By: Rebecca Miller

The Future of Sonic Tree Medicine

About 1 in 3 adults sleep less than 7 hours per night, which can increase the risk of both mental and physical health conditions as well as the likelihood of accidents, injuries, and even possible death.¹ For the sake of daily functionality, humans need adequate levels of sleep, because “sleep services all aspects of our body in one way or another: molecular, energy balance, as well as intellectual function, alertness and mood.”² As explained by Dr Merrill Mitler, a sleep expert and neuroscientist at National Institutes of Health. “Loss of sleep impairs your higher levels of reasoning, problem solving and attention to detail”.³ Getting an adequate amount of good quality sleep can lead to benefits such as creative problem solving, improved performance, enhanced learning, and a better mood. But it’s a privilege reserved only for those who are not homeless.

In Grants Pass, Oregon, in April 2024, the Supreme Court leaned heavily in favour of passing local ordinances to ban sleeping and camping by unhoused people in public spaces. In defence of not criminalizing unhoused individuals, Justice Elena Kagan argues that “Sleeping is a biological necessity. It’s sort of like breathing. I mean, you could say breathing is conduct, too. But presumably, you would not think that it’s OK to criminalize breathing in public, and for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public.”⁴ This leads to the question, is the Supreme Court criminalising the dreams of the unhoused community? Or even depriving unhoused people of their human right to dream?

Scientists and artists throughout history have reported that their ingenious intuitions came to them while they slept. Among the most notable was Mary Shelly, who said the concept for her Gothic novel Frankenstein appeared to her in a dream. There is anecdotal evidence that Hypnagogia or N1, the earliest stage of sleep, is an incubator for creative ideas. Anne Trafton, life sciences writer at the MIT News office, recounts, “Thomas Edison often took advantage of this state. When struggling with a thorny problem, he would sit down for a nap while holding a metal ball in his hand. Just as he fell asleep, the ball would fall out of his hand and wake him up, and when he woke, he often had a new solution in mind.”⁵

METHODS

One of my cherished memories from childhood in California was going to Girl Scout camp in the summer. My favourite was Hidden Falls established in 1957, in the Redwood Forest of Soquel in the Santa Cruz mountains. Hidden Falls is a 90-acre gem populated by giant California Redwoods. This is also the site of the recent CZU Lightning Complex fires that burned through the Big Basin Redwoods State Park. In August 2020, a series of lightning strikes from a major thunderstorm struck Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, initiating one of the most destructive wildfires in California’s history. The fire covered over 86,000 acres of land, homes and forest, including 97% of the state park which is home to ancient coastal redwoods ranging in age from 1,000-2,500 years old.⁶ Yet despite this recent history of destruction, these trees have long captivated those who wander amongst their ancient bodies. “The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always… From them comes silence and awe. It’s not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”⁷

On one memorable occasion, my oldest sister Sile and her best friend went to camp with me. In the evening we rolled out our sleeping bags under the majestic giants and slept underneath their graceful canopies. There was one night I was woken up in my sleep by some older campers who were disguised as Fairies. They said they were taking me to a Fairy party, and took me to a clearing in the woods where there were a few of the other campers. The Fairies danced and laughed and encouraged me to join in. They gave me a cupcake, and it tasted delicious. The Fairies sprinkled glitter over me and the other guests at the party, and when the party ended they led us back to our sleeping bags. I slept happily and soundly that night. In the morning I tried to find the other campers that were there with me. I asked my sister if it was her who took me to the Fairy party, and she denied it. None of the other campers besides the ones at the party knew anything about it either. I still had glitter in my hair for the rest of the day. I wondered about the night for a very long time, and occasionally I would pester my sister about her involvement in that night. She would consistently insist that she knew nothing.

Since that event, I have drawn a connection between trees and sleep. This was the initial inspiration to develop an experimental sleep hygiene routine to hack sleeplessness, improve sleep and foster creativity. This project is a prototype for sonic tree sleep medicine and could contribute to the development of an evidence base for nature prescriptions as outlined in Koselka et al.⁸

I propose that the interior sounds of trees could help with sleep; for example, listening to a recording of the interior sounds of trees before bedtime is part of a good sleep hygiene routine. The interior sounds of trees are in a different category from green noise,⁹ a type of noise designed to mimic the sounds of the natural world such as a bubbling stream, an ocean breeze, or the rustling of leaves, synthesized by focusing on midrange sounds. Although green noise may be popular, the green noise produced for sleep is not naturally occurring. Sleep product expert Ben Trapskin says, “Some green noise products may contain artificial or synthesized sounds, which can be less effective than natural sounds. It’s important to choose a product that uses high quality, natural sounds for the best potential sleep benefits.”¹⁰ Sara Silverman, a holistic sleep doctor and behavioural sleep medicine specialist, says green noise may help with sleep onset: “Overall, there’s limited data on green noise and sleep, but there is some evidence that it may potentially aid with improving sleep onset rather than sleep maintenance.”¹¹

