Cassandra Voices

Tag: electronic

  • Electronic Music: ‘stepping into a space of anticipation’

    I play electronic music, experimental ambient sets or hypnotic techno sets. It’s exciting to begin a set, stepping into a space of anticipation. The audience doesn’t know what’s to come, nor do I. I start with something and if I’m lucky, I catch them – they follow me. Together, we create a journey in the very moment. I feel the concentration in the room, the energy shifting, and I adapt, choosing the next track, deciding when to layer it on the other, manipulating the tonality, intensity and speed of the track, laying the foundation stones for the subsequent trip…

    It needs a little while to let go of the rest of life, of everyday thoughts, to feel into yourself with your eyes closed and then – finally to dissolve in the darkness accompanied by flashes of coloured light, immersed in the mass of moving bodies. You become part of the whole, swaying as one, moving uniformly, like a vast, flowing, breathing organism – connected here on the dancefloor where identity dissolves and perception reshapes itself: time blurs, bodies merge, the individual dissipates into the collective.

    It can be truly spiritual. In this experience, you forget yourself entirely, your body, your thoughts, your presence. You let go of everything. You don’t think, you just feel, you follow, you become. Like water you adapt, you yield, you move with the currents, faster, slower, dissolving into rhythm, merging with vibration. Water is fluid, like identity, layered, ever-changing, in a constant process of becoming. It carries both clarity and ambiguity, flowing freely yet shaped by its surroundings, suspended between movement and stillness. Boundaries shift, the line between self and environment blurs. You are neither fixed nor defined; you are in motion, open to change. Everything is allowed, everything can happen.

    Image: Olena Goldman

    These are transitional moments, where structure dissolves and individuals arrive at a threshold where identity is fluid and communal experience transcends social hierarchies. This is how Victor Turner describes rituals (1969). The dancefloor, much like a ritual space where music dictates movement, where sound sculpts space, is where a new kind of freedom emerges. It is a place outside of everyday roles, outside of expectations, where for a moment, nothing is fixed. Turner speaks of liminality, of states in which the usual order is suspended, and something new can take shape. That is exactly what happens here: identities blur, connections form in ways they wouldn’t elsewhere, and everything feels open, undefined, possible.

    It is rare to be carried away like that. It’s magical. Unpredictable and each time original. Both the DJ and the audience are surprised, overwhelmed, grateful for this truly sacred moment of presence and synchronization. A fleeting peace of mind.

    This dissolving is in the purest sense meditative – also for the DJ. A set is never just their own, it is co-created, woven together in the moment, unique, ephemeral, unrepeatable. The DJ is not a solitary figure but a responsive entity, deeply intertwined with the audience. They do not dictate the atmosphere, they translate and amplify it and therefore have to be deeply concentrated. The energy in the room is never the same, it is dependent on the sound system, the light, the composition of people, their level of awareness of the fact that everything contributes to the situation, the experience. And it depends on the kind of space that is given. Can people trust, do they feel safe, are they open, do they respect? The energy changes constantly and the DJ has to sense these shifts, adapting to them in real-time, building, withholding, intensifying, releasing. DJs are looked at as in charge, they are in a power position but it is much more a collaborative, spontaneous cooperation of the delicate, symbiotic relationship between the DJ and the crowd. Everything is a shared responsibility: every time searching for a new balance.

    Image: Francesco Paggiaro.

    We shape everything by the way we interact. And all is based on the shared possession and experience of our senses at this very moment; overlaying everything: the music we all hear.

    Techno is a pulse, a steady bum bum bum bum, as Underdog Electronic Music School puts it in words in their YouTube Video “The Ten Rules of Techno“. The kick, four-on-the-floor or broken-up, lays the foundation, a force that grounds everything in 1, 2, 3, 4… But this is not rigid. Techno moves, it steers, it teases. The drum machine drives the sweat, bouncing off rumbles, basslines, toms, syncopations pull against, making you want to move while acid synths carve out liquid, geometrically branching paths that make you follow in unknown heights and depths. It is simultaneity, the parallel pursuit of different sequences, complexly layered, sometimes offset, mixed up, chaotic. Then there is the play between fullness and emptiness, it’s a game of tension and release, build things, fill things, scoop it up, scoop it up and then drop it: release back into simplicity or – into silence. Suddenly.

