By Sydney Schelvis, University of Amsterdam - winner of the 2020 IASPM VNPF Popular Music Thesis Prize [MA]
Spatialised sound is all around us. Binaural hearing — the relative time-difference by which sounds reach the ear (and this is a case of milliseconds) — enables the listener to localise the sound source quite accurately. This holds true in a concert venue too. In a techno club, however, it’s a bit more tricky. Techno today relies on the physically perceived pulse of the bass and beat. This pulse tends to eliminate the possibility of having intricate spatialised sounds, which will be eclipsed by the pulses's acoustic dominance. So how can we spatialise the musical materiality of techno music appropriately? The answer can perhaps be found in Budapest.
In 2007, Dutch composer Paul Oomen founded 4DSOUND: an interdisciplinary project exploring spatial sound as a medium. In its permanent artistic research facility — the Spatial Sound Institute (SSI) in Budapest, Hungary — artists, sound engineers, sonologists, musicologists, and others with a serious interest come together to study spatial sound. One of 4DSOUND’S first major projects was Techno is Space. This project ‘explored the nature of spatial forms and energetic movements within techno […]. By reinterpreting techno through spatial sound, [the project] intended to open up new scope for sonic exploration, artist performance and audience experience.’
To study the possibilities of spatial techno, I too took it to the studio. Based in embodied music cognition theory on how techno works on and in the body, I started drafting a techno composition that used spatialisation as a means to move the body. For example, I designed an activating bass sound ascending from underneath the floor up until about knee-height, I implemented congas surrounding the dancer for an immersive effect, and I had a beat rotating the centre-point to create divergence in perceived rhythms.
What I found was that deconstructing techno by taking out the pulse and highlighting other musical features eliminates the energetic current that runs through a techno event. Conversely, keeping the pulse results in a de-spatialisation of all other musical material, and thereby a loss of spatialising potential. The technoer relies on the embodied entrainment to this constant mono-pulse for immersion to take place. Therefore, it seems that current spatialising technologies have little to offer for an embodied interaction with techno music in the way that it manifests itself today. Technoers expect a bass-heavy beat to interact with, one that drowns out all spatialised sounds and thereby renders the use of sound-spatialising technology ineffective.
For the advancement of techno’s spatialisation, a reconsideration of techno’s ontology — or technology, if you will — may be required. Techno-inspired pop-star Björk uses techno as an adjective, indicating the potential of techno to be fluid and flexible. Considering techno’s historical technophilia in combination with today’s technology, spatialisation seems like a logical way to regain its explorative nature and reshape its sonic signature.
Techno’s ontological shift in focus from explorative to danceable in the 1990s underpins the paradox in techno’s logos: the musical stylistics that once signified a futurist sound have become a fixed norm themselves. This norm, in turn, engendered techno’s telos as an immersive embodied engagement with these stylistics. Yet with electronic dance music studies rapidly gaining ground as a result of a generation of students whose musical youth was soundtracked by a variety of club musics, I hope future artists and (artistic) researchers of techno will continue to explore the potentials of spatialising technology, and thereby continue to put techno’s telos to the test.
Sydney Schelvis
Sydney Schelvis is a Dutch musicologist specialised in embodied music cognition theory. He holds a BA and MA in musicology and rMA Art Studies from the University of Amsterdam (the latter was concluded with a residency project at the SSI). Other research interests include musical materiality, musical semantics, club culture, and gentrification.
The complete thesis is accessible here.
Contact: sydneyschelvis@gmail.com