Uploaded June 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
The Blackened Affect: Affect and Production in Black Metal
Author: Dr Antti Sakari Saario - Head of Music, Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, Falmouth University
Email: antti.saario@falmouth.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
The paper will discuss record and affect production, and their blackened dynamic in Black Metal. This exploration is framed through questions and considerations on the production processes and the musical-affective intent of Black Metal; the numerous paradoxes and oppositions, at play in Black Metals’ ‘creation’; and notions of space-time (immersion/entrapment) in Black Metal production and listener experience. Questions of affect and production: What is Black Metal affect and how it is produced? What is the role of production in Black Metal? What value does ‘production value’ hold in the blackened economy of Black Metal? How can we understand and experience the ouroborean feedback of the manifestations of Black Metal affect and record production? The seeming, and ‘sounding’, paradoxes and oppositional forces (‘tensegrity’) at play within Black Metal’s diversity of forms, value economies, modus operandi and manifestations, are considered the beating black heart of ‘creation’ (‘destruction’) in Black Metal. Notions of nihilism (active/passive) are used to dissect this dynamic in relation to affect and record production. Black Metal’s production intent seeks to operate across (and ‘activate’) emotions, feelings, affects and intensities, with the desire to induce negative, hateful, and often ‘passive’ states in the listener. The author seeks to understand this dynamic through the artist and producer’s approach to, and the listener’s experience of, space-time in Black Metal. Space in Black Metal record production, is taken as compositional and mix element, and as key sonic perspective for the discussion of Black Metal’s timbres, dynamics, structures and sonic affects.
crosstowntraffic2018.wordpress.com
This presentation took place as part of the conference Crosstown Traffic: Popular Music Theory and Practice, which was hosted by The University of Huddersfield from September 3 - 5 2018. This event combined the IASPM UK&Ireland Biennial Conference, the 13th Art of Record Production Conference (ARP), an ISMMS conference, and the additional participation of Dancecult.
A recurrent theme within popular music studies has been discussion of how the field can integrate different disciplines and professions, for example exploring both music and its context; involving both practitioners and researchers; and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Many different issues make such approaches challenging, and various different popular music focused subject organisations have developed somewhat independently of one another. This conference brought four such groups together, to exchange knowledge, collaborate, and encourage crosstalk.
/// SUPPORT
Popular Music Studies Research Group (PMSRG), University of Huddersfield research.hud.ac.uk/pmsrg/#
Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI), University of Huddersfield
research.hud.ac.uk/institutes-centres/cmci
The International Association for the Study of Popular Music UK and Ireland Branch (IASPM UK & Ireland)
iaspm.org.uk
Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP)
artofrecordproduction.com
Dancecult Research Network (DRN) studies into electronic dance music culture
dancecult-research.net
International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS)
metalstudies.org
/// ORGANIZERS
IASPM UK&I: Rupert Till
ARP: Katia Isakoff, Shara Rambarran
ISMMS: Karl Spracklen
Dancecult: Graham St. John
University of Huddersfield: Jan Herbst, Austin Moore, Lisa Colton, Toby Martin, Catherine Haworth, Mark Mynett
/// CREDITS
This online project was edited, collated, and made available online by Chris McConnell, Jack Zissell, and Colin Frank.
/// PRESENTATION DETAILS
The Blackened Affect: Affect and Production in Black Metal
Author: Dr Antti Sakari Saario - Head of Music, Academy of Music and Theatre Arts, Falmouth University
Email: antti.saario@falmouth.ac.uk
/// ABSTRACT
The paper will discuss record and affect production, and their blackened dynamic in Black Metal. This exploration is framed through questions and considerations on the production processes and the musical-affective intent of Black Metal; the numerous paradoxes and oppositions, at play in Black Metals’ ‘creation’; and notions of space-time (immersion/entrapment) in Black Metal production and listener experience. Questions of affect and production: What is Black Metal affect and how it is produced? What is the role of production in Black Metal? What value does ‘production value’ hold in the blackened economy of Black Metal? How can we understand and experience the ouroborean feedback of the manifestations of Black Metal affect and record production? The seeming, and ‘sounding’, paradoxes and oppositional forces (‘tensegrity’) at play within Black Metal’s diversity of forms, value economies, modus operandi and manifestations, are considered the beating black heart of ‘creation’ (‘destruction’) in Black Metal. Notions of nihilism (active/passive) are used to dissect this dynamic in relation to affect and record production. Black Metal’s production intent seeks to operate across (and ‘activate’) emotions, feelings, affects and intensities, with the desire to induce negative, hateful, and often ‘passive’ states in the listener. The author seeks to understand this dynamic through the artist and producer’s approach to, and the listener’s experience of, space-time in Black Metal. Space in Black Metal record production, is taken as compositional and mix element, and as key sonic perspective for the discussion of Black Metal’s timbres, dynamics, structures and sonic affects.
