FOLK MUSIC, MATERIAL ANALYSIS AND ME
BABYLON'S SUBSTACK GOES AGAINST THE GRAIN FOR THE WIRE
I have written a brief overview essay covering some of my issues with the ahistorical/anti-historical lens found in discussions of contemporary ‘folk’ music for The Wire, available to read in the current issue (493), or online here.
Issue 493
Huge thanks to the staff of The Wire for asking me to expand on these ideas, and also to Dom for his help giving the work some intellectual spine, and Rosie for her introduction and in depth explanation of the work of Zygmunt Bauman. No thanks to Lambeth Library Services for putting the free-to-use computers in the same part of Brixton library as the quiet study area.
It is a massive topic area, and even with the limits I put on the scope it’s still a skim over the potential waters. Here are some avenues of discussion that were left on the digital cutting room floor of the essay in pursuit of hard fact and word count:
Big digressions on field recording and ‘subjective field recording’
Big digressions on the more ‘weird’ end of this stuff (refried standing stone)
Class politics of performance and consumption (duh)
Rote behaviour on the British left becoming stuck behaviour (can summarise as ‘we march because we march, we sing because we sing’)
Racialised politics of the white British AKA the orcish brythonic other
Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia in comparison
My personal theory about the psychic shock of moving to London from RBUK (rest of bourgeois UK AKA some Wessex exurb) leading to a reaction that becomes a quest for ‘truth’ and ‘solidity’
But these are all of course massive topics. If you want me to write stuff down about any of the left out sections, let me know - either for your mag/website/zine or just for a quick blast on here.
I mean look at this
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this essay, either here or elsewhere - hit me up on email, Instagram, all the usual channels.