For this sleep experiment systems hack on the nervous system, I sought out the highest quality recordings of the interior sounds of trees. Using the interior sounds of trees is important for this study and distinguishes it from the small evidence base of green noise that focuses on the external noises of nature. Although there are many recordings such as birds, water sources, and wind blowing through trees, there are not any investigations into the impact of the interior sounds of trees on sleep.

A study at UNSW Sydney indicates there is a connection between the proximity to green spaces and how much sleep people get.¹² Their research article Does Sleep Grow on Trees? is a longitudinal study to investigate the potential prevention of insufficient sleep with different types of urban green space. Professor Thomas Astell-Burt hypothesised that “parks, woodlands and other nearby green spaces might actually help us to nod off. Green space might counter impacts of noise and air pollution, and cool local heat islands, all of which can make sleep difficult.”¹³ The study found lower odds of developing insufficient sleep in areas where 30% or more of land cover within 1.6km had tree canopy. This research supports my speculation that digital recordings of the interior sounds of trees could provide the benefits that sleeping under a tree canopy could provide.

I procured six minutes of inner tree recordings from Jez Riley French, the field recording artist for this experiment. Made using hand-built contact microphones by French and his daughter Phoebe Riley Law,¹⁴ one recording was from a Corsican Pine tree in Broxa Forest in North Yorkshire and the other was from a Spruce tree in the Forest of Dean. I was not able to access a redwood tree for the recording as I now live in the UK, but I was able to find the next best thing. Because my sleep quality is generally poor, I performed this preliminary sleep experiment on myself for two weeks. Before bedtime, I rolled out my yoga mat, laid down on it in Savasana or Corpse pose and listened to the recording with headphones on repeat for 15-20 minutes with the lights dimmed. I heard the sap quietly moving up through the trunk, the water taken up by the roots and pulled through tube-like straws up to the leaves. To track my sleep quality, I kept a sleep journal to record my dreams, reactions and thoughts that materialised during the listening sessions. I asked myself: How did I sleep last night? What was my sleep like? I allowed for spontaneous impressions of the tree recordings and their impact on my sleep experience to be included.

DATA

Each morning after waking, I wrote for 10 minutes in my sleep journal. I wrote about the quality of my sleep, my dreams and how I felt. For this study, I have extracted the key elements relating to falling asleep and the quality of my sleep.

Sleep Journal Extracts

9/1/2024 – The sounds were more like rhythms. It felt relaxing to listen through the speakers on my laptop. It would be interesting to listen through headphones. The two recordings are about 15 min together.

10/1/2024 – I replayed the sounds of the interiors of trees. I allowed my thoughts to travel sonically inside the trees. Then I was woken up at 4:00 am by the frightening sound of foxes mating. It lasted a long time, and I could not go back to sleep so I folded laundry.

11/1/2024 – Each time I listen to the recordings I hear new things. I feel like I am travelling and drifting along the sounds of the interiors of the trees. I drifted off lightly to sleep.

12/1/2024 – I listened to the recordings, and I slept very deeply. I feel as though I just shut off. I did not remember my dreams.

13/1/2024 – When I listen to the recording, I start to recognize sections and parts that stand out such as in any time-based media. I lay down on my yoga mat in Savasana pose and listen. By the end, I have drifted off into a light sleep. I am prepared to go to bed.

14/1/24 – I listened to the sounds of the water being sucked up the tree through the roots. I dropped off to sleep quickly. I cannot remember any of my dreams or the feelings of my dreams.

15/1/24 – I did not listen tonight, and I had a terrible night’s sleep.

16/1/24 – I slept average nothing remarkable. I am still not remembering my dreams. I woke up a couple of times. What I am finding is when I listen to the recordings for 15 min, and I lay down on the floor on my back in Savasana pose with the external speakers streaming from my computer, I drift off into a light sleep. This makes it easier for me to fall asleep when I am in bed.

16/1/24 – I listened to the recordings. I am now familiar with the sounds. I had a bad night’s sleep. I missed my alarm and had to throw on my clothes and run out the door with my kids.

17/1/24 – I listened again for 15 min before bed. I had another difficult night’s sleep.

