New book: The Dub Diaspora

Monday, 01 February 2010 20:25

Somewhat excitingly, I just signed a contract for a new music book. It's part of a new series being put together by Reaktion Books, entitled Reverberations.

The series offers a "new perspective on the significance of music to a wider cultural and historical understanding of particular times and places. By focusing on the relationship between artists, performers, music and place—rather than strictly biographical or chronological histories—the series allows writers with backgrounds in social and cultural history, ethnomusicology, literary studies, philosophy and geography to develop bold and original thematic approaches to a wide range of subjects that will reveal the ways in which music has, through the variety of genres and traditions, often expressed a strong sense of place."

More specifically, my pitch was to trace the dub 'virus' from its origins in Kingston studios across the cities and places where it has mutated into various guises and made an impact: hip hop and disco in New York; techno and glitch-dub in Berlin; drum & bass, trip hop and dubstep in the U.K. The book will also look at dub's profound role in creating the remix, hence the title - Remixology: Tracing the Dub Diaspora.

The manuscript will be delivered in September 2010 and (probably) published in early 2011; I'll be posting more info as the project takes shape.