the Norient book Seismographic Sounds (see and order here).

«I cannot concentrate. I can’t stop thinking. Normally I translate daily life experiences into my songs, at the moment I cannot do so. I’m paralyzed. My role as a musician was more important before the revolution. I provoked and asked questions that were taboo. This was more challenging than today. I don’t even want to try to document the revolution. It is not finished yet, and I don’t want to document it wrongly. In these times I am a citizen of Egypt first.»

Maryam Saleh is a singer and songwriter from Cairo who tours internationally. Recorded on 4.3.2013.

«Just because I’m an artist doesn’t mean that I have to make music about the revolution. An artist should just be an artist and create his personal artistic world – without any guidelines.»

Hussein El-Sherbini is part of the electronica collective Wetrobots. He co-runs the Epic 101 studio in Cairo. Recorded on 6.3.2013.

«This was the most emotional time of my life. I did not dare translate these strong experiences into music yet. They were holy in a way, so you cannot just make a track out of it. I brought my recorder to Tahrir Square though. One day, maybe, I’m going to use those recordings.»

Mahmoud Refat experiments with field recordings and electronic music. He runs the label 100copies and the 100copies music space in Cairo. Recorded on 8.3.2013.

«Many songs were created on the spot. They were not meant for eternity. It was about freedom of expression. This is what made these songs important.»

Dina El-Gharib is a visual artist from Cairo. She DJs weekly in the After Eight club in downtown Cairo. Recorded on 10.3.2013.

«With the start of the revolution, international media became fascinated with our female metal band. Now we give loads of interviews and we perform abroad often.»

Sherine Amr from Cairo is the front singer of the metal band Massive Scar Era. Recorded on 8.3.2013.

«In Egypt you need permission from the military to leave the country. This creates huge problems for me because the military does not like me at all. I had thirty international tours lined up, but I was allowed to leave the country three times only. And the next problem is coming. When I finish my studies in two years I have to go to the army. It is going to be the nightmare of my life.»

Ramy Essam is a singer and songwriter from al-Mansura. Time Out listed his song «Irhal» (leave) – that Essam sung on Tahrir square – among the ten most influential political songs of all time. Recorded on 5.3.2013.

«My dream is to have a passport. I want to travel, to develop and show my music. I live for my music.»

Islam Chipsy received his Egyptian passport in 2014. Today, the keyboard player tours abroad regularly – he also performed at the 6^th Norient Musikfilm Festival in Bern, Switzerland. Recorded on 10.3.2013.

«I have a lot of hope if we stay like this. Riot police beat me a lot. Nevertheless I will go down again tomorrow. If they want war, we want peace. I am just trying to regain some of my nation’s dignity.»

Ahmad Basiony taught sound art at Helwan University. He died of gunshot wounds inflicted by snipers from the Egyptian Police Forces on Tahrir Square on January 28, 2011. Recorded via Facebook on 26.1.2011, 10pm.

The quotes have been published first in the second Norient book Seismographic Sounds.

Biography

Dr. Thomas Burkhalter is an anthropologist/ethnomusicologist, AV-artist, and writer from Bern (Switzerland). He is the founder and director of Norient and the Norient Festival (NF), co-directed AV-performances and documentary films (e.g. «Contradict», Berner Filmpreis 2020 + Al-Jazeera Witness), and is the author and co-editor of several books (e.g., «Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut», Routledge, «The Arab Avant Garde: Musical Innovation in the Middle East», Wesleyan University Press). He teaches regularly at universities, and runs workshops for arts institutions. Since 2022 he produces the Norient Mixtape for Swiss National Radio SRF3. Currently, he is working on his new music duo «Melodies In My Head», and on the podcast series «Long Take: Life as an Artist». Follow him on Instagram, Research Gate, Academia.edu, Bandcamp, Spotify, or Meta.

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The second Norient book «Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World» introduces you to a contemporary world of distinct music and music videos. Written by 250 scholars, journalists, bloggers and musicians from 50 countries.

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Published on July 11, 2018

Last updated on April 09, 2024

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Screenshot from the Ableton project of «Inner March for Utopia»

Sampling Stories Vol. 19: Kritzkom

Blog Post

by Hannes Liechti

Processes of sampling sometimes happen completely hidden for the listener. The samples are not audible at all, audible but not recognizable, or they are not even physically present in the track. Berlin-based producer Kritzkom rarely works with samples and, accordingly, on her 2016 techno track «Inner March for Utopia» synth basses and melodies dominate. But if one digs deeper one can find the traces of a sample of the Kurdish national anthem.

