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€1 EUR
Entries RSS…to all our (Indian) friends and friends of India around the globe,
to the international community of listeners and music lovers,
to all the great vocal / instrumental musicians, composers and DJs,
to the passionate event organizers, booking agencies and music labels,
to analytical music scientists, profound teachers & pedagogues
and to our colleagues from press & medias
a very HAPPY & SUCCESSFULLY NEW YEAR 2013 !!!!!
It’s easy to forget that some of the simple joys of electronic music are foreign to many lay people. Odds are, if you read this site, you’re an intelligent and well-informed digital musician. (I don’t mean to stroke my own ego, either; because so many of you are intelligent and well-informed digital musicians, you send a whole lot of the information my way that makes this site even possible.) But for all the extensive discussion, a lot of what digital musicians seek to do in their performance is simple: they want to make their work expressive and performative, and convey some part of that gesture to audiences to include them in the action.
And so it is that a video of a live mashup is impressing general audiences as much as it is enthusiasts. It’s not a complex work, but it’s brilliantly performed, and in incorporating some 39 songs into one epic mash-up of Ableton-synced clips, it presents plenty of touchstones for audience members. The ingredients: FL Studio, Ableton Live, a Novation Launchpad, and a Novation ReMOTE Zero SL MKII.
It also helps being really good, as this person is: the “mash-up” is never awkward or overwhelming, and rather than boring bar-long sync, is played live with 16th-note clips. It isn’t so out of the ordinary compared to other virtuosic MPC videos, but that’s the joy of the Web: the best players do actually get their stuff in front of lots of eyeballs.
What’s also interesting is that, because it incorporates pop songs and you can see visually what he’s doing (in a design first seen on the software for the open-source monome platform), general audiences are picking it up. A few examples:
“Pop Culture” mega-mash-up: 39 songs in three minutes [Bailey Johnson for CBS News]
The video viral “video chart” at The Guardian, UK’s daily paper
No less than Kylie Minogue tweeted about it. Thanks to Novation’s Chris Mayes-Wright for keeping track of this video’s meteoric rise in the past four days. Artist Relations once meant mainly keeping celebs happy; now, it includes catering to YouTube stars, which I think is a nice development!
That popularity may encourage some trolling and jealousy, but I have to say, I’ve seen just as many hard-core Ableton and monome users and whatnot also drool over this video. (Thanks to everyone who sent this in – a lot of you sure did and I’m only now getting around to it! Blame constrained time and poor Internets here on the road in England.)
If you aren’t necessarily into pop samples, though, I think this shows that even some simple performance elements can appeal. Sure, we love far-out interfaces and big visual impact around these parts, but you can also simply turn off that bar-long quantization or whip out your instrument of choice – keys, strings, voice, pads, or whatever it is – and actually play. Most people really get and appreciate that, and it’s fun for the player, to boot.
And on that profound bombshell, I wish you a very happy weekend indeed.
After the war of words between Aamir Khan and Javed Akhtar, and Sonu Nigam and Vidhu Vinod Chopra over the amendment in the Copyright Act, there now seems to be a solution in sight.
On Wednesday evening, producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra went to Delhi to meet HRD minister Kapil Sibal to discuss the pending royalty issues. During the two-hourlong meeting, Chopra explained to Sibal that the proposed solution by the music fraternity of 50 per cent of the royalty amount being with the producer while 25 per cent each will be shared by the music director and lyricist was not feasible.
Among various solutions, Sibal and Chopra decided that a possible solution could be that the producer and author/composer can decide their share of royalties and other fees by a contract signed prior to a film going on the floors. Acting on the proposed solution, every member of the committee has received a copy of the proposed settlement yesterday.
According to the proposed solution, it is now clear that the right to negotiate and arrive at mutually acceptable terms is with the negotiating parties i.e. the producer and the author/composer. This will be part of the contract that the parties will enter into prior to making a film. The parties are free to do business any which way they desire.
Chopra said, “We as an industry really appreciate Kapil Sibal’s efforts. This is for the betterment of the industry.”
THE FILM INDUSTRY REACTS
I welcome this as it is fair. That’s the way it should be. I am very happy — Sameer, Lyricist Yes, I am aware
of this. Who will not welcome it? It’s fantastic — Pritam Music composer
The music fraternity hasn’t discussed it yet. I would like Javed Akhtar to decide — Sonu Nigam Singer
Let me go through the proposed amendment in detail. Only then will I talk — Javed Akhtar Lyricist
We are still not on the same page. It should be a win win situation for everyone involved — Madhur Bhandarkar Filmmaker
New Delhi, Dec 22 (IANS) The capital recently hosted its first ever electronic music festival – Global Groove Festival (17th – 18th Dec 2009) – but organiser Amit Saigal (editor of Rock Street Journal) says the genre is not so popular here and is appreciated by select audiences only.
“It is true that electronic music in India is still restricted to niche audience and has not found mass liking, but I’m glad that its popularity is growing,” Saigal of RSJ Events, who managed the Global Groove Festival, told IANS.
Global Groove, an event put together by DJ Ralph H. Christoph, the director (Head of Strategy) of Germany’s annual urban pop culture festival – Cologne On Pop, took place Dec 17-20.
Apart from the artistes, 80 delegates from countries like Germany, Iceland and Spain came down to participate in a conference to shed light on the state of electronic music in India as well as other parts of the world.
“In the past five years, electronic music has grown in the country. But there was no big platform to showcase it. It was an isolated scene. Hence we organised this event to tell the world what India has to offer,” added Saigal.
While electronic music is played around the world, in India bands like Midival Punditz are popularising it.
“This is just the beginning, we will organise this festival every year,” said Saigal.
(Source: 12/2009 (December 22nd, 2009 – 8:26 pm ICT by IANS) - Thaindian News – Entertainment)
Text: Ari Stein
Photo: Via MySapce
Most people don’t associate dance music with the sub-continent of India, but a recent article published in the Economic Times in India highlighted the rising popularity and growth of electronic music in the country.
