INTERRUPTIONS #12
Lost Techno-Pop Weekend in Rural Midwestern America
Curated by Terre Thaemlitz
By the time mainstream pop music really became electronically based in terms of synthesizer/sampler instrumentation and editing (first with R&B and hip-hop, then mainstream pop), the techno-pop synth sound would be utterly abandoned by both pop and underground electronic cultures (techno, house, etc.). In this sense, techno-pop constitutes an isolated and rarely discussed ‘lost weekend’ from standard pop practices.
Techno-pop is most often dismissed as a shade of new romanticism, punk or electro. However, I believe its strict emphasis on electronics and critical rejection of rock culture (at least in the beginning) make techno-pop in and of itself one of the most important, albeit short-lived, genres of the last century. Then again, my views are admittedly warped by an upbringing in the rural Midwestern US, where electronic music was not only scarce, but phobically abhored by most people.
Terre Thaemlitz, 2013
Isaac Julien
The work of Isaac Julien moves through liminal spaces. Overlapping zones between photography, film, and installation; choreography and dance; poetry and music… and the infinite possible versions, iterations, and variations that can emerge from systematic work with the archive. Intersections in which fiction, documentary, narrative, and radicality converge to produce aesthetically meticulous and politically powerful imaginaries and stories that challenge white heterosexual film conventions through their temporalities, narrative construction, and aesthetic forms. In this podcast, Isaac Julien talks about the need to give a voice and body to dissident black identity and desire in the cinematic imaginary, about expanded cinema and choreographic montage; and about his constant shifts between the worlds of art, video art, and film.
Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of the interview with Lyra Pramuk that we were unable to include the first time around.
Diedrich Diederichsen. Deleted scenes
We dig up some unreleased fragments of the interview with the cultural critic and music journalist Diedrich Diederichsen.
Diedrich Diederichsen
The cultural critic and music journalist Diedrich Diederichsen talks about the role of criticism in contemporary art, the social dimension of today's music, and the links and differences between the art and music worlds.
The inhuman voice
Since the late eighteenth century, speech therapists, linguists, entrepreneurs, artists and musicians have nurtured the dream of emulating human speech. In this mix, Genís Segarra offers a personal overview of a subject that fascinates him, with the story of voice synthesis as a narrative thread.
Duration
This episode explores the concept of duration in music. It examines the different ways that composers and musicians have explored duration in terms of both the large and small.
Exclusives
Exclusive music by Laurie Spiegel and Terre Thaemlitz
Faka
Desire Marea and Fela Gucci talk about performing masculinity and self-policing, vulnerability, Siyakaka feminism, South African pop culture in the 90s, racialised queer bodies, music as a medium and dealing with contradictions.
Lyra Pramuk
American composer-producer Lyra Pramuk talks about key moments in her childhood and adolescence, which was marked by a rigorous religious and musical education, and about her subsequent journey to deconstruct her assigned identity, taking refuge in her love of science fiction and role-playing games as basic strategies for reinventing herself. We also chat about performativity, resisting the text, non-verbal music, live vs studio work, the recording logic of the music industry, the importance of queer community building, and clubbing in Berlin.