    It is an adventure, fluid, unpredictable. The presence becomes an experience: to dive into the sound, to let it carry you, beyond thought, into the here and now, into somewhere in space, into a dark forest deep within yourself, and then back into this room where you stand among others, feeling their presence, their nearness. You sense they are on the same journey. Your breathing synchronizes, heartbeats align. You are connected, finally, existing together, in this fleeting moment of peace. Finally.

    The British anthropologist and music journalist Simon Reynolds explores this idea in Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture (1998), where he describes techno not as a genre built on melody or lyrics, but as something far more primal: a textural experience, a hypnotic layering of sound that dissolves the listener into a state of flow. He argues that techno’s essence lies in its ability to bypass conventional musical structures and instead operate on a deeply physical and neurological level – music that is felt rather than merely heard – an architecture of sound where basslines function like heartbeats, where synth waves stretch and contract like breath, where the absence of words opens space for unfiltered emotion.

    Music moves us, sooner or later, inevitably. We cannot resist, it happens naturally, subconsciously. It affects us on a fundamental level. It is human to be touched by music. And it is not just emotional, it is also physical. The sound waves go through our bodies, we shiver. The beat carries us forward, makes us move, quickening our breath, accelerating our heartbeats, making us sweat. We are hypnotized by the repetitive patterns, captivated, entranced, seized, our entire brain capacity taken up by it. It is uncontrollable. And it is so, so sweet to surrender to the power of sound, to let go, to dissolve into the collective moment, open and unguarded. This shared experience, this mutual surrender, this collective awareness of the here and now, it unites. It brings people together. It is a purely human experience, perhaps the most human experience. In that moment, you are stripped back to your essence, reduced to your body, to sensation, to togetherness, regardless of age, origin, social background, gender, or religion, it is unity, and that is incredibly valuable. It brings peace. It is gratitude, fulfillment. It reminds you that you are enough – all of us, together, each of us individually, free from pressure, from expectations, from obligations, from time, from fear. You do not have to do anything. You just are. And you are part of something vast, something beautiful.

    Image: Mark Angelo Sampan,

    Techno pulses through bodies, vibrating between structure and chaos, identity and anonymity, self and collective. Its relentless repetition, its resistance to narrative, creates an experience that is both deeply personal and entirely communal. A space where bodies are freed from definition, where identity becomes a shifting echo of sound and sensation. Here, structure collapses not into chaos, but into something more elusive: a moment outside of time, a fleeting immersion into something beyond the self. You follow the music, and you do not know where it will take you. That is trust. To listen to, to dance to, to experience techno is to let go, to be carried, to become rhythm. It is freedom.

    Feature Image of the author by Saskia Schramm
     

  • Musician of the Month: Gemma Dunleavy

     

    Singin’ Songs and Stories

     

    My name is Gemma Dunleavy and I’m a yapper. I’d talk the handle off a cup. I also write and play music. I see myself as a storyteller first, then a musician. It’s where I feel my true gift is, my natural comfort is in meandering through my memories, picking out the best details to paint the clearest picture in the heads of those listening.

    I’m from Sheriff Street in Dublin 1. My whole family grew up there and I still live there now. Like any inner city community there’s the good and the bad. The flats had problems with drugs and crime being rampant during the ‘90s. The heroin epidemic tore through the area and claimed the lives of many young, unemployed, and vulnerable people that were left to rot by the system. The skeletons of that epidemic still haunt us today. There were many effects of this: lives were lost, families destroyed, crime in the area rose, and the resulting social stigma from outside the community. The most important side effect was something different: resilience. People had nothing else but each other, no other options but to push through and that’s what we did and continue to do up to this day. Our community is rich in spirit, hope, and support. We have some of the best talent: athletes (boxer Pierce O’Leary), writers and artists (see ADUANTES by poet Michelle Byrne and painter Tara Kearns – playwright Sean O’Casey lived here too), and a string of musicians and directors hailing from our area (Luke Kelly and others). I’m extremely proud of where I’m from and my desire to preserve our community and protect it from aggressive redevelopment will never diminish.