The music industry in India is worth about 70 million rupees (15 million USD), but the Indian electronic music market accounts for roughly three to four percent of that total, as compared to eight percent in the UK and one percent in the US. These healthy figures show that more and more people are taking notice of the genre. With UK-based Indian electronic music artists like Mercury Award winner Talvin Singh, Nitin Sawhney and ragga-pop group Asian Dub Foundation filtering out to the world, indigenous Indian electronic music has quietly crept through the backdoor, finding a comfortable place in clubs and festivals.
The progress is slow but notable: BASSFoundation has set up a monthly drum & bass and dubstep night in New Delhi, Udyan Sagar‘s minimal electro sounds are gaining recognition, online radio station Radio79 mainly broadcasts indigenous electronic music, and the soon-to-be-published Ggrunt magazine will cover electronic culture in India.
Although Bollywood, trance and Goa are the dominant stereotypes, this developing nation of one billion people might eventually bring us some of the biggest electronic names of the next decade.
(Source: http://www.electronicbeats.net/News/Music/India-warms-to-electronic-music )
30 Aug 2009, 0105 hrs IST, John Sarkar, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: A certain section of the society is going into a collective state of bodily transcendence. Hypnotic rhythms are being laced with
fluorescent cocktails, as the country’s young swish brigade walks deeper underground. It’s being considered the biggest mind altering influence since Woodstock, but the shamanism may soon be out in the open.
From being a strictly underground genre, Indian electronic music is slowly creeping out into the limelight. The crowds are swelling and the number of desi world class acts is broke no more. Groups such as Jalebee Cartel, Kohra, BLOT, Jayant, Sattyananda, Shaair+Func, Tatva Kundalini, Anil Chawla and a whole heap of smaller artists are working all over the world and pushing the scene forward.
This spark of recognition is being seen as real and has spawned quite a few record labels such as DadA Music, Qilla Records, Shivlink, Audioashram and Thirdeye, in a very short time. These are mainly labels launched by the artists themselves. But the gig is not over yet.
Despite satellite radio stations such as Worldspace and BBC beaming electronic music, the country now also has its first indigenous full-time online music station, Radio79, broadcasting tub-thumping electronic tracks 24/7. The station has tied up with over 250 international labels and has seen over two lakh hits in a month.
Nikhel Mahajan, the brain behind the channel and an electronica artist himself, feels that electronic music is the future. “Already, Bollywood is playing electronic. People like Suketu, Himesh Reshamiya, Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy, Vishal and Shekhar, all have electronic undertones in their music. Just because, the vocals are in Hindi, the music is being passed off as commercial mainstream,” he says.
It’s a similar situation in America where electronic dance music is often classified as only electronic and accounts for 1% of sales, according to the NPD group (a market research company), compared to 8% in Britain, according to the British music industry group BPI.
Indian sales figures are quite comparable. In India, electronic music now accounts for nearly 3-4% of sales (The Indian Music Industry has pegged the size of the total music industry at roughly Rs 700 cr), according to industry estimates. “It’s a far cry from the time where it hardly mattered,” says Mahajan, who is also planning to launch an alternate lifestyle magazine called Ggrunt by next month, which would be the first Indian magazine on electronic music et al.
As a genre, Indian electronica might seem to be relatively new, however, its roots go deep down to somewhere back in the mid nineties. Sprouting in the UK, with the Asian underground movement that comprised of Talvin Singh, State of Bengal, Barmarsh and Shri, TJ Rehmi, lament and a whole lot more, there were small parties and outdoor gatherings that created a great vibe and atmosphere to promote the music.
“Sounds Of The Asian Underground” was the first real release that put Indian electronic artists out on to the global platform. Much later, when Talvin Singh went on to win the Mercury Music Prize, alongside artists like Roni Size, it was clear that the Indian community had some sort of an uprising and things started to stir up in the clubs and amongst music lovers.
And soon after, artists such Joi and Nitin Sawhney made waves in the music industry. A few years down the line and another uprising of sorts took place with a massive Asian crew from the US and India, comprising of artists such as Karsh Kale, Medieval Punditz, Zakir Hussain, Bill Laswell, DJ Spooky, Atul Ohri, Vishail Vaid and the likes.
After this wave of musicians, artists were on the roll in India and overseas and Indian electronica has, since then, grown by mammoth proportions, with more and more musicians breaking barriers and making noise on the International EDM scene.
The sound of the new millennium is very diversified, with DJs and music producers churning out anything from psychedelic trance to progressive, house, minimal, tech, tech-house, dub, breaks, and a whole lot more.
Indian clubs have come a long way from playing just commercial Bollywood and are now open to this new wave of Indian and international electronica with some popular night spots such as FBar, 360 degree, Bluefrog, Zenzi, all catering to this genre of music and offering the electronic experience to punters.
At the same time, the country has its own electronic sound festival which is held in Goa. Called the Sunburn, the fest usually has a mix of House and techno music. But the scene is not yet comparable to the best festivals in the world such as Germany’s Berlin Love Parade, Portugal’s biennial Boom Festival (where the Portugese government has allotted land to the organisers), Australia’s Rainbow Serpent trance festival or even some of the smallest electronica fests in Brazil.
Also, electronic music is being increasingly used in fashion shows here as well. Says Rashmi Virmani, Delhi-based fashion choreographer: “Earlier we used to use a lot of lounge and fusion music. But suddenly, electronic music seems to be in vogue. The pace of shows has become faster and crisp, and designs have become more edgy. Hence, electronic music fits the bill just right.”
But there is a catch to this groovy feeling. Some artists such as, Madhav Shorey of “Kohra” who is also an ex-member of Jalebee Cartel, feels that here, electronic music still has a long way to go. “Electronic is not about fashion. It’s more of a movement and cult.
With this sudden explosion there is a lot of crap going on there and people are running to make a fast buck,” he says. “In India you get paid a lot more for a gig than you get paid abroad. But the motive is not right.” Artists usually earn from gigs at clubs and bars and a fairly well-known outfit charges between Rs 50,000 and Rs 60,000 per show.