18/1/24 – I decided to use my watercolour paint in green and paint lines of different opacity on watercolour paper. I did this while listening to the recording. I think I will make a relaxing and meditative video with these ideas. I fell asleep swiftly. I dreamt about colours and the feeling of trees. 

19/1/24 – I did not remember my dreams. I painted concentric circles while I listened to the recordings. The circles remind me of the cross-section of a tree. What it looks like when you see the top of a tree stump. I have been researching the properties of Corsican pine. And soon I will research Fir trees. I bought some pine needle essential oil. I burned some in a diffuser. This helps to create a multi-sensory experience.

20/1/24 – When I was listening to the recording in the dark with headphones on and pine oil burning, I felt like I was taken deeper into myself. The recordings feel like an interior space, cave-like. Listening to the recordings is a calm restful preparation for sleep. This is a sleep exploration. It could be helpful to compare the tree recordings with a recording of the wind rustling through the leaves of a tree. My dreams were more like feelings. I woke up with more resolved feelings about directions I wanted to go in. I feel guided towards certain directions. Otherwise, I have not had any visual dreams. I woke up with no recollection, everything goes black, I unplug the screen.21/1/24 – Last night I had a full cinematic dream in parts, part 1, 2 and 3. It felt like lucid dreaming. When I listened to the tree sounds it felt like more intimate sounds of trees flowed through. It could be interesting to recreate or isolate the individual sounds I am hearing. How is the sound directly from the interior of trees different from any other sound from nature? The direct sound from the tree not a sound that sounds like leaves rustling. Not synthesized.

RESULTS

Before I began this study, I felt that I was not getting enough sleep. I would sometimes have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep without waking up several times in the night. When I listened to the inner sounds of trees before bed, ten out of fourteen nights of sleep were positively impacted by the experiment. I fell asleep more easily and slept deeper and longer. I only experienced poor-quality sleep four out of fourteen nights. A spontaneous creative impulse to paint emerged for two out of fourteen nights. I picked up the most immediate materials I had near me, which were watercolour paint and paper. I simply and loosely painted an image of circles and trees. I added a woman reclining on her back. It felt like automatism to me, “bodily movements that are not consciously controlled like breathing or sleepwalking.”¹⁵

It is possible that listening to the recording of the trees in combination with lying in the Savasana pose could have a positive impact on falling asleep and staying asleep through the night. However, listening to the sound of the trees was important in helping me focus and through it I felt more connected to nature and the earth.

CONCLUSION

It is evident that listening to trees could contribute to a good sleep hygiene routine. As a hack for sleeplessness, it has been effective in relaxing my nervous system, which has helped me with the quality of my sleep. By intuitively exploring alternative sonic tree sleep medicine I was able to design a unique sleep hygiene routine which produced positive effects. 

Research implications suggest that there could be situations when listening to sonic tree medicine digitally in areas where there is no green space or tree canopy could assist with better sleep quality. Digital technology, which is so often seen as the opposite of nature, can be used to bring us closer to nature by allowing us to experience sounds of nature that we wouldn’t ordinarily be able to hear.
Creativity was a surprising affordance in this study. I speculate listening to a variety of the interior sounds of different trees could lead to a range of unexpected creative outcomes. The same study could be done for releasing creativity or assisting with creative blocks. There are ways that technology can harness the power of nature to solve human problems that are currently being researched. Over the past five years, the US Defence Department has spent large amounts of money to study the white-crowned sparrow, “to discover ways to enable people to go without sleep and to function productively and efficiently,”¹⁶ looking for a way to use the biology of the white-crowned sparrow to engineer a way to create a sleepless soldier. In contrast to the sleepless soldier outcome, sonic tree medicine is a viable way to collaborate with nature to promote health, well-being and creativity through better sleep for humans and hopefully a counteragent for the sleepless soldier.

BIO

Rebecca E. Miller – multimedia artist, arts-based researcher, and educator. I studied fine art at the San Francisco Art Institute as an undergraduate and completed my PhD in Art and Computational Technology in the computing department at Goldsmiths University of London in 2020. The Arts in Health movement and participatory arts-based research influence my work. My research explores the intersection of digital and analogue processes. I use different types of digital media, analogue media, and traditional art materials to express and produce the concepts that I am working with. I investigate my subject matter in experimental and playful ways. 