    I learned the value of a good story from a young age – I grew up in between my two nannies and their friends talking around the sitting room table. They would talk about living in the tenements and their memories there, describe the poor conditions and tragedies with a smile on their faces, and a gleam in their eyes, as if they were chatting about green meadows and clear skies. They spoke with such fondness you could almost feel the warmth from their bodies. They were proud women with strong roots and they made me proud to be from Sheriff Street. I loved their sense of togetherness, the laughs, and the community. Growing up with them meant growing up in a community, being raised by a community of people – something that’s not so common anymore. Through telling my own story I saw parallels between myself and them, finding comforts in things that from the outside might sound jarring. I had an aha! moment where in some strange way I was in my own version of their tenements. Their voices saying “We had nothing but we had it all” made sense.

    I delved into my memories to tell five of the most important stories I had. Each story was from a different perspective based on a stereotype I grew up around. I dressed each one in chords and melody – and I had the help of the gritty voices that shaped my childhood. I tied it all together under the name of Up De Flats. For the concept I created five characters based on friends, family, neighbours, and myself. I would step into each of these characters and tell their story for each song. Before any of this became music, I gave each character a name and I’m going to take a moment to introduce you to these characters whose names haven’t yet stepped outside of my head (until now): 

    Chantelle is a seventeen-year-old from Sheriff Street. She goes out with Dayo, a fella who is a couple years her senior. He’s mysterious. People never quite know what he’s up to exactly but it’s probably not good. He’s not shy of a police chase, but he never gets caught. Chantelle knows his moves but he protects and respects her and their nights cruising down the Boundary Wall in the car where they can forget about everyone else are enough to show her he’s for her only. The boys on the street respect him and all the girls fancy him – he has street cred, making him feel all the more desirable to Chantelle. Edel is a desperate mother whose son has fallen victim to the heroin epidemic. “He’ll never change, but I made him this way” she wails as she describes him as a beautiful setting sun while watching him fade away from the devastating effects of drugs.

    Paulie is a young man who’s grown up in the flats with his single mother and six siblings. Being the eldest, he was often left to raise his siblings as alcoholism took over his mother after his father’s death by suicide. He spent his later teenage years in detention centres and has only ever earned money through drugs and robberies. Now out of prison, his past means he will always be looking over his shoulder – but he will never let anyone in because in his eyes, the pain he has suffered is enough of a weapon to wipe anyone out. And if it was necessary that’s what he would do. He has a stern look – no one would dare cross him – but he would die for his siblings, and grandmother whose voice he hears at night when he’s alone and scared telling him, “It’s alright, son. I’m here”.

    Kelly is a young single mother tired of the cyclical patterns of working class life. Her three kids, and the housing crisis, make it hard for her to ever get on her feet. She longs to be able to escape to a better life but is locked in the social welfare system. When times get hard she’s plagued by memories of her brother’s face who she lost to suicide. With pride as high as the sky, she’ll never let anyone know how she’s feeling, coming off as a fun-loving, strong mother who sometimes gets tired, but never gets low.

    The last story is a love letter to my community and the only one that is fully from my own perspective. I was a young girl who had to move away to pursue her career and in doing that I realised that everything that people search all over the world for had always been on my doorstep: a sense of purpose. I reminisced about the soundtrack of the summer getting played by the police sirens and the blue lights flashing through my window at night being something that calmed me down.

    Making this release was a tough – yet cathartic – journey to go on, down the dark and dreary, soft and warm lanes of my memory. At times it was hard, revisiting certain memories, but I felt privileged to finally understand and be able to articulate my frustration at the classist discrimination and prejudice that effects working class areas in Dublin. There was a fire burning inside me to give a voice to the other side of the traits these stereotypes were often demonised for. Behind the anger, the frustration, the addiction, and the crime was a common denominator: pain. I wanted to give a voice to that pain to show all our flaws and beauty, vulnerability, and rawness. I wanted to strip back all our layers because I know no hearts like the hearts I’ve grown up around in my community. I wanted to reveal our characters in a space where we weren’t going to be demonised.