Shorey also feels there is a lot of competition at present and artists refuse to play with each other, which is bad for the movement. But the race is understandable. International electronic band Infected Mushroom is rumoured to earn around 65,000 euros per gig!
(S0urce: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Media-/-Entertainment-/Entertainment/Electronic-music-now-rocking-with-new-tunes/articleshow/4949770.cms )
File picture of a DJ in a club
NEW DELHI - Disc jockeys are thriving in India’s lively electronic music scene as rising incomes draw more people to nightclubs and Western influence grows.
Remixing, cueing music and scratching vinyl records are new-found passions for young Indians who aspire to be DJs, a career that until recently was misunderstood and often ridiculed.
In a tiny nightclub in India’s capital city New Delhi, lights spin around DJ Nasha whose pulsating music has the hip-shaking crowd yearning for more original remixes.
Late after midnight as he fades the set, enthusiastic fans surround him for a look at his console and flood him with requests for lessons in the art of mixing.
“This acceptance and love has come after years of rejection,” said Nasha, 32, who like other Indian DJs uses only his stage name — which means “intoxication” in Hindi.
Dressed in shocking red trousers and sporting wiry hair, Nasha is among India’s most popular DJs and performs at international music festivals, playing a new genre of Indian songs blended with electronic music.
On weekdays he trains aspiring DJs for a fee in his studio in Goa, a party destination on India’s western coast.
Other sought-after Indian DJs include Aqeel, Suketu and Pearl who travel extensively abroad, perform at high-profile parties, and enjoy celebrity status for gigs.
More than a decade ago, when Nasha chose DJ-ing as a full-time job, his family did not understand why anyone would choose to go to clubs and play blaring western music before a tipsy crowd.
“Go get a real job,” was a frequent suggestion.
In the past five years, however, flashy nightclubs have mushroomed in Indian cities to cater for the young and affluent who choose to unwind in pubs, splurge on drinks and enjoy music.
A recent report by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry stated that the music business is booming, with rising incomes leading more and more Indians to spend on leisure and entertainment.
Clubs, discotheques and lounge bars are crowded with chic Indians who understand and appreciate a DJ’s skill and are willing to pay high entry charges to listen to their music.
The interest in DJ-ing is also visible at schools where hundreds of young Indians enroll every year to learn the art of mixing.
“It is now considered cool to be a DJ in India,” said Nucleya who started mixing music in a musty basement using audio tapes as he could not afford to buy compact discs or a vinyl turntable.
Nucleya says his years of struggle are history and he is now paid well. His line of work is even respected by his family.
Performances by popular DJs are well-publicised and covered extensively by the media. Clubs often invite foreign DJs to play alongside the Indian stars.
“A good DJ is like a magnet. He has the power to attract people to the club,” says Abhishek Nanda of Manre, a swanky club in New Delhi.
But not every DJ is lucky enough to make it to a nightclub.
Most home-grown disc jockeys have no formal training in music or in remixing. They play the easily accessible non-stop CDs of Bollywood music and popular sets released by international DJs.
“Be it a wedding, birthday or even a baby shower, DJs are hired to keep the party going,” says Rohan Vijay who runs “MusicMix,” a small DJ training school in Mumbai.
“People in India love dancing. They could go to a posh club or even host a small party in a matchbox-size apartment, a DJ is now a must-have for any party,” Vijay said.
A student at MusicMix, DJ Fire is a 19-year-old school drop-out who thinks the job could be a ticket to fame and fortune.
Fire plays Bollywood music at religious festivals organised in the congested slums of Mumbai. He cannot understand the lyrics of the English songs but says he plays them as people enjoy fast music.
“I am a DJ for the slums and the poor. They have a right to dance too,” said Fire.
A handful of DJs trained in classical Indian music use it as a base to produce new remixes and launch music albums.
Mayur, who performs under the name Bandish Projekt, plays the tabla, a type of Indian drum, along with trance, techno and hip hop genres of music.
His unique blend has won him critical praise and he has been invited to several music festivals in Europe.
“Soon there will an Indian DJ on every corner of the street but only people with understanding for music will survive and many might just fade away like any music track,” he said. – AFP/ar
(Source: 08/2009 ( 18 August 2009 1259 hrs ) channelnewsasia.com – Life Style News)
By: Arjun S Ravi
Electronic music in India is a growing phenomenon but only a few artists show international potential. Here to help is DJ Ralph Christoph from Germany. Christoph will be delivering a talk at the Goethe Hall today at 1830hrs (read 1945hrs) about electronica. He is the head of the Cologne On Pop festival which, given the big deal Mumbai Mirror’s made of it, must be pretty good. Anywho, MM has the interview in which he talks about his experience as a DJ in Germany. The article also claims that “Germany is the birthplace for electronic music”, so there.
Christoph says, on the future of dance music in India: “The people I met are really into it, they want to change something, they want to create something and I think the time is right for it. They are just fed up with the stuff they are surrounded by and they have to create anew because there are no structures in place. The scene is not big but it’s well-connected and I will be glad if I can help building it up in some small way”
I’m curious. What kind of structures does one need for electronic music? Oh, and Christoph will also be scouting for acts for Cologne On Pop.
Read the entire interview after the break.
Ralph Christoph, an expert in electronic music and head of the festival c/o pop (Cologne on pop – one of the top electronica festivals in Europe) comes to India for a talk on electronica and to scout for talent that he would like to showcase at his music festival. Held at five different locations in Cologne and parties that run into the wee hours in the morning, c/o POP has been constantly getting the best artists from Europe and also giving a platform for newbies to perform. “There was a similar project in South East Asia where after research, artists were brought to the c/o POP festival where they were given a chance to showcase their music. Also, German artists went to these countries to produce some music. Every one realizes the potential that this country has. I am the first one here and people will look at my report and will know what the scene is,” says a seemingly excited Christoph.