Marine Drouan, the artist behind the moniker Kritzkom, has contributed the track «Inner March for Utopia» to the #Rojava campaign by female:pressure. Back in early 2016, the international women network aimed to raise awareness for the female fighters of the resistance movement taking place in the cantons of Rojava in Northern Syria. In another sequel of the sampling stories I have already reported on a track from the same project. I finally contacted Drouan because I was interested in whether she has used any sampling material in «Inner March for Utopia» that is directly connected to Rojava.

Inner March For Utopia by kritzkom

Digging Traces of Sampling

«It’s sometimes super hard for me to remember what I have done. I don’t know if I can help a lot», Drouan kindly said when we were making ourselves comfortable in front of her screen. This uncertainty she shares with a lot of producers of electronic music: the production process gets lost as soon as the final mix has been made. When I contacted her via email, she told me about a sample of the Kurdish national anthem that she had sampled for the track (see SoundCloud playlist below). As I couldn’t hear a single hint of the anthem in the track, and as Drouan has never spoken about the sample in the public, I came to directly dig the sample in the Ableton files.

We quickly found a full-length audio file with the flute-style MIDI melody of the national anthem of Kurdistan. Going back to the project files we identified the same sample, or, to be more precise, the traces of what was once been the sample. Only one note of the anthem’s melody survived. This sustained note was looped four times with short breaks in between, over the span of a little bit more than half a minute in the middle of the track (1:58-2.33, see screenshot and hear the sample in the SoundCloud playlist below) and heavily manipulated by a larger chain of effects: Granulator, EQ, Ping Pong Delay, and Glue Compressor.

Marine Drouan aka Kritzkom (photo: Udo Siegfriedt, 2017)

Hidden Sampling: Musical DNA

Drouan told me how she came about sampling the anthem: «I remember there have been many links, many materials that female:pressure has provided for options to work with. My first idea then was to try to use this part of the melody.» Basically, this sample was her only direct connection to the topic of the Rojava campaign and that’s why she wanted it to be part of the track. «But I never was happy with it», she continues. In some stages of the project the sample was less concealed, and that was the reason that it almost disappeared in the final mix. There, it only adds a little bit of texture (that gets obvious if one plays the track without the sample, see playlist below). Nevertheless, the sample is important for the track: it represents Drouan’s engagement with the topic of the woman fighters in Rojava during the production process. The sample has finally survived as kind of a musical DNA: it is there, concealed, but if you remove it, something is missing. Drouan herself considers the sample as «kind of a ‹pre-text›, a text that was there before the track and that has inspired it».

«Inner March for Utopia» – from the Sample to the Final Mix

#Rojava – the Compilation

Music, Awareness & Solidarity w/ Rojava Revolution by female:pressure

This article has been written on the basis of two interviews, taken place on 24.11.2017 and 11.4.2018. It has been published in the context of the PhD research on sampling in experimental electronic music by Hannes Liechti. For more info click here.

Biography

Hannes Liechti lives in Bern, Switzerland, as a popular music scholar/lecturer, curator, cultural producer, and content editor. He is the head of KULT Student Agency at Bern Academy of the Arts HKB. Since 2021, he is part of the executive board of the concert organizer bee-flat and in 2024 he was elected as a member of the Cultural Commission of the City of Bern. Liechti teaches history of popular music at Paderborn University, Germany. From 2013–2024 he worked as a producing manager and as a curator/editor for Norient. He co-published «Seismographic Sounds: Visions of a New World» (2015) and co-curated the corresponding exhibition on global pop. He edited the digital publication «Sampling Politics Today» (2020) and published his PhD on the culture of sampling in experimental electronica with Norient Books (2022). Follow him on Instagram or LinkedIn.

Published on August 28, 2018

Last updated on November 09, 2023

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Sampling Stories

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Shots Were Fired

Mixtape

by Bernard Clarke

War is the biggest and most horrible drama of human kind. Yet the noises of war – everything from swords clanging to modern machine guns and bombs – have fascinated musicians and composers for centuries. For his mix «shots were fired» for the section «war» from the Norient exhibition Seismographic Sounds the Irish radio journalist Bernard Clarke combined radio news samples with musically deconstructed war sounds.

«shots were fired» is a deeply personal response to a tragedy and farce played out in a Paris dripping with blood and a media whipping up a frenzy; to and of the forgotten victims in France and around the world; and of and to the so-called world leaders who seized on this outrage for a media opportunity, a «selfie».

Western societies are not the havens of rationalism that they often proclaim themselves to be. The West is a polychromatic space, in which both freedom of thought and tightly regulated speech exist, and in which disavowals of deadly violence happen at the same time as clandestine torture.

And yet, at moments when Western societies consider themselves under attack, the discourse is quickly dominated by an ahistorical fantasy of long-suffering fortitude in the face of provocation. Yet European and American history are so strongly marked by efforts to control speech that the persecution of rebellious thought stands as a bedrock of these societies.