    I had no idea when I began shaping these stories that they would become my debut EP, but four months later, the stories have been listened to thousands of times, falling on many different ears. Something I’m so, so grateful for. For years, the media and authorities slandered us and we had no voice. But now, people are finally listening.

     

     

    For more about Gemma’s work see:

    Bandcamp: http://gemmadunleavy.bandcamp.com/album/up-de-flats

    Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gemmadunleavymusic/

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gemmadunleavy_/?hl=en

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/gemmadunleavy1

    Spotify:

     

     

     

  • Quarantine (and then there will be the music)

    It was the silence. The sound of total silence. A deep peaceful vibration carrying the bells from a church I never knew I could hear from this window. The acoustic of silence was able to carry it as if it was across the street, like an apartment in Paris or Vienna, but here in NYC around the corner from Leonard Bernstein Way, birds were singing louder than any singer at nearby Juilliard or Lincoln Center. This was April 4th 2020 and the city for the first time, the world for the first time, was totally shut down. No noise on West 66th Street except for the sound of birds and the feel of a clear breeze. A personal miracle just happened to me because of the pandemic, I don’t have to move out of my apartment of twenty-four years in a building I’ve lived in for thirty-five.

    Twenty-nine years ago, 1989 my first Saturn return, I had been given my first big break by one of the greatest channelers of music, of language, of life, Leonard Bernstein. LB chose me to go on for an ailing famous singer, it was the only time he conducted Candide the operetta/musical he wrote for Broadway after his signal identifying masterpiece, West Side Story.

    Leonard Bernstein

    I had been anointed by the master. Though I was in love with Prince as much as Mozart, LB was a conduit, a crystal microcosm to what my life would be about for the next twenty-nine years. My second Saturn in 2019 resulted in an amazing bookend, I was onstage singing several roles – one of them Queen Elizabeth I – in the world premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Orlando, at the Vienna State Opera. I had sung in just about every major opera house except for this jewel of a theater which has been bedazzled by the presence of all the great opera composers. But Saturn brought me to this mystical coda and with it, I brought ten years of having had a Uranian shock, a change in musical direction from a very successful classical career into the realms of pop, funk, rock, jazz not only singing and on keys, but as a songwriter, music director, producer, arranger and record label founder.

    So on December 9th 2019 – almost twenty nine years to the day when I stepped on stage with LB and the London Symphony orchestra – the call coming on a pay phone outside of the Belgian National Opera in Brussels; all happening so quickly and inexplicably, that no one could be there to witness it, having to patiently wait years before the video that was made could be viewed on something not even invented yet: YouTube. However, in 2019, this Saturn return, this opening night there was the time to make sure everyone could be there that was important in my musical life. George Clinton, the Godfather of Funk with whom my beloved funk-rock band, Miss Velvet and The Blue Wolf had toured the globe for the past three years; friends, family, fellow musicians, all were there in the hallowed hall of Mozart, Mahler, Beethoven and Berg, documenting this spectacular evening on iPhones, Instagram, Facebook, and live streaming.

    New York

    The planets were all converging behind the scenes to set the stage for the coming Age of Aquarius; the convergence of Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn; heralding the end of an era and the last big party before Covid-19. I returned to New York from Vienna in mid-January after spending my birthday there alone, enjoying the solitude and loneliness after a busy and exciting year. Always superstitious of how one spends one’s birthday and New Year’s, as a way to set a tone for the coming year, in hindsight, it was not only precognitive, but I guess good to know I felt pretty damned good in my solitude.

    I walked around Vienna on January 13th and reflected on what had happened in just a year’s time from one birthday to the next: the release of my second solo album, High Tides with a radio tour on the label I founded, Isotopia Records; accompanying George Clinton and his wife on the red carpet at the 2019 Grammy’s; a tour to Hawaii, Australia and Japan with Miss Velvet and the Blue Wolf; playing with the band upon our return at the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards to honor George Clinton, then forty-five more shows with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic on the One Nation Under the Groove Tour; the release of the band’s second album which I produced this time with George Clinton as featured guest; the release of a new artist, Lemoyne Alexander and then suddenly it was October and the contract I had held in my hands for three years for the Vienna State Opera, was about to become more than a promise and a piece of paper, it was about to become real. And this time, my two mini dachshunds would come with me as I would be in Vienna for three months.

