This is the monthly research seminar of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM). This month the event is being curated by the DACH Branch of IASPM and will have two presentations.

Constructing and Re-Structuring Groove and Aesthetics – Drum Machines as Narrative Agents in Popular Music

Robert Michler, Graduate School of the Arts and Humanities, Bern University, Switzerland

Drum machines as analogue and digital rhythmical devices have set a new approach of accuracy since the 1980s. Using a rhythmical grid and introducing a new set of aesthetics with their electronic beats, they have laid the foundation for a paradigm shift in pop and rock music regarding groove, which was later to be completed by the introduction of quantisation in digital music software, manifesting the fixed rhythmic grid as the most axiomatic element of the groove. The origin of these new music technologies, which I refer to as machine-based-groove, can be traced back to the 1970s and more rudimentary devices, especially preset-based drum machines, which were used in subcultural genres until innovative, programmable drum machines with the ability to create custom grooves entered the mainstream of pop. Focusing on drum machines’ diverse characteristics, this presentation addresses the extent to which their functions, sounds and characteristics can be perceived as narratives, through offering re- and constructed grooves within networks of musicians and producers. On the basis of selected successful pop songs, the presentation explores how specific drum machine devices from the 1980s such as the Roland TR-808, Linn-Drum, and Oberheim DMX have functioned as role models for the new technology, and how their sounds and characteristics became essential to the sound of the decade. In addition, looking back at drum machines of the 1970s, the presentation foregrounds their important overlooked aspects as narrative agents. In doing so, the presentation shows how rhythmic music technology manifests artists’ intentions, identities, and sonic fictions, and conveys cultural backgrounds through machine-based groove. This opens up the discussion of how drum machines can offer new perspectives on music technology, narrative, aesthetics, cultural practices, and networks.

Remembering National Socialism: Counter-Narratives in German Hip-Hop

Thomas Sebastian Köhn, Institute of Fine Arts, Music and Education, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany

The Berlin-based rapper Ben Salomo and the Leipzig-based rapper Reimteufel have produced and disseminated hip-hop tracks that engage with family memories and collective memories of the Holocaust and World War II. These memories are interwoven with various historical, political, and religious discourses, referring to current processes of marginalization, to Jewishness, and memory sites. Focusing on the tracks ”Stolpersteine” (stumbling stones), released in 2012 by Reimteufel, and on the tracks “Identität” (identity) and “Deduschka” (grandfather) released in 2016 and 2020 by Ben Salomo, the presentation explores how the tracks employ counter-narratives (Köhn 2021) that not only abandon victim-centered perspectives but also question and criticize institutionalized memory culture. Drawing on a combination of music analysis (Moore 2012, von Appen/Doehring 2014, Steinbrecher 2016), video analysis (Flick 2011, Erll 2014) and ethnography (Pink 2015, Schoop 2021), this presentation examines how counter-narratives are negotiated in the hip hop tracks and the accompanying music videos through the aesthetics of lyrics and flow (Kautny 2009) in combination with sampling (Stratton 2016) and material culture (Golańska 2020). Bringing popular music studies and cultural memory studies into dialogue, the presentation demonstrates how hip-hop serves as a medium for establishing an activist, anti-racist, and reflective post-Holocaust perspective in a musical memory practice.

Robert Michler studied jazz-drums performance, pedagogy in music, and musicology. He is currently a doctoral researcher at the Graduate School of the Arts and Humanities at Bern University, Switzerland. His dissertation focuses on the impact of drum machines and quantisation between 1980 and 1995, investigating new approaches to aesthetics and groove in pop-and rock-music productions. In addition, he is active as a producer for music and film, and develops educational materials for the department for University Didactics and E-learning at Bern University of Applied Sciences.

Thomas Sebastian Köhn is a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Fine Arts, Music, and Education at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany. Since 2019, he has conducted research on memories of the Holocaust and World War II in contemporary German-language hip-hop and in auditory media in World War II related exhibitions. In his research, he combines approaches from music and media analysis, ethnomusicology, and soundscape analysis. His research interests include the intersections between musicology, sound studies, and cultural memory studies.