REFERENCES

1. Ashley Valentine, “44 Surprising Sleep Statistics That Will Remind You Why Sleep Essential”, CNET, February 7, 2024. np
   https://www.cnet.com/health/sleep/44-sleep-statistics-you-probably-didnt-know-that-will-surprise-you/ ︎
2. Vicky Contie, Alan Defibaugh (Illustrations), Dana Steinberg, Harrison Wein,
    “The Benefits of Slumber Why You Need a Good Night’s Sleep.” NIH (National Institutes of Health) News in Health, April 2013. pg1
     https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/sites/nihNIH/files/2013/April/NIHNiHApr2013.pdf ︎
3. Ibid np ︎
4. Abbie VanSickle, “Supreme Court Seems Poised to Uphold Local Bans on Homeless Encampments.” The New York Times, April 23, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/us/supreme-court-homeless-case-oregon.html?smid=url-share ︎
5. Anne Trafton, “That Moment When You’re Nodding Off is a Sweet Spot for Creativity.” MIT news, May 15, 2023. np
   https://news.mit.edu/2023/sleep-sweet-spot-dreams-creativity-0515  ︎
6. Christopher Potter, “Impacts of the CZU Lightning Complex Fire of August 2020 on the forests of Big Basin Redwoods State Park”, California Fish and Wildlife Scientific Journal, 12 April 2023, http://www.doi.org/10.51492/cfwj.109.1. ︎
7. ”Beyond Your Wildest Dreams: Redwoods.” Santa Cruz County.org, May 1, 2024.np
   https://www.santacruz.org/blog/beyond-your-wildest-dreams-redwoods/ ︎
8. Elizabeth Koselka, Lucy Weidner, Arsniy Minasov, Mark G. Berman, William R. Leonard, Marianne Santoso, Junia N. de Brito, Zachary Clark Pope, Mark Pereira, Theresa H. Horton, “Walking Green: Developing an Evidence Base for Nature Prescriptions”
   International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, November 2019 np
   https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337092325_Walking_Green_Developing_an_Evidence_Base_for_Nature_Prescriptions  ︎
9. Susan Writes “What is Green Noise.” Medium May 1, 2024. https://medium.com/the-daily-cuppa/what-is-green-noise-20574ff81644 ︎
10. Ben Trapskin, “The Soothing Sounds of Green Noise: How it Can Help You Sleep Better” Yawnder, January 17, 2024. np
    https://yawnder.com/the-soothing-sounds-of-green-noise-how-it-can-help-you-sleep-better ︎
11. Casey Clark, “Is ‘Green Noise’ The Magical Solution to Better Sleep?”
     Huffington Post, April 15, 2023. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/is-green-noise-the-magical-solution-to-better-sleep_uk_643967afe4b0a7592625e596 ︎
12. Thomas Astell-Burt, Xiaoqi Feng, “Does sleep grow on trees? A longitudinal study to investigate potential prevention of insufficient sleep with different types of urban space.” SSM – Population Health Volume 10, April 2020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827319301703 ︎
13. Thomas Astell-Burt, Xiaoqi Feng, “More green, more ‘zzzzz’? Trees may help us sleep.” UNSW Sydney Newsroom, March 16, 2020.np
    https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2020/03/more-green–more-zzzzz–trees-may-help-us-sleep ︎
14. Jez Riley French “C-Series Pro + Contact Microphones.” September 24, 2023. np
    https://jezrileyfrench.co.uk/ ︎
15. Automatism, “Art Term.” Tate, May 1, 2024. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/automatism ︎
16. Jonathan Crary, “24/7 late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep.” Verso, 2013, 10. ︎

back to the ball

By: Luigi Monteanni & Matteo Pennesi (Artetetra)

Sounds from the Modem’s Peripheries

A survey of the transglobal digital underground

Keywords: music; underground; transnational; folklore; temporalities

Mix Tracklist

• Internet-themed Skits from “The Amazing World of Gumball – Gumball and the Internet” and “Seaman Rocks! (Chat about internet)” (Downloaded from YouTube, 173 kps)
• YNO – うざん (UZAN)
• JPN Kasai – 山姿
• Kevin Silalahi – Bagian 2
• Sara Persico & Xavier Lopez – Dreamwork
• Nikolaienko – The Ancient Musical Complex Of Mammoth Bones
• Francesca Heart – Giochi, Dispetti, lo Sguardo della Ninfa
• Kensho Nakamura – Waltz (feat. keisuke s_d_)
• Shakali – Aluilla
• 03sem – nyc
• Yem Gel – Mageborn
• Mondoriviera – You Don’t Belong Here
• Polonius – Sharing a Caña @ Café Marcelino 2000
• Loris Cericola – Planet 23
• Emamouse x Yeongrak – Gaguusad
• Rainbow Island – Jesterbus Ride
• DJ Kimchi – Tetrapot Melon Tea
• DJ Kimchi – Goblin Mode

Mix Description

“Sounds from the modem’s peripheries” is Artetetra’s non exhaustive survey of the developing transglobal, digital underground. Through the mixtape format – a compilation of music drafted from multiple sources and album releases – Artetetra offers an aural homage to and glimpse into the musical aesthetics and digital-vernacular practices of these post-internet freaks. Dive into one hour of pure digital time-space compression, fifth world music, digital folklore and samples of internet-themed audio-commentary framing the uncertain boundaries of this decentralised scene.

