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Pop Materialising: Layers and topological space in digital pop music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2022

Anders Reuter
Anders Reuter*
Affiliation:
Independent researcher and writer.
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article argues that pop music’s increasing assimilation of hip-hop and EDM (electronic dance music) practices combine with computational automation and this has substantial consequences for musical space. Traditional ‘space-makers’ such as reverb or delay are subject to other functions such as frequency filters and compression that interrelate processual layers of textures. Instead of an active-listener-orientated sonic space with distinct source-bonded entities, it is based on a particular sonic materiality. With a new media theoretical approach, I consequently argue that this new type of space can better be understood as a mediatised topological materiality.

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Article
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 27 , Issue 1: Commercial Music and the Electronic Music Studio – Influence, Borrowings and Language , April 2022 , pp. 59 - 68
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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