ORIGINS OF ELECTRONICA
Germany is the birthplace for electronic music. After the Second World War when the country was pretty much razed to the ground, people wanted to create something different. “BBC created a radio station. In their studio is where Stockhausen experimented with some nonmusical apparatus and created the first electronic sound. Of course, it has nothing to do with what it is now, but that is the origin of electronic music,” says Christoph.
He makes it very clear that the workshop will not be a session on teaching how to DJ. The talk will consist of the history and the future of electronica. Armed with a clear idea of the market in Europe and an in-depth knowledge of media trends, the talk promises to provide an insight to a struggling EDM (Electronic Dance Music) market in India.
“Physical data like CDs are disappearing; the new medium is the internet. This is going to touch every area of music and the changes in Europe are things you might face in India as well. I will talk about market indications and the music business and what it means for a country like India to have a cross exchange with a market like Germany.
“I will also show a couple of video clips and documentaries by famous artists where you can see the diversity of music in Cologne. There will be some breaks stuff, some diverse techno and some crazy house shit. This will be followed by people asking questions. If people ask me to play some music, or ask me to show some more videos I will,” says Christoph.
Christoph has been a DJ for the past 20 years and he understands the problems the Electronic music in India faces. “We had a similar problem in Cologne. We were just doing warehouse parties and illegal stuff. I started the first regular club in Cologne and this was just 10 years ago, where Friday nights were dedicated to electronic music,” he says.
FUTURE OF DANCE MUSIC
He is really excited about the future of electronic music in India. “The people I met are really into it, they want to change something, they want to create something and I think the time is right for it. They are just fed up with the stuff they are surrounded by and they have to create anew because there are no structures in place. The scene is not big but it’s well-connected and I will be glad if I can help building it up in some small way,” he concludes.
(Source: 04/2008 (Wed, Apr 30 2008) – Indiecision)
Gaudi + Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Dub Qawwali
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was and is still very much considered to be the greatest Qawwal (singer of Qawwali music) in the world; not only recognized as a legend in his native Pakistan he also took his musical messages of peace, love and spirituality to the international stage, earning him the title of Pakistan’s premier ambassador of Qawwali music. The origins of Qawwali music trace back over seven hundred years to the spiritual Samah songs of Persia and the mystical faith of Sufism.
So, what happens when you unite one of world’s most revered voices with a long-time veteran of global music production? Dub Qawwali, by London-based producer/artist Gaudi reveals the answer. The album blends organic and digital dub stylings with original vocals from Pakistan’s beloved Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The result is a moving body of work that respectfully brings Khan’s Qawwali songs together with Jamaican dub via superb 21st century studio techniques. Dub Qawwali is a celebration of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s life and is being released on Six Degrees Records in August 2007, marking the 10-year anniversary of his death.
Gaudi was one of six producers who were initially offered a single Nusrat track to remix by the Lemon Group – owners of the song publishing of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s works from 1968-1974, in association with Khan’s original Pakistani label Rehmat Gramophone. The company loved what Gaudi had done with the material and offered him complete access to the recording sessions from 35 years ago, including rare and unreleased vocal parts. The original studio reels where sent to Gaudi’s studio in London in 2005 and work began.
Although other producers, including India’s Bally Sagoo and the UK’s Massive Attack, have remixed Khan’s work, in Dub Qawwali Gaudi has taken an entirely new approach to re-interpreting the work of this great artist. He has created a collection of new compositions in which the original vocals are seamlessly fused with a full spectrum of dub & reggae styles and musical themes & flavors from other cultures, genres and environments. A universal theme of peace and love, very much evident in both Khan’s work and at the heart of reggae music, is the unifying element.
It was Gaudi’s strong sense of the direct connection between roots reggae music’s humanitarian messages of compassion and love and Khan’s devotional songs, that was a major inspiration in the creative direction of Dub Qawwali. Gaudi is as much a scholar of Khan’s work as he is of dub, and lists among his favorite dub artists King Tubby, Scientist, Mad Professor, and Lee “Scratch” Perry. After doing studio work with the “eccentric studio genius” Perry in 2005, Gaudi had confirmation of one of his own strongest beliefs in music production which is to respect your own personal integrity by “being yourself and always following your own sound.”
Gaudi has been pursuing his own singular path since the early 80’s with his first major album release coming in 1990 with “Basta Poco” (Polygram). Since then he’s released 11 solo albums, 80 remixes (for artists including Bob Marley, Simple Minds and Ojos de Brujo) and been featured on over 100 compilations to date (for full discography go to www.gaudimusic.com). His 2004 Interchill album Bass, Sweat & Tears, is still the label’s best selling release. He co-wrote and produced the album Re:sonate (FAX Records) with ambient-chill legend Pete Namlook and worked with reggae legends Horace Andy and Dennis Bovell. Dub Qawwali is a further expansion of Gaudi’s eclectic and smooth deep-dub electronic sound.
The album opens with the soft tones of “Bethe Bethe Kese Kese”; a nostalgic and warm track where melodious Flute and Strings echo contemplative vocals. A firm stepper rhythm anchors and drives the track while Sarangi adds dimension to this wistful introduction. This is also the first track that Gaudi produced in the series and very much provided the drive and direction that is evident throughout the rest of the album. “Tera Jana Kere Rang Lawe” is a dub influenced roots reggae track combining passionate and melancholic Strings with a roots dub bassline. Its uncluttered feel and rolling Bass spiced with off-beat Tabla gives space and groove. The vocals in “Dil Da Rog Muka Ja Mahi” inspired the inclusion of a theme from the Kraftwerk track “The Model” used by permission from the legendary German electro-pioneers in this remarkable excursion of a track; analogue Synthesizers give authenticity to its 1977 origins, while Hammond organ, a deep bassline and fills of dubbed up percussive echo keep the reggae flavors rolling. “Ena Akhiyan Noo” is positive and evocative; an upbeat reggae theme supporting emotive and expansive vocal passages is spiced up with rub-a-dub flavors and breaks of hypnotic chant. You don’t have to understand Urdu, Punjabi or Persian to feel the sentiment evoked on Dub Qawwali, it is a work of truly international appeal.