If it’s on Facebook, it’s not underground at all: an introduction

As a decentralised, transnational and semi-material infrastructure instigating a new experience of time and space, the Internet has allowed a plethora of new social environments based on virtual encounters, audiovisual content and digitally mediated practices. Due to various historical factors, alongside the economic and spatio-temporal convenience of new technologies, this encounter is increasingly influencing underground music communities worldwide. However, there is an ingrained proclivity to declare underground music dead in the digital age. 

For example, a 2021 social media post discussing the underground in Berlin, wrote: 

“If it’s on Facebook, it’s not underground at all”

Conversely, many of my social media feeds on Facebook, Reddit and Instagram feature Internet-influenced underground musical subcultures, and as scene insiders^[1], we present a mixtape of underground music collectives representative of these occurrences accompanied by this explicative text. While not exhaustive, the contribution is a multi-media commentary on the digital development of transnationally connected subcultural movements and maps the spatial and temporal boundaries of a specific network of artists grounded on artistic, conceptual and political affinity. As a consequence of the progressive disappearance of performative spaces and the multiplication of niche ‘no-audience underground’ subgenres—music movements in which authors and fandom collide (Hayler 2015) —artists have moved online experimenting with the DIY possibilities offered by the net and its ‘digital folklore’ (de Seta 2019). Through production and dissemination tools, musicians have gained renewed access to subcultural capital and artistic exchange, collapsing geographical distances and the shortage of economic and social resources, while adapting to maintain the ethos of underground practices. 

In order to characterise and analyse what we term the ‘digital underground’, we explore the argument in three sections, building on our personal experiences alongside data gathered from artists’ descriptions. In the first part of this article we illustrate how the meta-genre has formed, then we illustrate how this subculture experiments in their productions with alternative temporalities and, finally, we hypothesise some of the genre’s key-features, expanding on themes discussed in the first two sections. On the one hand, we postulate that the musicians defining this new digital underground respect the fundamental traits of the ‘original’ genre; that is, under-the-radar projects pursuing aesthetic radicalism and a ‘Do It Yourself’ ethos, intentionally placing themselves at the margins of the music industry.^[2] On the other, we argue that for some of these artists the Internet is not only an instrument of music dissemination, but a creative device. Through its audio-visual tools, a new, digital underground represented by entities like Quantum Natives ^[3](44:25 – 46:45) can only thrive online as it becomes a lens to express and reinterpret conceptions of time and space, often with synesthetic connotations.

Death to the underground: is it still a thing?

In 2014, The Wire published an article titled ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues‘^[4], where David Keenan, author and key figure of the U.S. and UK underground^[5], stated that after more than forty years, the pseudo-movement incarnated by the post-1960 cultural expansion of bands such as The Velvet Underground and Captain Beefheart^[6] wasn’t a symbol of ‘Do It Yourself’ attitude and countercultural isolationism anymore; the defining elements of the subculture. Instead, it had become a genre, a gimmick ready to be emulated.^[7] Ultimately, an issue of attitude had become an issue of style, thus compromising the subculture’s integrity.

Following Frank Zappa’s principle^[8] that, “the mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground”, journalists and cultural theorists such as Simon Reynolds observed that the Web has extinguished the idea of an obscure “true underground”, being now too easy for anyone to discover anything.^[9] Nonetheless, Reynolds stated that the ‘new underground scenes’ differ from the ‘originals’ in two senses^[10]: first, as a constellation of online microgenres spanning from Soundcloud rap to vaporwave^[11] and, second, as musical subgenres where authors and fandom coincide; a no-audience underground.^[12]

