“… the slow, the meandering, the digressive, the exploratory, the numinous, the uncertain.”
On finishing a PhD, exploring the ineffable and celebrating, come on!
Hi friends,
How are you today? How has your week been?
You can call me Dr Nono now! After almost a decade and nearly 700 pages … Celebrate good times, come on, let’s celebrate. We’ve planned an afternoon of music in Berlin on Saturday, March 11th.
If you can’t make it this time, you’ll find more occasions for us to dance together at the end of this letter.
Many of my friends have been asking when they’d be able to read my PhD thesis. Since I wrote it in French AND it’s thick with academic jargon AND I’m not sure if it will ever be turned into an accessible book … here is a bit of context.
The title was: “Techno taken at its word : Electronic Dance Music Criticism in Germany, France and the United Kingdom from 1986 to 1999”. The summary goes like this:
“In Energy Flash, music critic Simon Reynolds states that “unlike rock”, electronic dance music does not relate to an experience but “constructs” it. Reynolds’ seminal work from 1998 asserts that this experience “can’t really be documented” and that it engenders a “fundamentally amnesiac and non-verbal” culture, thus reinforcing the commonplace that techno is unspeakable. But is it true that this music inspired little critical effort? Can we really say that it is even more difficult to write, describe and criticize this musical genre than others? By gathering the affirmations of an unprecedented aesthetic challenge, as they occur in texts on electronic music, four axes emerge around which specific difficulties crystallize: the music is (1) electronic, (2) dancing, (3) intended to be mixed and (4) evasive. A review of this literature reveals, however, that techno maintained an expansive relationship to words.
In observing the press published in Germany, France and the United Kingdom between 1986 and 1999, a vast panorama of publications emerges. However, the quantity of texts does not guarantee the absence of difficulty. The abundance of attempts to capture techno with words turns the unspeakable into “ineffable”. Beyond mapping out this plethora of texts, this thesis analyses and compares several articles and chronicles about electronic dance music, as well as interviews with their authors. The myth that is impossible to write about electronic music is not only based on aesthetic characteristics but also raises ethical issues. Indeed, it is not insignificant that a critical discourse inherited from a rock tradition – essentially white and heteronormative – has been shaken in the face of musics from marginalized communities. Finally, while shedding light on issues of representation and responsibility, this research does not entirely reject the possibility of a singular aesthetic experience, enchanting and at the edge of words.”
(still want to read it, hu?)
While I was preparing to defend the thesis at my final presentation, my supervisor suggested that I explain what made me “continue, against all odds”. He seemed as surprised as me that I had actually completed it. “So what was it”, he asked, that I was “actually searching for?”
We’d met almost a decade ago, after I finished a masters in Literature and European Culture in Lille, France. I wanted to pursue my research further, exploring the relationship between music and words. There’s a long-standing debate within musical-literary studies regarding the speakability of music: can one describe music or its effects? And if so, how? I’d explored this question in the context of rock and pop music and now wanted to bring it to the dancefloor. This was, after all, the place where I spent the most time listening to music and wondering why it perplexed me so deeply.
One of the first challenges had to do with the lack of previous academic works dedicated to this topic. I had to build concepts and analyze the corpus myself. This is where I shout out anyone who’s come up to me in the club at peak time asking when the PhD was going to be done. Well, you see, there were hundreds of publications I needed to read through. Amongst other things.
Techno wasn’t (isn’t?) exactly popular in academia. In my department (Comparative Literature and Aesthetics), it certainly has less traction than Proust or Woolf. I struggled to find funding, and except for the occasional short-term scholarship, I financed the work with day jobs, various gigging activities and borrowing money. It wasn’t even like I dreamt of an academic career.
I also struggled to make sentences and find the perfect word in French. I would never have been able to write in Flemish, a mother tongue I stopped using 30 years ago. My English certainly wasn’t sufficient when I started the project. French was the in-between in which I reflected on … the ineffable.
All creatives struggle with their work. But maybe not in the exact same ways. One particular challenge was trying to reach completion in a satisfactory way with the growing sense that the world was falling apart. Why on earth was I animated by this encyclopedic urge and these abstract questions, when the result might be read by 10 people? And may not actually help anyone, directly or indirectly? A childless woman in her thirties, indulging in some gargantuan, secretive, unproductive and unpaid task! Oh, privilege of privileges!!
Only after abyssal amounts of anxiety and having sent off the final version to print did I come across this quote by Rebecca Solnit:
“The tyranny of the quantifiable is partly the failure of language and discourse to describe more complex, subtle and fluid phenomena, as well as the failure of those who shape opinions and make decisions to understand and value these slipperier things. It is difficult, sometimes even impossible, to value what cannot be named or described, and so the task of naming and describing is an essential one in any revolt against the status quo of capitalism and consumerism. Ultimately, the destruction of the Earth is due in part, perhaps in large part, to a failure of imagination or to its eclipse by systems of accounting that can’t count what matters. The revolt against this destruction is a revolt of imagination, in favor of subtleties of pleasures money can’t buy and corporations can’t command, of being producers rather than consumers of meaning, of the slow, the meandering, the digressive, the exploratory, the numinous, the uncertain.” (R. Solnit, Men Explain Things To Me)
Perhaps, after all, I was less interested in understanding whether this music is intrinsically ineffable. I certainly wasn’t interested in taking up the challenge of writing about it myself, and I have the deepest admiration for those out there who do (follow my eyes as they turn towards Chal Ravens’ phenomenal recent review of the Skrillex’s albums!!) Perhaps I was even less interested in writing a history of early techno criticism in Europe – although, woeps, I accidentally ended up doing some of that too. Perhaps what I longed for, deeply, was a sense of intimacy with the ways in which music is able to touch me, to touch us.
