Chapter Eight
Starship Africa
The Acoustics of Diaspora and of the Postcolony
The theory chapter. Dub’s shattered space read alongside Sun Ra, Miles, Parliament and Detroit techno as an acoustics of diaspora.
17 records on this page
Songs & tracks
Every song the chapter names, in the order the text names them, each with the sentence that introduces it, set as printed.
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001
Science
Prince Buster
—Prince Buster, from “Science,” 1972
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002
Money Generator
Karl Bryan
So it follows that when producer Coxsone Dodd remixed saxophonist Karl Bryan’s minor-key “Money Generator” instrumental into a dub version, he slowed the tape speed, applied the sound processors, and retitled it “Musical Science,” a moody version dominated by neo-African Nyabinghi hand drumming and a hazy, atmospheric mix.
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003
Musical Science
Dub Specialist (Coxsone Dodd)
So it follows that when producer Coxsone Dodd remixed saxophonist Karl Bryan’s minor-key “Money Generator” instrumental into a dub version, he slowed the tape speed, applied the sound processors, and retitled it “Musical Science,” a moody version dominated by neo-African Nyabinghi hand drumming and a hazy, atmospheric mix.
song Open ↗ YouTube
Albums, compilations & series
Albums, compilations and series, again in the order the chapter names them.
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004
Electric Ladyland
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
On Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, a variety of archaic, rural blues forms are electrically revamped, graced with otherworldy lyrical themes, and subjected to extensive sound processing and studio manipulation.
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005
Space Is the Place
Sun Ra
A similar fusion is strongly evident in selected works of Sun Ra such as Space Is the Place, Astro-Black, and Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, in which juxtaposed themes of ancient Egypt, archaic Africana, exile, and interstellar travel are dramatized through Sun Ra’s fusion of free jazz, improvised electronic textures, and African-inspired drumming.
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006
Astro-Black
Sun Ra
A similar fusion is strongly evident in selected works of Sun Ra such as Space Is the Place, Astro-Black, and Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, in which juxtaposed themes of ancient Egypt, archaic Africana, exile, and interstellar travel are dramatized through Sun Ra’s fusion of free jazz, improvised electronic textures, and African-inspired drumming.
album Open ↗ YouTube -
007
Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
Sun Ra
A similar fusion is strongly evident in selected works of Sun Ra such as Space Is the Place, Astro-Black, and Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, in which juxtaposed themes of ancient Egypt, archaic Africana, exile, and interstellar travel are dramatized through Sun Ra’s fusion of free jazz, improvised electronic textures, and African-inspired drumming.
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008
Mothership Connection
Parliament
Parliament’s theme-driven albums such as Mothership Connection and Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, laid the foundation for their concert “funk operas,” based around tropes of interstellar travel and genetic manipulation, transgressively recast through the ethos of the postindustrial urban ghetto.
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009
Clones of Dr. Funkenstein
Parliament
Parliament’s theme-driven albums such as Mothership Connection and Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, laid the foundation for their concert “funk operas,” based around tropes of interstellar travel and genetic manipulation, transgressively recast through the ethos of the postindustrial urban ghetto.
album Open ↗ YouTube -
010
Dark Magus
Miles Davis
Trumpeter Miles Davis traversed similar conceptual territory in the mid-1970s on jazzfusion works such as Dark Magus, Get Up With It, Agharta, and Pangaea, which fused post-Coltrane free and modal jazz improvisation, abstracted rhythm and blues, psychedelic rock, African-derived percussion, pure electronic music, and extensive post-performance studio manipulation.
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011
Get Up With It
Miles Davis
Trumpeter Miles Davis traversed similar conceptual territory in the mid-1970s on jazzfusion works such as Dark Magus, Get Up With It, Agharta, and Pangaea, which fused post-Coltrane free and modal jazz improvisation, abstracted rhythm and blues, psychedelic rock, African-derived percussion, pure electronic music, and extensive post-performance studio manipulation.
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012
Agharta
Miles Davis
Trumpeter Miles Davis traversed similar conceptual territory in the mid-1970s on jazzfusion works such as Dark Magus, Get Up With It, Agharta, and Pangaea, which fused post-Coltrane free and modal jazz improvisation, abstracted rhythm and blues, psychedelic rock, African-derived percussion, pure electronic music, and extensive post-performance studio manipulation.
album Open ↗ YouTube -
013
Pangaea
Miles Davis
Trumpeter Miles Davis traversed similar conceptual territory in the mid-1970s on jazzfusion works such as Dark Magus, Get Up With It, Agharta, and Pangaea, which fused post-Coltrane free and modal jazz improvisation, abstracted rhythm and blues, psychedelic rock, African-derived percussion, pure electronic music, and extensive post-performance studio manipulation.
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014
Innovator
Derrick May
More recently, Detroit-based techno musicians such as Derrick May and Jeff Mills, working within one of the planet’s most notorious postindustrial settings (and one dominated by the symbol of transport vehicles), would find resonance in the metaphor of space vessels and outer space travel on recordings such as May’s Innovator, or Mills’s Waveform Transmissions.
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015
Waveform Transmissions
Jeff Mills
More recently, Detroit-based techno musicians such as Derrick May and Jeff Mills, working within one of the planet’s most notorious postindustrial settings (and one dominated by the symbol of transport vehicles), would find resonance in the metaphor of space vessels and outer space travel on recordings such as May’s Innovator, or Mills’s Waveform Transmissions. Besides being a fad derived from the technological advances of the times, these images may have proliferated because they offered a novel inflection to traditional forms of African-derived mysticism, naturalism, and magic, while inspiring a rearticulation of the historical experiences of colonization, slavery, immigration, frontier, and exile.
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016
Super Ape
The Upsetters / Lee Perry
Dub albums tend to be mere compilations of these mixes that lack the clear thematic continuity that listeners expect of album-length works (exceptions might be thematic dub LPs such as Lee Perry’s Super Ape and Blackboard Jungle Dub).
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017
Blackboard Jungle Dub
The Upsetters / Lee Perry
Dub albums tend to be mere compilations of these mixes that lack the clear thematic continuity that listeners expect of album-length works (exceptions might be thematic dub LPs such as Lee Perry’s Super Ape and Blackboard Jungle Dub). More significant, however, is the observation that in Jamaican dub, the sci-fi component has typically been more implicit than explicit.
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