For centuries dabke was a local tradition in Syria, but in the late 1990s, it has become urban. Thereby, the popular dance music was reimaginated and globalized. Under the name «new wave dabke» special stylistic idoms have become noticeable.
The ways in which music videos generate money have changed since the days of MTV. The rise of YouTube came along with the hope for democratization, but this as been diluted due to corporatization. Is this a threat to cultural diversity?
Im Zeitalter der universellen Verfügbarkeit sind einzelne Menschen obsolet geworden. Dafür jedoch, sagt das Hamburger Künstlerkollektiv Kommando Himmelfahrt, sind sie weniger einsam, oder nicht?
Often, the politics of a song are carried in its lyrics. However, can instrumental electronic music also create concrete criticism? An investigation of D. Glare's song «Gentrification Death Certificate».
For the Norient exhibition «Seismographic Sounds – Visions of a New World» the Mexican hybrid artist and label owner Julian Bonequi compiled a mixtape taken from live performances, radio shows, and studio recordings from his label Audition Records.
Karachi-based rapper and YouTube star Ali Gul Pir wants to be a man who matters. He attacks powerful warlords with satire and opposes the YouTube ban in Pakistan. For this he received death threats.
The electronic musician Tim Hecker is like an aesthetic engineer whose visceral live concerts deconstruct musical meanings.
Recycling footage has long been a practice in music videos. By freeing images from their original temporality and intended pupose and setting them to music, artists transform their meaning and generate an emotional experience of the past.
The music of of the electronic musician and singer Aïsha Devi creates a world of unheard sounds and utopian ideas. Read a sonic fiction in advance of her audiovisual live show at our new concert series.
After being invited by the Iwalewahaus Bayreuth the Nairobi-based electronic musician and producer DJ Raph did an artist residency in Germany, rummaging through the institution’s extensive music archive of ethnographic field recordings from Africa.
