Love is the Message: Dance, Music and Counterculture
This is an excerpt of a full length episode currently only available to patrons. To become a patron and support what we're doing from £3 per month, head to www.patreon.com/LoveMessagePod.
In this patrons-only episode, Tim and Jeremy continue their deep exploration of the aesthetics of dub. We begin with a history of MCing, toasting and chatting in Jamaican music, taking in famed MCs like U-Roy alongside NYC contemporaries like DJ Kool Herc. This opens up a conversation about spontaneity, improvisation and liveness that problematises received ideas about ownership, authorship, and the musical work itself.
Via a brief refresher on Critical Theory and Continental Philosophy, Jeremy and Tim explore the tensions between the musical performance and its recording, the power of repetition, and why dub's self-conscious experimentation with studio production makes it the most innovative medium of twentieth century music. We also get a healthy dose of Hauntology, '90s electronica and Socrates to complete the picture.
We'll be back in a fortnight with the next iteration of Heavy Dub Theory.
Produced and edited by Matt Huxley.
Tracklist:
Sir Lord Comic And His Cowboys - Ska-Ing West
Sir Lord Comic - Jack Of My Trade
U-Roy - Dynamic Fashion Way
U-Roy - Wake The Town
Bedouin Ascent - Broadway Boogie Woogie
Rhythm & Sound - Music Hit You
Mad Professor - Ragga Doll
Omni Trio - Half Cut
Books:
Jeff Chang - Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Lloyd Bradley - Reggae: The Story of Jamaican Music
Jacques Derrida - Spectres of Marx