    Upon my return to 66th street, dragging twelve suitcases and the nostalgia of leaving Europe behind, I found that the front door to my apartment had been taken down and replaced with a new door by the building’s management company. Of course, no one noticed that on the door they disposed of was a painting I had done years before and the new door was a plain white generic one made to fit in with the ‘new renovations’ to ensure everything looked uniform, corporate, anodyne. The dis-ease of greed and herd decorating. I left my suitcases unpacked tripping on them every day, with the excuse ‘well you have to move and now with this vulgar white door, who cares, you can do it’.

    Creative Sanctuary

    You see this apartment was my spot, my creative sanctuary I came back to ten years earlier after my life had fallen apart. Discovering that having doormen who knew me since I walked through those doors as a hopeful twenty-three year old singer – being there through my parents’ divorce, two failed marriages, bringing stepchildren back and forth, the deaths of close friends and pets, my successes and disappointments, discrete and not so discrete love affairs and always the suitcases – were more comfortable and reassuring than family at times.

    The Wheel of Fortune allowed me to keep my apartment in New York City and staying in this spot had become mystical – not only because 65th street would be named Leonard Bernstein Way – but also because I had inherited Andrew Watt’s piano, the great pianist who also received his big break from LB.

    Andre was approached at the last minute to go on for an ailing Glenn Gould for the nationally televised broadcast of the Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic Live from Lincoln Center series. Andre would be the first African-American pianist and classical artist to break that glass ceiling. His story is what brought me to this building and New York in the first place: the longtime partner of my piano teacher’s daughter in my hometown of Toledo, Ohio, Andre and my parents’ generosity opened the door to my dream of being able to move to NYC, as he had an apartment across the street from Lincoln Center with a piano he wasn’t using. So, in 1984 after a summer as the youngest apprentice with Santa Fe Opera, I was told the best way to build a career as an opera singer was to move to New York or Europe; little did I know that history would magically repeat itself presenting me with the same opportunity as Andre, to jump start my career.

    I didn’t unpack after Vienna and for weeks tripped on my suitcases, what was the point of unpacking since I had to move – the new door being a daily reminder. I was finding the emotional strength to say goodbye to my adult roots: my paintings all over the walls and my recording studio, the foundation of Isotopia Records.

    In February, I saw more Broadway shows than I had in years; I went to New York City Ballet as often as possible, off and off-off Broadway shows, foreign films, it was as if I knew something was coming. I was voraciously having every New York experience as if for the last time. I even produced a music video on the coldest day in February – all over the city – with everyone involved feeling the love and magic of this one of a kind world haven for creativity and inspiration. 

    We could be next…

    By the time the week of March 11th came around and the rumour of this virus running through Italy had ravaged and shut down that country, I was feeling like we could be next as New York is a city of international visitors. Friday March 13th, our lives changed on a dime. By April 4th it was clear I wasn’t going to have to move. They were going to let me stay another year. With the shutdown in place I couldn’t move my suitcases to storage, so as I write this on day seventy-five, they sit as a reminder of the years of being a global citizen, artist, the adventure of travel and discovery.

    I painted the new door and it looked better than the one before it. I went to the piano and pressed the record button.

    Every day at 7:00 pm when those of us who don’t have second homes to run to or the finances to escape, we cheer out the windows to remind each other we are here, we are not alone in our circumstantial solitude; the cheers, whistles, pot banging and trumpet blowing applauding the health care workers who for me had personal meaning as they saved a cherished friend’s life during this disaster; a five minute expression of our love and memory of the dream for what this city was and will be again, but it will be in a new way of discovery and communal survival. And then there will be the music…

    Constance Hauman’s new album The Quarantine Trilogy is out now on Isotopia Records: https://isotopiarecords.com/. For more details of her work see: https://constancehauman.com/