Disco’s Revenge: House Music’s Nomadic Memory

Abstract

This article addresses the role of house music as a nomadic archival institution, constituted by the musical history of disco, invigorating this dance genre by embracing new production technologies and keeping disco alive through a rhizomic assemblage of its affective memory in the third record of the DJ mix. This exploration will be illustrated through a close analysis of a specific DJ set by a Chicago house music producer, Larry Heard, in the setting of Rotterdam, 2007, in which American house music is recontextualised. Refining the analysis through close attention to one of the tracks played during that particular set, Grand High Priest's 2006 "Mary Mary", the analysis shows how DJ and music production practices intertwine to produce a plurality of unstable cultural and musical connections that are temporarily anchored within specific DJ sets. The conceptual framework draws on the work of Deleuze, Guattari and Foucault, as well as Baudrillard's sense of seduction, with the aim to introduce a fluid notion of mediated nomadic cultural memory, a type of countermemory, enabled by the third record and thereby to playfully re-imagine the dynamic function of a music archive.

More than Sound: Record Stores in Majority Black Neighborhoods in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit, 1970–2010

“…House, a subgenre of electronic dance music, grew out of “The Warehouse,” a predominantly black and Latino gay nightclub in downtown Chicago. Early proponents of house leaned heavily on the Chicago record store “Importes, Etc.” for source material to work from and social connections to build on (Matos ; Rietveld ). Early innovators of Detroit's techno scene first became acquainted with house music by visiting this store in the early 1980s (Matos ), taking inspiration from this material and presenting a decidedly afro‐futuristic take on it (Albiez ).…”

Groove: A Phenomenology of Rhythmic Nuance (Tiger C. Roholt)

“…In response to the need for strong danceable grooves, hip-hop DJs extended rhythmical break sections of pop records by interchanging two identical vinyl recordings between two turntables. Meanwhile, for the disco dance floor, some DJs would overlay instrumental recordings with a cappella vocals to produce a new "third record" (Rietveld 2011), currently understood as a "mash-up". Since the mid-70s, professional club DJs began to adopt the role of remixer, extending and restructuring three-minute pop recordings into lengthy dance mixes in the recording studio, and producing special versions on reel-to-reel tape and 12-inch vinyl discs.…”

Remembering the popular music of the 1990s: dance music and the cultural meanings of decade-based nostalgia

“…The history of dance music stretches back to the 1970s in terms of the meaning of dancing in a disco. During the early to mid-1980s, DJs in Chicago adapted disco by blending European electronic music and soul to the genre currently known as house music (Rietveld 2011). Nowadays, the term clubbing is used to describe the activity of dancing to a wide array of dance genres and sub-genres like acid house, drum-n-bass, minimal techno, gabber, techno and rave (McLeod 2001).…”

“…Reynolds (1999, p. 274) notes that they do not uncritically recombine records though, because 'the best DJs are constructing a sort of argument about the historical roots of the music and where it should head in the future'. Rietveld (2011) further argues that creating this new mix, the third record, is also a curational practice, as the DJ selects records from the past that are worth remembering:…”

“…(Rietveld 2011, p. 8) At the 1990s parties, this third record develops in interaction with the shared memories of the crowds. Rietveld (2011) argues that these mixes can contain nostalgic references to old tracks as well as innovative reinterpretations of existing records. However, the number of songs a DJ can choose from at 1990s parties is limited, because they have to take audience expectations into account.…”