These are some of the things I mentioned in my introduction on the day of the defense. What followed was a long conversation in which the jurors took it in turns to comment on the work and ask questions. The discussion touched upon decisions I’d made: relating to geography and timeframe, intellectual positions, theoretical nuances (“maybe it would have been worth making a clear distinction between transcendence and the transcendental?”), etc.
One of them, however, asked how I thought my academic endeavors and artistic practices had echoed each other. Spontaneously, I suggested that the research helped me to maintain certain kinds of love for music.
In some cases, the ineffable is sparked by an aesthetic experience that seems beyond everything, so beyond words. That rapture can feel positive, negative or both or somewhere in between. To me, it is always associated with a deep sense of humility.
I think this is an experience most of us chase. Sometimes we’ll try to recreate it, but the paths leading to it close off. It’s not waiting for us at the corner of every street, even – or especially not – if you live in a “vibrant” city.
When I moved to Berlin, soon after I’d started my research, I thought the music was going to be succulent every weekend and that I’d meet loads of people with whom I could have profound conversations about how much we loved it. My timid attempts at journalism and the few interviews I conducted often left me, too, hungry for more. Maybe I wasn’t always the best at setting these situations up. Later, the most confusing situations sprung up through my experiences as a touring DJ.
The DJ dinner! Good news: there are some good ones. But sometimes, the conversation will navigate between industry gossip, career tips and opinions on cities artists have spent less than 24h in. My DJ anxiety dream is a pre-gig multiple course dinner where social media and comparing airports are the only two topics on the menu. I don’t admire the people sat around the table any less for it, but I’ve often wondered: why are we so bad at talking about what brings us together in the first place?
I’m not saying “it’s no longer about the music!!!” A lot of my friends have found their own ways to nurture their relationship with music. As art is increasingly being commodified, I feel in awe of their commitments. At times, and perhaps paradoxically, it felt like research was my way to step back and cultivate intimacy with beauty, reminding myself why life is worth it. As the years went by and the research deepened, it became ever clearer to me that if a love for music equates to a love for Life, it can never justify unethical behavior.
At the end of the defence, after nearly 4 hours of discussion and in the silence of that big echoing room, I felt a new sense of humility, and pride. A radically new flavour of happiness: I felt at peace with my life as I’ve chosen it so far. My gratitude for anyone or anything that has been with me along the way is immense. I bow. May you be thanked, so warmly, and let me please tell you: we did this, it was worth it.
There is a sense of closure now but as T.S. Eliott famously wrote:
“We shall not cease our exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
Music:
Recording of a set I played at Astropolis on the day after my defence. Peak time vibes!
Oceanic’s recent and incredible album:
Some Fictions shows related to my research: The Early House Criticism special ; The David Mancuso special ; The Third Wave special ; The Bass Books special ; The Sphinx special
Rendez-vous:
Thu 02.03: Cashmere Radio / Berlin: Fictions Radio Show – I’ll be playing music related to my research, come check the new Cashmere HQ, Koloniestr. 29 (show from 7.30 to 9pm)
Fri 03.03: Kestner Gesellschaft / Hannover: Opening of a new exhibition curated by the Institue of Queer Ecology (set from 8 til 10 pm, before Eric D. Clark!!)
Tue 07.03: Re:mise / Berlin: Un:seen x Ozomatli – Sxsterhood on the eve of International Women’s Day (set from 11pm til 1am)
Sat 11.03: Secret Location / Berlin: FICTIONS BY DAY w/ ADJ, Karim Semin, Minor Science, Oceanic and myself b2b all afternoon long.
I rarely do birthdays, I may never get married and I’ll only write a PhD once, so please consider this as a special occasion to celebrate the nono :)
Pre-sale only: It’s in a secret location in Neukölln and the only way for us to send you the address is if you buy a ticket. All info will be shared per email the day before.
If money is tight, please reach out to us: you can help out as a volunteer!
It starts at 13:00 and goes til 21:00 with friends behind the decks (ADJ, Karim Semin, Minor Science, Oceanic and yours truly!!), friends on the dancefloor and friends everywhere around. Cute deco, a crocodile costume and spring rolls kinda vibes.
Tickets have gone quick after we posted it on Telegram and the venue is tiny so don’t hesitate!
Sat 18.03: Jaki Club / Köln: Tom-Tom Club w/ Ada Luvv
Fri 24.03: Renate / Berlin: TVS taking over with Neutralized, Spargelzeit & Naga (set from 2am to 4 am)
Thu 30.03: Cashmere Radio / Berlin: Fictions Radio Show in the new studio – potluck and tunes (from 7.30 to 9pm)
Sat 29.04: Sameheads / Berlin: FICTIONS PARTY line up TBA
Hmu for GL! I’m looking forward to a few German gigs before some slow traveling over Spring and Summer :) I’ll be in the UK potentially in Spring and in November 2023. More dates to be announced soon.
Much much love and looking forward to hugging you, maybe in silence, maybe on a dancefloor,
Xx
nono