Witch burnings, heresy trials, and the untiring work of the Inquisition shaped Europe, and these ideas extended into American history as well and took on American modes, from the breaking of slaves to the genocide of American Indians to censuring of critics of «Operation Iraqi Freedom».

Like everybody else I was appalled and deeply shocked by the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in January 2015. The subsequent rampage and hysteria brought even more pain and distress upon France and especially victims of these crimes being mourned – worldwide – these ordinary human beings, beloved by their families and precious to their friends.

The satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo has often aimed choice barbs at Muslims and taken a particular joy in flouting the Islamic ban on depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. It’s also regularly mocked political targets, as well as Christian and Jewish tropes. The magazine depicted the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost in a sexual threesome. Like England’s Monty Python and America’s Frank Zappa, Charlie Hebdo has an enduring willingness to offend everyone.

Alas, the opportunity for so-called world leaders to seize upon the media attention and proclaim themselves great humanitarians was sickening making a complete mockery of @jesuischarlie.

Who can forget the spectacle of «big» political names from all around the world holding hands in «solidarity» with the victims of the Paris killings, from Cameron to Lavrov, from Netanyahu to Abbas: if there was ever an image of absolute hypocritical falsity, this was it. Worse the spectacle was literally staged: the pictures shown in the media gave the impression that the line of political leaders was at the front of a large crowd walking along an avenue. But another photo was taken of the entire scene from above, clearly showing that behind the politicians there were only a hundred or so people and a lot of empty space, patrolled by police, behind and around them.

«shots were fired» draws on speech samples (Irish Radio news channels) and granular synthesis techniques (shredding printer machine sounds, computer keyboards, old internet dial-up connections, typewriters, telephone answering machine noises) for a «media-music». Location recordings from Paris and Libya are also utilized.

War (Introduction from Seismographic Sounds)

War is the biggest and most horrible drama of human kind. Yet the noises of war – everything from swords clanging to modern machine guns and bombs – have fascinated musicians and composers for centuries. War games become bestsellers and images of child soldiers circulate around the world within seconds. How can musicians oppose this? Songs against violence? Subcultural noise against omnipresent propaganda? Parodies on dictators and warlords? Every artistic counter-position is quickly accused of «naïve activism», «opportunism» or of «making profit of someone else’s blood». This chapter leads us to the British electronica artist Matthew Herbert and Irish radio journalist Bernard Clarke who remix sounds from warfare into challenging audio pieces – and happy dance music. A main focus lies on underground artists from Israel who are opposing Israeli politics. Musicians in Egypt, the Ukraine and Lebanon discuss experiences with revolution and conflict. And we learn: gunshots can unite people, and it’s better to work with real blood than fake blood in video clips.

Credits

Place or studio of recording of the work
RTÉ lyric fm, Limerick, Ireland

Technical means used
Logic Pro IX
Native Instruments Reaktor
RTÉ Sound Archives

Voices / Samples
Barack Obama, President, United States
Mary Wilson, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio 1
George Galloway, MP, London
François Hollande, President, France
Tony Abbot, Prime Minister, Australia
Fiona Kelly, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio 1
Joe Biden, Vice-President, United States
Irish Protestors-various and anonymous, Anti-War campaign 2008
Sean O’Rourke, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio 1
Robert Shortt, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio & Television
Noam Chomsky, Linguist, Political Activist, United States
Mary Fitzgerald, Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Irish Times
Eileen Dunne, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio & Television
Dianne Feinstein, Chairperson, US Senate Intelligence Committee
John Brennan, CIA Director, United States
John Finnerty, journalist & broadcaster, RTÉ
Dr Ali Selim, Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland
Bryan Dobson, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio & Television
Richard Downes, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio & Television
Sharon Ní Bheoláin, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio & Television
Paul Colgan, Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio & Television

All samples voices and location sounds from the RTÉ Radio & Television Archives.

«Music» – fashioned from machines like computer keyboards, printers, telephone rings, beeps, connected/disconnected tones; location gunfire sounds used to generate drones; the same drones then sliced up into patterns and riffs.

«Shots were fired» is dedicated to Thomas Burkhalter and Anna Trechsel. The introduction text above was published first as an introduction to the chapter «War» in the second Norient book Seismographic Sounds.

Biography

Bernard Clarke is an award-winning radio broadcaster with RTÉ lyric fm, Ireland. He hosts his weekly news program, Nova, and combines contemporary music, history, and issues of our time in intense Radio Art pieces. In «Tracing A-7063» he narrates stories of Holocaust survivors through audio memories that incorporate dialogue, music, and sound. In «Human Shields» he aims to capture the Gaza war through the ear.

Published on May 11, 2018

Last updated on April 09, 2024

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Ethics

War

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Seismographic Sounds

Seismographic Sounds: Mixtapes

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