Looking back at our event:

Sound System Culture - On the Radical Roots of Rave - Chapter #1

http://www.facebook.com/events/306002303324398/

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Transforming the dancefloor of Lauschi into a cosy conference, the room filled very quickly. As we had not expected so many people to come, a microphone improved the hearing later on. With this report we aim to highlight some of the interesting aspects of the discussion, not to reproduce the whole talk.

We had four guests for the panel discussion: Tom (Bauminista), Zoe(Splattercore), Ivana (One woman army in dub) and Mark (Spiral Tribe)- only Donna Maya was missing as she got sick during the day before – but for sure we will invite her next time.
After introducing the project to the audience and welcoming the panel guests shortly, the talk was opened by questioning how the approach to soundsystem culture was and how it developed for our guests.
Tom told that much has changed from the time when he came to Berlin in the early 90s, when there were only some reggae/dub selectas around but no soundsystems at all. Even when soundsystems started to be brought/built (King David, Moonbase Hifi…), he would call it „a strict underground thing“ and finds the recent process (during the last couple of years) of soundsystem culture getting bigger very interesting.

Growing up in the UK where dub and soundsystemculture was already ‘existing’, Zoe’s main connection to it were experiments on the new and heavy sounds of hard techno. Also having run her own label she puts an emphasis on the autonomous spaces that created a free atmosphere to truly connect with other people.

Coming from Croatia, Ivana was introduced to dub in the early 2000nds. She was involved into building the Digitron Soundsystem which functioned as one of the of a door openers for the balkan dub scene. It developed from there and now there are four or five soundsystems around and many festivals on the Balkans include dub and soundsystem culture.

Mark who also was growing up on dub in the UK already fought the pressure of politics being a squatter in the 1990s- before actually getting into doing parties. But as they had their own space for community and living, it was only a small step to then use the available basements and put soundsystems. They were a young group of people not labeling themselves ‘political’ as they didn’t want to play inside the same arena that was, as Mark said, “built by Rome”. Ironically, of course they were called political by the government and so after one year of increasing violence Spiral Tribe went out to Europe and came to Berlin.

So what is the essence of these ongoing experiences; what view evolves over time occupying oneself with sound?

Summarizing what is crucial from the discussion, one of the connecting elements seems to be the ‘realness’ and meditative dimension of the experience itself, the feeling that it creates while organizing, playing or simply dancing and feeling the music (no matter if dub or techno).
Why does this feeling on a dance seem true or how is the connection between human(s) and the situation built? What kind of energy is happening?
Soundsystem dances can show people that there are alternative ways to do things, how to bypass common structures (for example refraining from money) and especially what you can do together – the community aspect.
As the soundsystem provides a space, the people coming together are creating their very own community; own rules and rituals, own ways of expression, integration and expension, a very own culture so to say, which is an empowering influence on the individual.

Providing an autonomous space and/or using different locations to come together and exchange (via) music is also essential part of sound system culture, not only since gentrification is such a big topic.
We figured, that traveling and moving with the sound, going out to the public/open air, searching for places to put the sound also is one of the core aspects of sound system culture and always was.
Having said that it becomes more visible that it inherently has a militant yet peaceful attitude of taking spaces that are needed.

Opening up the community through the power of music (or art in general), this playful approach can create a creative awareness of being sensitive to your own imagination and ability to express and exchange it with other people.

Ivana pointed out that every country and city has its own way of interpreting sound system culture and connect it with the different existing subcultures so that is where these original creative moments come from.
Clearly all this is in general contrary to the capitalist society/big city life that almost forgot how to do things collectively and the stories of our guests match the picture as they represented different kinds of ‘anti-movements’ or ‘counter-concepts’. No matter if punk influenced like Ivana from Croatia living in a post-war country at that time, or Mark channeling the pressure from the government and media control into creating networks, pressing vinyl and having their own studio.
These self-made communities allow a different form of development and progress, which is more organic. This can as well be found in the reutilization of speakerboxes (from King David Soundsystem to Graograman Hifi or from Digitron to Barabadub) or simply in the ways of working with eachother.

Tom said to him soundsystem culture represents channeling all powers and different talents in on thing, collectively. Of course it is important to mention, that mostly it needs a crew for making a sound system happen, even if there are people who run it just on their own. As Ivana mentioned, simply owning the speakers means nothing – it is a responsibility as well. Working under different circumstances requires time and energy.
So where could soundsystem culture develope in the future? What is the potential of it?

These questions lead us to the term ‘DIY’. Trying to create and show other people alternatives means doing it yourself and staying true to this idea, not giving up on exploring possible realities of community as long as the communal living is not explored. So this is not only about creating alternatives to the music industry, even though this point is not to forget: Soundsystems are some kind of subversive, moveable radiostation.
So even though also in Berlin gentrification is all there, Mark strongly put his finger on the potential of sound as a social movement with revolutionary elements and momentum of its own. Especially in times of neoliberalism and right wing spreading fear it would mean the worst to stop expressing: loosing everything, loosing the key. Quoting Ivana: “The government will never give places so these places have to be taken.” 😉

Tom, who experienced parties in ruins of the WW and empty spaces after the fall of the Berlin wall, sees it more and more regulated and can not really imagine the situation to get better for sound systems, that is why he decided to build one just for his garden (outside of Berlin).

Even though the audience was a little shy in the beginning of opening the panel discussion towards it, it got really interesting once we went deeper into that urgent topic of spaces. As there probably won’t be more locations and tolerance in Berlin during the next couple of years, the idea of going outside (nature) again came up. Not even mentioning the legality everybody agreed, that in people in Berlin are hard to motivate/mobilize for a dance that is ‘far away’ compared to other people all over Europe that travel hours and hundreds of kilometers to join a session.

Maybe there is also a difference between the freetekno scene and the dub scene, as freetekno has a tradition with ‘going out’ already and Berlin dub is still not known so much (or people don’t realize that Reggae/Dub is not only Bob Marley but you can properly dance to it, as many people don’t even know what a sound system is).
What to do about it? Roughly reproducing a funny dialogue between two people of the discussion, this represents the overall idea:

Person A:
People in Berlin have a hard time moving somewhere. For the Shaka session some weeks ago, 800 or more people came from all over Europe. But people don’t move for any small outdoor party… For sure it was the name pulling people.
Person B:
If you stay true to your message it is the most important thing and you will reach people at some point. Keep doing what you do and don’t give a ** about whether people come or not. Keep the integrity.
Person A:
That’s true. That is actually how Shaka became famous.

Mark added, that it truly depends on how you measure success. In the 90s a lot of new things were going on with the electronic music in general- even though now the world is a lot different, this doesn’t mean that it has to limit peoples imagination.
Berlin still is a melting pot and has ideas and potential to connect and create a new kind of energy.
He told about his last party combining techno and dub which worked well, because it touched people. We just need to be progressive with it. Zoe went along with that and defined success as the “amount of difficult situations you are willing to live through and stay true to yourself” as this generates the feeling of your personal ability to impact the outside world.

Can we identifiy what soundsystem culture actually is? We have to try and define and reflect what this/our culture is in order to be able giving it to ‘the outside world’. The quality, that techno and dub and their soundsystem culture share is a strong, ‘giving’ thing. As long as people understand this idea and don’t only consume it, sound system culture also should not be eaten by mainstream and capitalism.

– Josephine Doepner