The frenetic cutting techniques by electronic music producer Kyoka stand for what our author calls «techno punk». With this techinique, the producer ambiguously positions herself outside of the club music versus experimentation binary and the unpolitical becomes political.
This article examines the aesthetics of «sampling the political» in contemporary Indian electronic music. A journey through various ways of sampling political words and speeches. These artists are borne of a tendency to resist, to subvert, and to disobey norms of sampling.
To what extent do sampling practices maintain or disrupt an exoticized ideal of indigenous populations? The Brazilian research collective GENuSom confronts two sampling strategies performed by a Brazilian worldwide EDM artist and a indigenous rap crew from Brazil.
What are the political implications and ethical concerns of sampling sounds of war? This is a question raised by «The End of Silence», a 2013 record from Matthew Herbert based entirely on a six-second field recording of the Libyan civil war. A critical examination.
How does the relationship of artists with their gear affect the composition? Listen to a mind bending mixtape-collage with statements about gear in electronic music compostion, eerie sounds and weird loops by the Peruvian musician and sound researcher Ale Hop.
2,816’000 people are suffering from a mental disorder in Ghana. In her essay, Ghanaian journalist Akosua Hanson reflects on how the perspective of wholesomeness in African philosophies could tackle this problem.
The Romanian music genre manele has recently undergone a very postmodern reception. Widely shared through memes seemingly ironically, the genre could also be the predecessor of a new counterculture.
The Norient Special «DisOrient» presents contemporary music videos from the Middle East as well as Central and South Asia, that challenge Orientalist stereotypes. Project curators Dara Shikoh Channa and Theresa Beyer know this is a sensitive topic.
When Saad Lamjarred’s hit song «Lm3allem» topped the charts, little attention was given to the self-Orientalist imageries that were propagated by this song. If anything, this music video is another invitation to further endorse the global trend of Orientalist consumerism.
Six international curators from the Norient community have researched contemporary music videos that re-imagine, parody, or deconstruct Orientalism. Here is the shortlist by curator Neil van der Linden, who predominantly focuses on videos from Saudi Arabia.
With four main notes only, the video game «Prince of Persia» tries to build a soundscape that illustrates a mysterious and timeless «Orient». Composer Rehab Hazgui took the Orientalist motive and turned it on its head to create a spooky deconstruction of musical stereotypes.
