Tonight at the E Room :: Brandeis Beats !

As my blogger-DJ-applied side attests, I like to combine the hands-on production of music with an approach that grounds any such creative engagement in historical study and an appreciation for music’s social and cultural contexts.

This semester, my first term at Brandeis University, has been no different. While studying “Digital Pop from Hip-hop to Mashup,” we’ve been making beats and building riddims while discussing the cultural politics of sampling, digital reproduction, appropriation, p2p exchange, etc, in line with the underlying argument that making sense of the seismic shifts of digital culture requires coming to terms with — and, indeed, embracing — the new possibilities and responsibilities of democratized access to powerful tools of production, circulation, and representation.

Our studies have taken us from Stockhausen to wubstep, from funk to crunk to funk carioca, from the Beatles to the Beasties to the Beastles, with many stops in between. Over the course of the term, we’ve produced sample-based and synthesized tracks, house and techno stompers and laid back hip-hop grooves, grimey instrumentals and vocal-driven “bastard pop.” And for our final projects, students are assembling their productions from the semester and offering them up, mixtape-style (i.e., using all kinds of other recordings for sonic/thematic glue), as 5-7 minute mini-tours of the world of what we’ve been calling “digital pop.”

We’ll be premiering these mini-mixes tonight at — where else? — Beat Research.

So, if you’re curious, come on out and hear some Deisy Beats.