Published
Tue, Mar 23, 2021, 12:25
- Brar examines the sonic ecologies of Black electronic music in the 21st century.
Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski: The Sonic Ecologies Of Black Music In The Early Twenty-First Century will be published by Goldsmiths Press and MIT Press in April.
Scholar Dhanveer Singh Brar's second book makes connections between footwork music in Chicago, grime in East London and Actress's experimental techno and ambient. It argues for "Black electronic dance music as the cutting-edge aesthetic project of the diaspora," more specifically exploring how "footwork, grime, and Actress have—through their experiments in Blackness—generated genuine alternatives to the functioning of the city under financialized racial capitalism."
"When Juan Atkins said he wanted to land a UFO on a track, what kind of place would he be landing it on?," said Brar's collaborator and UIQ label boss, Lee Gamble. "Via the psychogeographies and cartographies of South London by way of Ghettoville, South and West Chicago's Teklife and East London's Eski—what Brar's analysis does is highlight and connect the race/class intersections that are so often overlooked in mainstream coverage of music."
Brar is a scholar of Black Studies, Cultural Studies, Sound Studies and Critical Theory, and a lecturer at the University Of Goldsmiths in London.
Read an excerpt from Brar's last book, Beefy's Tune (Dean Blunt Edit), published on RA last year.
Visit the MIT website for more info.