The digital transformation of music is imputable to the democratisation^[13] and hijacking^[14] of mass-distributed, affordable consumer—from cables and smartphones, to headphones to audio-monitors—alongside the Web’s creative and circulatory affordances provided by the internet.^[15] Free, cheap or illegally downloaded music apps and Virtual Studio Technologies (VSTs) such as like Borderlands, VCV Rack, Supercollider, Pure Data or Serum as well as digital audio workstations and editors such as GarageBand, Ableton, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, FL Studio or Audacity, nudged amateurs and underground musicians to employ semi-professional and professional music production tools constituting valid alternatives to otherwise expensive, cumbersome, and esoteric technologies.^[16] Moreover, free streaming websites like Bandcamp and Soundcloud, along with non-musical, digital platforms such as Linktree, YouTube, Discord, WordPress and social networks, namely Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook, provided musicians with virtual stages to not only promote and sell their productions more or less directly to the public, but also to discover, exchange and collaborate with kindred artists transnationally. With tools allowing them to record complex musical works and digital services substituting classic, physical trading circuits and mailorders between artists, distributions and labels, musicians are ultimately crafting their sounds in new economically and logistically convenient ways, building scenes in the meantime; all without necessarily leaving their bedrooms. 

The general preference of many underground musicians to favour these new media and technologies is instigated by hostile cultural and urban policies making it increasingly difficult for artists to access spaces in real life (IRL). The dramatic and ongoing rise of rents in city centres following the global real estate crisis^[17], the continuous decline of independent clubs’ and live venues’ revenues^[18], the closing down and criminalisation of many autonomous zones and squats^[19], the drastic cuts to arts and culture fundings^[20], as well as the downfall of music sales and the rise of the streaming industry,^[21] have forced experimental musicians to resort to marginal territories such as garages, flats, bookshops and art galleries, because normal venues for live shows are increasingly unsuitable and hostile.^[22] Thus, the no-audience underground also becomes a no-venue underground,^[23] and is compelled to follow Gavin Prior’s coniage: ‘to hell or to Internet‘^[24]; when the lack of offline resources makes the sustenance of underground musical cultures impossible, the internet’s applicative, promotional, and communicative potential proves the only alternative capable of nurturing small, connected international scenes. In short, to compensate for the disappearance of localised, physical space, musicians resort to virtual, decentralised environments. 

Contrary to the popular opinion that the underground is a set of independent, radical aesthetic practices incompatible with the internet, contemporary musicians have employed the digital infrastructure to expand on the metagenre’s credo and creative possibilities^[25], connecting with scattered fellow artists and forging transnational ties. But how does this new pseudo-movement differ from its original IRL counterpart?

Sounds from the modem’s peripheries: temporalities in the new digital underground

In order to highlight the peculiarities of the scene, it is worth trying to grasp its speculative boundaries first. From this perspective, one of the entities that most represents the digital underground is modem, based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, they are described by its founder^[26] as a student radio show, “uncovering the hidden sounds from the online underground […]”. While not exhaustive, the broadcast charts the development of these decentralised subcultural movements. 

Employing imagery and other technical improvisations, many of the projects showcased by modem fit the ethos of digital folklore; that is, “a vernacular emerging from below and a folk art created by users for users, coalescing into repertoires of jokes, memes, and other genres of digital content”.^[27] Projects customarily resort to vernacular, pirate techniques such as sampling Internet content or employing free or illegally downloaded music apps and softwares. These musicians also propose readings of folklore through digital means, superimposing mythical registers and historical symbologies with the secularity and pop appeal of technological devices, memes and video games. 

Interestingly, many of these artists strongly engage with ideas of alternative, non-linear time and space. For example, Rainbow Island’s album ILLMATRIX ^[28](46:30 – 54:10) dabbles with time’s physical alteration by affiliating themselves to the symbol ‘GMT±∞’: an uncharted temporality that defines the digital timezone of the band’s “internet diaspora”.^[29] Francesca Heart’s^[30] album Eurybia (16:15 – 20:58) explores a superimposition of different ages, where images of nymphs and mythological landscapes are connected with new age music and contemporary video game soundtracks and ringtones.^[31] Through these artists, time is both perceived and expressed as tangled and multilayered, as opposed to linear, progressive and irreversible.

In addition, one of the albums which best embodies the collision between underground music practices, digital folklore and alternative, digital temporalities is Mondoriviera’s^[32] soundtrack to video game Nòtt Lönga (33:04 – 37:07), described as the music to “an abandoned retro game haunted by folk horror creatures and ghosts of broken futures. […] a liminal dimension where time has lost all meaning […]. Past and future, reality and dreams, nostalgia and amnesia have merged beyond repair.” Likely unknown to many, this follows the temporal tropes familiar to gaming, where  multiple temporal frames^[33], time compression and de-sequencing^[34] are employed to execute a regional narrative to conjure a suspended time-space; a new liminal dimension.