The use of vintage analogue studio equipment and dub production techniques such as tape echoes, valve amps, Fender Rhodes, spring reverbs, Hammond organ and Moog, characterizes Gaudi’s production style, however it is not without its share of 21st century intervention and wizardry… Individual tracks from the original 70’s multi-track recordings often contained multiple parts together on them. These had to then be carefully cleaned up in order to make them usable in a way that would enable the composition of these new works. (This included much of the vocal parts which where mixed in the same track as the Harmonium and other instruments!)
Gaudi’s attention to detail paid off. Dub Qawwali revives Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s vocals in a truly distinctive fashion – a vital accomplishment given Khan’s stature. The legendary Pakistani artist has inspired the likes of Peter Gabriel, Michael Brook and Eddie Vedder and is in the Guinness Book of Records for having the world’s largest recorded output by a Qawwali artist — a total of 125 albums. Gaudi, aware of the gravity of re-working such a prolific and globally respected artist was moved to comment: “After 26 years of music activity I have to say that this is one of the most important productions I have ever done.”
U.S. Press Contact: Ryan Romana Canadian Press Contact: Joanne Huffa
Six Degrees Records Six Degrees Records / Outside
540 Hampshire St. 25 Defries Street
San Francisco, CA 94110-1417 Toronto, ON M5A 3R4
t: 415-626-6334 ext. 15 t: 416-461-0655 x334
f: 415-626-6167 f: 416-461-0973
ryan@sixdegreesrecords.com joanne@outside-music.com
…
+++
Drawn up by the German Press Council in collaboration with the Press associations and presented to Federal President Gustav W. Heinemann on December 12, 1973 in Bonn.
(English updated version of September 13, 2006)
Vom Deutschen Presserat in Zusammenarbeit mit den Presseverbänden beschlossen und Bundespräsident Gustav W. Heinemann am 12. Dezember 1973 in Bonn überreicht.
(In der Fassung vom 3. Dezember 2008.)
Preamble
The freedom of the Press enshrined in the Basic Law includes the independence and freedom of information, the right of expression and criticism. Publishers, editors and journalists must in their work remain aware of their responsibility towards the public and their duty to uphold the prestige of the Press. They perform their journalistic task fairly, according to the best of their knowledge and belief, uninfluenced by personal interests and motives that have nothing to do with the matter in hand.
The journalistic principles define the professional ethics of the Press. These include the duty within the framework of the Constitution and constitutional laws to maintain the standing of the Press and speak up for the freedom of the Press.
The regulations pertaining to editorial data protection apply to the Press in gathering, processing or using information about persons for journalistic-editorial purposes. From research to editing, publishing, documenting and storing these data, the Press must respect people’s privacy and right to self-determination on information about them.
These professional ethics give everyone the right to complain about the Press. Complaints are justified if professional ethics are infringed.
This preamble is part of the ethical standards.
Präambel
Die im Grundgesetz der Bundesrepublik verbürgte Pressefreiheit schließt die Unabhängigkeit und Freiheit der Information, der Meinungsäußerung und der Kritik ein. Verleger, Herausgeber und Journalisten müssen sich bei ihrer Arbeit der Verantwortung gegenüber der Öffentlichkeit und ihrer Verpflichtung für das Ansehen der Presse bewusst sein. Sie nehmen ihre publizistische Aufgabe fair, nach bestem Wissen und Gewissen, unbeeinflusst von persönlichen Interessen und sachfremden Beweggründen wahr.
Die publizistischen Grundsätze konkretisieren die Berufsethik der Presse. Sie umfasst die Pflicht, im Rahmen der Verfassung und der verfassungskonformen Gesetze das Ansehen der Presse zu wahren und für die Freiheit der Presse einzustehen.
Die Regelungen zum Redaktionsdatenschutz gelten für die Presse, soweit sie personenbezogene Daten zu journalistisch-redaktionellen Zwecken erhebt, verarbeitet oder nutzt. Von der Recherche über Redaktion, Veröffentlichung, Dokumentation bis hin zur Archivierung dieser Daten achtet die Presse das Privatleben, die Intimsphäre und das Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung des Menschen.
Die Berufsethik räumt jedem das Recht ein, sich über die Presse zu beschweren. Beschwerden sind begründet, wenn die Berufsethik verletzt wird.
Diese Präambel ist Bestandteil der ethischen Normen.
___________________________________________________________________
Section 1 – Truthfulness and Preserving Human Dignity
Respect for the truth, preservation of human dignity and accurate informing of the public are the overriding principles of the Press.
In this way, every person active in the Press preserves the standing and credibility of the media.
Ziffer 1 – Wahrhaftigkeit und Achtung der Menschenwürde
Die Achtung vor der Wahrheit, die Wahrung der Menschenwürde und die wahrhaftige Unterrichtung der Öffentlichkeit sind oberste Gebote der Presse.
Jede in der Presse tätige Person wahrt auf dieser Grundlage das Ansehen und die Glaubwürdigkeit der Medien.
Section 2 – Care
Research is an indispensable instrument of journalistic due diligence. The publication of specific information in word, picture and graphics must be carefully checked in respect of accuracy in the light of existing circumstances. Its sense must not be distorted or falsified by editing, title or picture captions. Unconfirmed reports, rumours or assumptions must be quoted as such.
Symbolic photos must be clearly marked as such.
Symbolfotos müssen als solche kenntlich sein oder erkennbar gemacht werden.
Section 3 – Corrections
Published news or assertions, in particular those of a personal nature, which subsequently turn out to be incorrect must be promptly rectified in an appropriate manner by the publication concerned.
Ziffer 3 – Richtigstellung
Veröffentlichte Nachrichten oder Behauptungen, insbesondere personenbezogener Art, die sich nachträglich als falsch erweisen, hat das Publikationsorgan, das sie gebracht hat, unverzüglich von sich aus in angemessener Weise richtig zu stellen.
Section 4 – Limits of Research
Dishonest methods must not be used to acquire person-related news, information or photographs.
