Ethnomusicologists used to travel to exotic islands to research local music. Today, their fieldtrips lead to scattered urban place. German scholar Oliver Seibt conducted three months of research in the Tokyo visual-kei scene, and stood out of the crowd.
The digitalization took away the centralized power of the music industry, but for some people it also became a secret tunnel out of prison. For the underground music scene in Cairo, digitalization was an avenue of freedom – well, at least for a while.
«Das Internet ist nicht demokratisch», sagt Andreas Ryser, Präsident des Musikverbands IndieSuisse. Und in sozialen Netzwerken bestimme das Geld, welche Musik gefunden werde. Doch die Digitalisierung birge auch Chancen für die Finanzierung von Musik.
To belong to a place, a country, or a city is an old fashioned way to live in a world of multi-sited modernities. Instead, we create our belonging through friends, information, images, and sounds across the globe. A «belonging» mix by Slugabed.
Swiss-Ghanaian singer and musician Joy Frempong of the duo OY made a trip to Southern and Western Africa to collect sounds and stories for their music. She tells us how she re-works these samples and what she is sometimes worries about.
Music is more than just melodies and rhythm. It has a guttural level, and contains sound that is free from symbolic meanings. The singer Audrey Chen is obsessed with these acoustic materialities and creates a sonic language with her voice.
The Serbian sound artist has remixed material from the section of «desire» from the Norient exhibition «Seismographic Sounds». A mix full of humor, but also with some deep thoughts on discrimination, sexuality, and individualism.
Constanza Piña is a chilean dancer, electronic musician and craftmaker. In her art, she questions the use of technology as a (male) ideology. Peter Gonda aka gnd met her at the Piksel Festival in Bergen, Norway.
Mit dem Noiseprojekt Sudden Infant befreit der Schweizer Musiker Joke Lanz unterdrückte Körperklänge. Seine Noise-Sprache ist das Resultat seiner biografischen Prägung und Sozialisierung in den Achtzigerjahren.
Der Song «Sugarbread» der Gothic-Musikerin Soap&Skin alias Anja Plaschg ist eine Teenager-Tragödie. Aber auch ein Exorzismus - und Plaschg eine Besessene und Priesterin zugleich. Denn sie ahnt: Der Mensch ist ein liebesunfähiges Wesen.
Simon Küffer alias Tommy Vercetti ist einer der wichtigsten Schweizer Rapper. Seine sozialkritischen Texte gehen einher mit seinem politischen Engagement als bekennender Marxist. Folkloristisches Lokalkolorit findet er widerlich.