As projects like Mondoriviera show, these temporalities also bear synaesthetic qualities. Superimposing timelines frequently implies overlapping spaces, planes, dimensions and vice-versa, in a way that reminds of Leopardi’s ‘vague’, where concepts like ‘far’ and ‘ancient’ are lost in space-time extension and consequently their meaning cannot be fully grasped.^[35] In this sense, as Enrico Monacelli has pointed out in his essay-review of Loris Cericola’s album “Metaphysical Graffiti”^[36] (43:00 – 44:48), although these works flirt with nostalgia, the digital world and the screen are for the most part conceived as portals, gateways to personal, sonic imagery. A compendiary definition comes from one-man project Polonius’ (36:48 – 43:00) whom advertises their wares on bandcamp as, “sciencefiction archeomiragical time travel tapes”^[37]; an expression where history, imagination and different temporalities are mutually involved in a work of vague, sonic world-building.

The fascination for alternative temporalities and the digital is not exclusive to this subculture and has been recently picked up by artists defined as accelerationist pop^[38] or conceptronica^[39]; the latter defined as conceptual electronica and most likely to be found in a museum than a nightclub. The peculiarity, then, is not that artists have imagined alternative geographies and timelines, but that they have done so as often self-taught, DIY amateurs resorting to vernacular practices and easily-accessible digital technologies. Their works are not ordered critiques of capitalism or conceptual pieces designed for gallery exhibitions. Rather, they are naive, ambiguous and lighthearted pastiches of mismatched audio-video influences reminiscent of the Web’s compulsory hyperlink structure driven by escapism and curiosity.

Conclusions

By analysing different positions regarding the underground’s contemporary evolution and examining ethnographic data (i.e. liner notes, descriptions), I have tried to show how bands and projects belonging to the digital underground have come to exploit the Internet as a field of possibilities for vernacular, creative action as well as a tool revitalising the democratic ideology of the subculture, largely expressed through and inspired by digital means. Additionally, I have framed this developing scene through some of its key features. In sum, participants to the digital underground (1) perceive complex, synaesthetic temporalities attributable to digital media’s structure, (2) express them though the digital-folklore-vernacular, (3) create gateways to personal, DIY world-building processes and (4) explore naive and lighthearted pastiches of audiovisual references and influences.

[end]

BIO

Luigi Monteanni is a PhD candidate in music studies at SOAS under the AHRC CHASE. He studies the relationships between contemporary transnational pop music genres and regional music and, particularly, the indigenisation of extreme metal in Bandung, Indonesia. He is also the co-founder of Artetetra Records and the duo Babau: a music label and project pursuing practice-based inquiries regarding notions of digital folklore, world music 2.0 and exoticism in late globalisation. Among others, he has collaborated with Norient, Simon Reynolds, Scuola Cònia, CTM, The Attic, NON-Copyriot, ISMMS, Aural Archipelago, Kiosk Radio, NTS, Rai Radio 3, and Roskilde Festival.

REFERENCES

^[1] Alongside musician Matteo Pennesi, I have co-founded the digital folklore label Artetetra and neo-exotica duo Babau in 2014.

^[2] Stephen Graham, Sounds of the Underground: A Cultural, Political and Aesthetic Mapping of Underground and Fringe Music (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press) 2016, 5.

^[3] Quantum Natives official website. Accessed on June 22, 2022.

^[4] David Keenan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” The Wire, January 2014.

^[5] Joeri Bruyninckx, “Volcanic Tongue interview with David Keenan,” It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine, August 15, 2015. https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2015/08/volcanic-tongue-interview-with-david.html

^[6] Stephen Graham, “Where is the Underground”, The Journal of Music, August 1, 2010. https://journalofmusic.com/focus/where-underground

^[7]  Valerio Mattioli, “L’underground è morto, viva l’underground”, Vice, December 23, 2014. https://www.vice.com/it/article/6vdyw8/david-keenan-intervista

^[8] Graham, “Where is the Underground”.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10] Simon Reynolds, email to author, October 12, 2021.

^[11] Vaporwave, similarly to coeval niche internet phenomena such Witch House, Seapunk, and Health Goth, is an Internet aesthetic and «genre of electronic music that emerged online in the early 2010s, with an aesthetic originally oriented to slowing down and looping ostensibly “kitsch” or “schmaltzy” music from the 1980s and 1990s.» A definition taken from Raphaël Nowak and Andrew Whelan in ““Vaporwave Is (Not) a Critique of Capitalism”: Genre Work in An Online Music Scene” Open Cultural Studies 2, no. 1 (2018): 451-462. https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2018-0041

^[12] Robert Hayler, “what i mean by the term ‘no-audience underground’, 2015 remix”, Radio Free Midwich, June 14, 2015. https://radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com/2015/06/14/what-i-mean-by-the-term-no-audience-underground-2015-remix/.