Ziffer 4 – Grenzen der Recherche
Bei der Beschaffung von personenbezogenen Daten, Nachrichten, Informationsmaterial und Bildern dürfen keine unlauteren Methoden angewandt werden.
Section 5 – Professional Secrecy
The Press shall respect professional secrecy, make use of the right to refuse to bear witness and shall not reveal informants’ identities without their explicit permission.
Confidentiality is to be adhered to in principle.
Ziffer 5 – Berufsgeheimnis
Die Presse wahrt das Berufsgeheimnis, macht vom Zeugnisverweigerungsrecht Gebrauch und gibt Informanten ohne deren ausdrückliche Zustimmung nicht preis.
Die vereinbarte Vertraulichkeit ist grundsätzlich zu wahren.
Section 6 – Separation of Activities
Journalists and publishers shall not perform any activities that could throw doubt over the credibility of the Press.
Ziffer 6 – Trennung von Tätigkeiten
Journalisten und Verleger üben keine Tätigkeiten aus, die die Glaubwürdigkeit der Presse in Frage stellen könnten.
Section 7 – Separation of Advertising and Editorial Content
The responsibility of the Press towards the general public requires that editorial publications are not influenced by the private or business interests of third parties or the personal economic interests of the journalists. Publishers and editors must reject any attempts of this nature and make a clear distinction between editorial and commercial content. If a publication concerns the publisher’s own interests, this must be clearly identifiable.
Ziffer 7 – Trennung von Werbung und Redaktion
Die Verantwortung der Presse gegenüber der Öffentlichkeit gebietet, dass redaktionelle Veröffentlichungen nicht durch private oder geschäftliche Interessen Dritter oder durch persönliche wirtschaftliche Interessen der Journalistinnen und Journalisten beeinflusst werden. Verleger und Redakteure wehren derartige Versuche ab und achten auf eine klare Trennung zwischen redaktionellem Text und Veröffentlichungen zu werblichen Zwecken. Bei Veröffentlichungen, die ein Eigeninteresse des Verlages betreffen, muss dieses erkennbar sein.
Section 8 – The Rights of the Individual
The Press shall respect the private life and intimate sphere of persons. If, however, the private behaviour of a person touches upon public interests, then it may be reported on in individual cases. Care must be taken to ensure that the privacy rights of uninvolved persons are not violated. The Press shall respect people’s right to self-determination on information about them and guarantee editorial data protection.
Ziffer 8 – Persönlichkeitsrechte
Die Presse achtet das Privatleben und die Intimsphäre des Menschen. Berührt jedoch das private Verhalten öffentliche Interessen, so kann es im Einzelfall in der Presse erörtert werden. Dabei ist zu prüfen, ob durch eine Veröffentlichung Persönlichkeitsrechte Unbeteiligter verletzt werden. Die Presse achtet das Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung und gewährleistet den redaktionellen Datenschutz.
Section 9 – Protection of Dignity
Violating people’s dignity with inappropriate representations in word and image contradicts journalistic ethics.
Ziffer 9 – Schutz der Ehre
Es widerspricht journalistischer Ethik, mit unangemessenen Darstellungen in Wort und Bild Menschen in ihrer Ehre zu verletzen.
Section 10 – Religion, Philosophy, Custom
The Press will refrain from vituperating against religious, philosophical or moral convictions.
Ziffer 10 – Religion, Weltanschauung, Sitte
Die Presse verzichtet darauf, religiöse, weltanschauliche oder sittliche Überzeugungen zu schmähen.
Section 11 – Sensational Reporting, the Protection of Young People
The Press will refrain from inappropriately sensational portrayal of violence, brutality and suffering. The Press shall respect the protection of young people.
Ziffer 11 – Sensationsberichterstattung, Jugendschutz
Die Presse verzichtet auf eine unangemessen sensationelle Darstellung von Gewalt, Brutalität und Leid. Die Presse beachtet den Jugendschutz.
Guideline 12.1 – Reports on Crimes
When reporting crimes, it is not permissible to refer to the suspect’s religious, ethnic or other minority membership unless this information can be justified as being relevant to the readers’ understanding of the incident.
In particular, it must be borne in mind that such references could stir up prejudices against minorities.
Ziffer 12 – Diskriminierungen
Niemand darf wegen seines Geschlechts, einer Behinderung oder seiner Zugehörigkeit zu einer ethnischen, religiösen, sozialen oder nationalen Gruppe diskriminiert werden.
Guideline 13.1 – Prejudice
Reports on investigations and court cases serve to inform the public in a careful way about crimes and other infringements of the law, their prosecution and court judgement. In the process it must not prejudge them. The Press may call a person a perpetrator if he/she has made a confession and there is also evidence against him/her or if he/she committed the crime in public view. In the language of reporting, the Press is not required to use legal terms that are irrelevant to the reader.
In a state based on the rule of law, the aim of court reporting must not be to punish convicted criminals socially as well by using the media as a ‘pillory’. Reports should make a clear distinction between suspicion and proven guilt.
Guideline 13.2 – Follow-On Reporting
If the Press has reported on the unconfirmed conviction of a person, it should also report an ensuing acquittal or a marked lessening of charges if the legitimate interests of the person affected do not dictate to the contrary. This recommendation also applies to the dropping of an investigation.
Guideline 13.3 – Crimes Committed by Young Persons
When reporting on investigations and criminal court proceedings against young persons and on their appearance in court, the Press must exercise especial restraint out of consideration for their future.
Ziffer 13 – Unschuldsvermutung
Die Berichterstattung über Ermittlungsverfahren, Strafverfahren und sonstige förmliche Verfahren muss frei von Vorurteilen erfolgen. Der Grundsatz der Unschuldsvermutung gilt auch für die Presse.
Section 14 – Medical Reporting
Reports on medical matters should not be of an unnecessarily sensationalist nature since they might lead to unfounded hopes or fears on the part of some readers. Research findings that are still at an early stage should not be portrayed as if they were conclusive or almost conclusive.
