Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound - Softcover

Rodgers, Tara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822346737 ISBN 13: 9780822346739

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Pink Noises brings together twenty-four interviews with women in electronic music and sound cultures, including club and radio DJs, remixers, composers, improvisers, instrument builders, and installation and performance artists. The collection is an extension of Pinknoises.com, the critically-acclaimed website founded by musician and scholar Tara Rodgers in 2000 to promote women in electronic music and make information about music production more accessible to women and girls. That site featured interviews that Rodgers conducted with women artists, exploring their personal histories, their creative methods, and the roles of gender in their work. This book offers new and lengthier interviews, a critical introduction, and resources for further research and technological engagement.

Contemporary electronic music practices are illuminated through the stories of women artists of different generations and cultural backgrounds. They include the creators of ambient soundscapes, “performance novels,” sound sculptures, and custom software, as well as the developer of the Deep Listening philosophy and the founders of the Liquid Sound Lounge radio show and the monthly Basement Bhangra parties in New York. These and many other artists open up about topics such as their conflicted relationships to formal music training and mainstream media representations of women in electronic music. They discuss using sound to work creatively with structures of time and space, and voice and language; challenge distinctions of nature and culture; question norms of technological practice; and balance their needs for productive solitude with collaboration and community. Whether designing and building modular synthesizers with analog circuits or performing with a wearable apparatus that translates muscle movements into electronic sound, these artists expand notions of who and what counts in matters of invention, production, and noisemaking. Pink Noises is a powerful testimony to the presence and vitality of women in electronic music cultures, and to the relevance of sound to feminist concerns.

Interviewees: Maria Chavez, Beth Coleman (M. Singe), Antye Greie (AGF), Jeannie Hopper, Bevin Kelley (Blevin Blectum), Christina Kubisch, Le Tigre, Annea Lockwood, Giulia Loli (DJ Mutamassik), Rekha Malhotra (DJ Rekha), Riz Maslen (Neotropic), Kaffe Matthews, Susan Morabito, Ikue Mori, Pauline Oliveros, Pamela Z, Chantal Passamonte (Mira Calix), Maggi Payne, Eliane Radigue, Jessica Rylan, Carla Scaletti, Laetitia Sonami, Bev Stanton (Arthur Loves Plastic), Keiko Uenishi (o.blaat)

About this title

Product Description:

"Pink Noises" brings together twenty-four interviews with women sound artists and electronic musicians, including club and radio DJs, re-mixers, composers, improvisers, instrument builders, and performance artists. The collection is an extension of Pinknoises, the critically-acclaimed website founded by musician and scholar Tara Rodgers in 2000 to promote women in electronic music and make information about music technologies more accessible to women and girls. That site featured interviews that Rodgers conducted with women artists, exploring their personal histories, creative methods, and role of gender in their work. This book offers new and lengthier interviews, a critical introduction, and resources for further research and technological engagement. Contemporary electronic music practices are illuminated through the stories of women artists of different generations and cultural backgrounds. They include the creators of ambient soundscapes, 'performance novels', sound sculptures, and software for digital audio, the developer of the Deep Listening philosophy, and the founders of the "Liquid Sound Lounge" radio show and the monthly Basement Bhangra parties in New York. These and many other artists open up about topics such as their conflicted relationships to formal music training, mainstream media representations of women in electronic music scenes, and the role of social networking in their careers. They discuss using sound to work creatively with structures of time and space, and voice and language; challenge distinctions of nature and culture; question norms of technological practice; and, balance their needs for productive solitude with collaboration and community. Whether designing and building modular synthesizers with analogue circuits or performing wearing a BodySynth that translates muscle movements into electronic sound, these artists expand notions of who and what counts in matters of invention, production, and noise-making.

Review:

“[Rodgers] conducted thoughtful, detailed interviews with a wide range of artists. . . . Even when I don't much care for the artist Rodgers is talking to . . . the discussion is lively and interesting. . . . Rodgers clearly understands many disparate modes of music making, and sounds equally authoritative whether she's talking about elaborate programming schemes, the language of analog synthesizers, or record buying.” - Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

“One of the best music books of 2010, Tara Rodgers’s Pink Noises, gave an accessible window into what looks to be many years of research into gender, identity and electronic music. . . .” - Frances Morgan, The Quietus

“Pink Noises is an extremely well informed, informative and inspiring discussion of some of the most crucial aspects and developments in electronic music. The innovators and actors behind these developments happen to be women and Pink Noises thereby highlights the astounding male centeredness in standard accounts and representation in electronic music.” - Anna Gavanas, Dancecult

“[A] vitally needed book, and it really is wonderful to read so many women talking passionately about the subject.” - Emily Manuel, Bitch

“Pink Noises touches upon nearly every aspect of female involvement in the evolution of electronic music and sound. . . . This book would be worthwhile if only for its excellent, clearly written glossary of essential terms and its basic primer on the history of the speed-of-light changes of a mega-industry and tools that most westerners use—in our current climate of relatively affordable consumerism: (if not necessarily civilization)—on a virtually daily basis and that we take for granted.” - Deborah Frost, Women’s Review of Books

“Pink Noises is an original and important contribution to discourse in
electronic music, musicology, and gender studies. Rodgers’s unique background as both electronic musician and scholar allows her to ask incisive questions about both creative process and cultural situation. And the introductory essay is nothing less than groundbreaking in its attempt to birth an alternate historiography for electronic music and to theorize the language and systems of electronic music.” - Betsey Biggs, Women & Music

“Pink Noises is a breath of fresh air when you look at how many electronic music books are about more of the same: boys with toys. From the Middle Eastern–inflected electronica of DJ Mutamassik, to the Punjabi rhythms of DJ Rekha, to the academix of Pamela Z and Pauline Oliveros, Tara Rodgers’s examination of women as central figures in the creative processes of twenty-first-century art and music is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of music in our hyper-connected and hyper-post-everything contemporary life.”—Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky

“Tara Rodgers . . . is as interested in the way these women do their work as what inspires it, or what it represents.” Author: Michaelangelo Matos Source: The Onion A.V. Club

“What does it mean to be a female electronic musician? This seemingly simple question lies at the heart of Pink Noises, Tara Rodgers’s compelling exploration into the relationship between technology and gender. . . . Rodgers’s book serves as both an introduction to the world of music and technology, even providing an extensive glossary, and inspirational manifesto, revealing that to succeed as an artist is to follow one’s own unique path, no matter what.” Author: Nick Zurko Source: Tom Tom Magazine

“Pink Noises is an extremely well informed, informative and inspiring discussion of some of the most crucial aspects and developments in electronic music. The innovators and actors behind these developments happen to be women and Pink Noises thereby highlights the astounding male centeredness in standard accounts and representation in electronic music.” Author: Anna Gavanas Source: Dancecult

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0822346737
• ISBN 13: 9780822346739
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336