In October 1953, American folk-song collector Alan Lomax broadcast his first programme about his ... more In October 1953, American folk-song collector Alan Lomax broadcast his first programme about his collection of Spanish folk music on the BBC’s Third Programme. As part of the project of this dissertation, I have recreated this programme by piecing together the script with the recordings used in it. I will analyse Lomax’s time in Spain (1952-1953) through the lens of the dictatorship’s thawing relations with the West, and its ideological use of folk music. Situating Lomax within the institutional history of the technological fields of the Third Programme’s studios, and the mobile studios of rural Spain, will help to understand his presentation of the recording process within the broadcast. As well as this technological world, Romantic travelogues about Spain and anthropological Mediterraneanism will offer insights into Lomax’s presentation of antiquity within the broadcast. Lomax’s legacy within ethnomusicology, I will argue, is best heard through an engagement with the ways in which he utilised the music that he recorded, mirroring his mixing of fieldwork and production.
In 2004, Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk (b. 1965) released her fifth solo album Medúlla, made ... more In 2004, Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk (b. 1965) released her fifth solo album Medúlla, made almost exclusively with human voices. After outlining what I have termed ‘the elastic self’, which recognises both personal and external agency, this dissertation first examines how Björk uses technologies of the studio, using Actor Network Theory. Often mechanical manipulation is an attempt to depict powerlessness, whilst her employment of beatboxers’ interplay with technology is to express the body. . I will explore how Björk conceptualised and conceived Medúlla (2004), an album made almost entirely from human voicesI then perform an organicist motivic analysis of the album, studying motives used in different songs and links made across the musical foreground and background and the resulting unity. Through the concept of the rhizome and Actor Network Theory, I expand my analysis of motivic unity outside of the album, suggesting that the album can also be read as a network or as ‘elastic’. This study will attempt to understand how Björk’s idea of the self and body were transferred to the musical work.
In October 1953, American folk-song collector Alan Lomax broadcast his first programme about his ... more In October 1953, American folk-song collector Alan Lomax broadcast his first programme about his collection of Spanish folk music on the BBC’s Third Programme. As part of the project of this dissertation, I have recreated this programme by piecing together the script with the recordings used in it. I will analyse Lomax’s time in Spain (1952-1953) through the lens of the dictatorship’s thawing relations with the West, and its ideological use of folk music. Situating Lomax within the institutional history of the technological fields of the Third Programme’s studios, and the mobile studios of rural Spain, will help to understand his presentation of the recording process within the broadcast. As well as this technological world, Romantic travelogues about Spain and anthropological Mediterraneanism will offer insights into Lomax’s presentation of antiquity within the broadcast. Lomax’s legacy within ethnomusicology, I will argue, is best heard through an engagement with the ways in which he utilised the music that he recorded, mirroring his mixing of fieldwork and production.
In 2004, Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk (b. 1965) released her fifth solo album Medúlla, made ... more In 2004, Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk (b. 1965) released her fifth solo album Medúlla, made almost exclusively with human voices. After outlining what I have termed ‘the elastic self’, which recognises both personal and external agency, this dissertation first examines how Björk uses technologies of the studio, using Actor Network Theory. Often mechanical manipulation is an attempt to depict powerlessness, whilst her employment of beatboxers’ interplay with technology is to express the body. . I will explore how Björk conceptualised and conceived Medúlla (2004), an album made almost entirely from human voicesI then perform an organicist motivic analysis of the album, studying motives used in different songs and links made across the musical foreground and background and the resulting unity. Through the concept of the rhizome and Actor Network Theory, I expand my analysis of motivic unity outside of the album, suggesting that the album can also be read as a network or as ‘elastic’. This study will attempt to understand how Björk’s idea of the self and body were transferred to the musical work.
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