Ziffer 14 – Medizin-Berichterstattung
Bei Berichten über medizinische Themen ist eine unangemessen sensationelle Darstellung zu vermeiden, die unbegründete Befürchtungen oder Hoffnungen beim Leser erwecken könnte. Forschungsergebnisse, die sich in einem frühen Stadium befinden, sollten nicht als abgeschlossen oder nahezu abgeschlossen dargestellt werden.
Section 15 – Preferential Treatment
The acceptance of privileges of any kind that could possibly influence the freedom of decision on the part of publishers and editors are irreconcilable with the prestige, independence and responsibilities of the Press. Anyone accepting bribes for the dissemination of news acts in a dishonourably and unprofessional manner.
Guideline 15.1 – Invitations and Gifts
Even the appearance that the freedom of decision of a publishing house and its editorial staff can be impaired is to be avoided. Journalists shall therefore not accept any invitations or gifts whose value exceeds the extent that is usual in business and necessary as part of working life.
The acceptance of advertising articles or other low-value objects is harmless.
Research and reporting must not be influenced, hindered or even prevented by the accepting of gifts, invitations or discounts. Publishing houses and journalists shall insist that information be given regardless of the acceptance of a gift or an invitation.
If journalists report on Press trips to which they have been invited, they shall make this financing clear.
Ziffer 15 – Vergünstigungen
Die Annahme von Vorteilen jeder Art, die geeignet sein könnten, die Entscheidungsfreiheit von Verlag und Redaktion zu beeinträchtigen, sind mit dem Ansehen, der Unabhängigkeit und der Aufgabe der Presse unvereinbar. Wer sich für die Verbreitung oder Unterdrückung von Nachrichten bestechen lässt, handelt unehrenhaft und berufswidrig.
It is considered fair reporting when a public reprimand issued by the German Press Council is published, especially by the newspapers or magazines concerned.
Guideline 16.1 – Publication of Reprimands
The following applies to the publication concerned:
The reader must be informed of the facts of the reprimanded article and of the journalistic principle it violated.
Ziffer 16 – Rügenveröffentlichung
Es entspricht fairer Berichterstattung, vom Deutschen Presserat öffentlich ausgesprochene Rügen zu veröffentlichen, insbesondere in den betroffenen Publikationsorganen bzw. Telemedien.
East Meets West: San Francisco DJ Cheb i Sabbah marries dance music to devotional ragas.
In electronic music, as in food, films and nearly every other product of our alternately authenticity-craving and authenticity-annihilating global culture, the whole world is up for grabs. Held together by an aesthetic that prizes rhythm over words, techno has branched way beyond its disco, hip-hop and synth-pop roots into the musical traditions of just about every country that Lonely Planet publishes a guidebook for.
Laid over an earthshaking bass or trancelike skittering drums, Indian classical music is now as au courant as scratching, and musics from Albania, Kenya, India and Morocco all thump together on the same records. The best examples of this internationalist underground present an exuberantly, reverently optimistic sonic dream of the world as a musical bazaar, overflowing with exotic melodies, grooves and multifarious lyrical pathos.
Just in the last couple of months, we have been treated to Badmarsh and Shri‘s Dancing Drums, San Francisco DJ Cheb i Sabbah‘s Shri Durga and Banco de Gaia‘s The Magical Sounds of Banco de Gaia. Six Degrees, a San Francisco label devoted largely to promoting such world-beat hybrids, has recently released Traveler 99: A Planetful of Grooves, an electronic album that includes French, Indian, South African, Celtic and Brazilian music, as well as a track from Wally Brill, who incorporates 78-rpm recordings of Jewish liturgical singers from the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s into his dubby compositions.
At its best, this music can offer jaded Western ears something genuinely new, something that’s exotic without being exotica and something that gives electronic music an emotional depth often lacking in club sounds. Sabbah’s Shri Durga is especially reverent. As much an Indian classical record as an electronic one, it is full of prayerful ragas and lugubrious sitars snaking over big plosive percussion. The chanting and tablas never feel like gimmicks slapped over a 4/4 house beat to lend some Eastern flava–instead, the Indian music is central, with the hip-hop bass, samples and fades creating a subtle background for the vocal drama.
Much of the reason the Eastern and Western elements on Shri Durga sound so integrated is because Sabbah actually spent time in India working with renowned singers and sitar and tabla players. “Everyone’s appropriating everything these days,” he says, “but there’s something sacred about music, and I’ve never felt that sampling a little sitar would be enough, especially if you can actually work with the person playing the sitar.”
A Jewish Algerian who got his start spinning soul music in Paris nightclubs in the ’60s, Sabbah is largely disenchanted with contemporary dance music–in fact, he hates synthesizers. “Synthetically, you can reproduce everything,” he says. “It seems like you can also reproduce life. In India, they call it call it ‘rasa,’ the mood that you develop when you play your raga. When you sample something, you’ll never get that–you’ll never get the musician developing the mood because of the season or the time of day or one of the nine dramatic emotions.”
Sabbah’s comments point to some of the most contentious issues for people making this kind of music, issues of musical purity and respect for traditions versus the cut-and-paste, crazy-quilt style both of electronic music and of the end-of-the-century world in general. The irony of this music is that it can represent both a pomo cosmopolitan smorgasbord where everything from every culture and era is up for grabs and a longing to escape from exactly that kind of international homogenization.
“A lot of Western music has forgotten its folk roots. There’s a loss of that organic element,” says Shri of Badmarsh and Shri. “There’s a new, deeply organic sound coming from India, and people are trying it out.”
Much like Talvin Singh‘s OK, Badmarsh and Shri’s Dancing Drums is a stunning combination of Indian music and drum ‘n’ bass, the tablas and flutes swirling lightly in a sparkling atmosphere of quicksilver percussion and funk melodies. It’s much more of a club record than Shri Durga, much freer in deconstructing the Indian elements and wildly mixing the sounds together. Dancing Drums is both playful and haunting; if someone made a version of Blade Runner that fetishized India instead of Japan, Dancing Drums would be the music echoing in the film’s dark streets.