^[13] Jace Clayton, Uproot: Travels in 21st-Century Music and Digital Culture (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2016.

^[14] David Novak, Japanoise (Durham: Duke University Press 2013).

^[15] Graham, “Where is the Underground”.

^[16] Among similar items, in this category fall at least most analog synthesisers, percussion and drum kits, amplifiers and personal address systems (PAs).

^[17] Victoria Masterson, “What has caused the global housing crisis – and how can we fix it?”, World Economic Forum, June 16, 2022, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/how-to-fix-global-housing-crisis/

^[18] Mark Savage, “Live music revenue fell again in 2021, despite gigs returning”, BBC, April 25, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-61187598

^[19] Siobhán Dowling, “Berlin Clears One of its Last Remaining Squats”, Der Spiegel, November 25, 2009,  https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/city-getting-blander-berlin-clears-one-of-its-last-remaining-squats-a-663449.html

^[20] Guy Morrow, “Why arts and culture appear to be the big losers in this budget”, March 31, 2022, https://theconversation.com/why-arts-and-culture-appear-to-be-the-big-losers-in-this-budget-180127

^[21] “Global Music Report 2022”, IFPI, last modified 22 March, 2022, https://globalmusicreport.ifpi.org/

^[22] Gabriele de Seta, “The no-venue underground: Sounding Hong Kong’s lack of performance spaces”, The Society for Ethomusicology, December 19, 2016. https://soundmattersthesemblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/gabriele-de-seta-the-no-venue-underground-sounding-hong-kongs-lack-of-performance-spaces/

^[23] Ibid.

^[24] Graham, “Where is the Underground”.

^[25] Giovanni Prattichizzo, “Social media is the new punk. User experience, social music and diy culture,” in Keep it Simple, Make it Fast! An approach to underground music scenes, Volume 1, ed. Paula Guerra and Tânia Moreira (Porto: Faculdade de Letras Universidade do Porto, 2015), 309-324.

^[26] Modem Facebook page information. on June 22, 2022.

^[27] Gabriele de Seta, “Digital Folklore,” In International Handbook of Internet Research, ed. Jeremy Hunsinger, Matthew M. Allen, Lisbeth Klastrup (Dordrecht: Springer, 2019), 1-17. P.14. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1202-4_36-1

^[28] Rainbow Island, ILLMATRIX, Artetetra, ATA26, 2020, CD. https://artetetra.bandcamp.com/album/illmatrix

^[29] “ILLMATRIX DIGITAL BOOKLET”, last accessed June 22, 2022. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UjQruywKb7_bBmPSJceCOZSHmvCjytwB/view?

^[30] Francesca Heart, Eurybia, Leaving Records, LR227, 2022, cassette.

^[31] Liner Notes I wrote for Eurybia’s Bandcamp page, last accessed June 22, 2022, https://francescaheart.bandcamp.com/album/eurybia?

^[32] Mondoriviera, Nott Longa, Artetetetra, ATA34, 2021, digital. https://artetetra.bandcamp.com/album/nott-longa-ost

^[33] José P. Zagal, and Michael Mateas. “Time in Video Games: A Survey and Analysis,” in Simulation & Gaming 41, no. 6 (December 2010): 844–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878110375594.

^[34] Stine Gotved. “Time and Space in Cyber Social Reality.” New Media & Society 8, no. 3 (June 2006): 467–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444806064484.

^[35] Fabio Camilletti, “Lutto e melanconia dell’antico in Leopardi,” in Melancholy, ed. Valentina Serio (Pisa: Università di Pisa, 2018), 93-119.

^[36] Enrico Monacelli “Loris Cericola – Metaphysical Graffiti”, NON-Copyriot, June 19, 2022. https://non.copyriot.com/loris-cericola-metaphysical-graffiti/

^[37] Description from Polonius’ Bandcamp page, last accessed June 22, 2022. https://polonius1.bandcamp.com/music

^[38] Valerio Mattioli, “Appunti per una discografia accelerazionista”, Prismo, April 13, 2015. http://www.prismomag.com/appunti-per-una-discografia-accelerazionista/

^[39] Simon Reynolds, “The Rise of Conceptronica”, Pitchfork, October 10, 2019. https://pitchfork.com/features/article/2010s-rise-of-conceptronica-electronic-music/