A native of Bombay, Shri had studied Indian classical music since he was 4. As a teenager, though, he rejected it in favor of heavy metal and jazz. “I was in my searching mode, and Indian classical music didn’t seem to offer anything to me,” he says. “It was too rigid, and at that time you don’t want rules. I discovered hard rock and went through what I call my 100-instrument phase–I played everything from trombone and sax to guitar–at the end of which I settled down to playing bass and flute, and I got a jazz trio together in Bombay.”
Soon after, he went to London, where he first heard drum ‘n’ bass on a pirate radio station. He related to it as a tabla player, he says. Oddly, it was this quintessentially English music that led him back to his Indian roots. He released a solo album, Drum the Bass, before teaming up with the London-born Indian b-boy Badmarsh.
“I’m not trying to put Indian classical music over Western music,” he says. “I hear them as the same thing. It’s like, at home I never speak a word of English–I speak Kannada and Tamil–but when I’m speaking to you, I’m not translating from my mother tongue to English, and when I speak at home, I’m not translating from English. That’s how I see Western music, as just another form of expression. I’m doing Western music with an Indian accent or Indian music with a Western accent.”
Of course this kind of thing has been going on for a while. Talvin Singh released the Anokha: Soundz of the Asian Underground compilation in 1997, and groups and performers like Loop Guru, Transglobal Underground and Banco de Gaia have been using Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian samples in their tracks for years.
Goa trance, developed at huge parties on the southern coast of India, added a hippieish Eastern flavor to rave culture. Beyond that, Western dilettantes in search of Eastern wisdom have always looked for spiritual solace in the traditional musics of far less affluent countries–the dread Enigma and their mournfully chanting monks have become the soundtrack to the crystal-hawking bookstores that litter our gullible nation.
Bands like Enigma and Deep Forest represent the unfortunate side of this new electronic global harmony, exemplifying the danger that the entire non-Western world could be reduced to a novelty, an exotica fad ripe for devolution into New Age aural wallpaper. All things Indian are already being used to give Western pop a foreign kick (witness Madonna’s recent reincarnation as Curry Spice). Soon we’ll likely be seeing a rash of the sonic equivalents of tandoori burritos at World Wraps.
“On one side, for people like me trying to bring Indian music into Western music for a more international sound, sure, I can see that other people like Madonna or Kula Shakur would want to do it too,” Shri admits. “That’s only positive, only spreading the word. They don’t know how to speak the word too well, but they’re spreading it. On the negative side, it’s like when I speak English, my grammar is correct. I don’t speak with a very stupid accent because I respect what’s going on here. Sometimes when I hear such music I think, ‘I hope you respect the culture your trying to dig into.’ When I hear things being used badly, it does annoy me. When I hear tablas that are completely out of tune with the track just because someone didn’t think to ask how to tune them, I get really annoyed. Man, come on, don’t just dump tablas on top of your track because it’s the flavor of the month.”
Banco de Gaia, a.k.a. Toby Marks, is an earnest leftist who is disheartened by the inevitable co-opting of traditional musics. “There is a mind-set within corporate culture that everything is to be used up and discarded,” he says. “You plunder Gregorian music, and once it’s been become a cliché, you get Indian classical music and then African drumming. Sadly, I think cultures are treated as gimmicks.”
At the same time, in a world as fluid as ours, no one can really claim proprietary rights to sounds. Marks works in a way that’s almost wholly opposite to Sabbah’s organic methods. The London-born house and trance musician is unabashed about mixing and matching recorded samples from around the world–doing so, he says, reflects the world of anyone who grew up in the city or, indeed, anyone who even listens to the radio.
“I grew up in London in the ’70s, and reggae and ska were starting to get played, and then in the ’70s Middle Eastern people moved into London, bringing tapes and sounds of their cultures,” Marks recalls. “I was exposed to all different kinds of music by walking down the street or sitting on the bus or hearing what was playing strange shops. I was also really into late ’60s psychedelic. A lot of those people were getting really into Indian music. Then I starting traveling a bit, hearing a lot of Algerian music in Paris. It all came together, I suppose. It’s no big deal in a way to be drawing on all these different influences, since I’ve been exposed to all these different cultures and sounds. There’s a cultural shift going on in the West. We now have such easy access to the rest of the world either physically through travel or through the media, so the global village is a very real thing these days.”
Marks points out that the real issue with sampling ethnic music has less to do with PC issues of purity, respect and authenticity and more to do with, simply, money. “Some people look at the Third World as a cheap source of material. If you sample Jimi Hendrix you get sued to fuck, but if you sample some violin player from the heart of China you get it for free.”
At least that’s the issue for those whose culture is being borrowed. There’s also something a little frightening for those of us in the affluent West–when the whole world’s music melts together, isn’t the world bled of some of its mystery, doesn’t travel lose some of the joy of discovery? “In Bombay, people are dancing to the same stuff as in New York,” Shri says. “It’s really weird. In the West everyone’s grabbing onto Indian culture, and in India people are becoming more and more Western. House music or techno music is all you’ll hear in a club in India. What’s becoming international folk music is techno. It’s very unfortunate, because when people tell me, ‘Man, I want to go to Bombay and check out clubs and the scene,’ I tell them the only difference you’re going to find is a lot more brown-skinned people. There are the same drinks–people dress the same, behave the same [and] the music’s the same.”
Something’s lost in such a world, surely, but there’s also something kind of optimistic about the idea of an “international folk music.” “We’re actually are living in a time when the concept of us all being brothers and sisters doesn’t seem quite so strange,” Marks says. Adds Shri, “As the world gets smaller, it’s also getting bigger in a sense. Maybe you understand another culture through the music; there’s optimism in that, and optimism of any sort in this day is a good thing, because we need a lot of it to get through our own bloody life”.
(Source: © Metro Publishing Inc. Maintained by Boulevards New Media (Friday, 24th May 1999) – MetroActive | Metroactive.com)
