Reading an insanely good essay by Julian Henriques on reggae sound systems and sonic dominance.
He says that in normal life, we are basically in thrall to sight. We privilege the sense of sight above all others, and this affects way we view the world. If we're looking at something, we're seperate from it, we have the sense of a total comprehension of it, a sense of all-seeing clarity (I'm generalising here but I'm sure you get the drift).
In contrast, certain situations offer an experience of sonic dominance - raves, football matches, political demontrations, and the example he chooses to elaborate on - the reggae sound system session. In these contexts, the sense of hearing takes precedence over all others, the power of sound being both 'hard, extreme and excessive' and 'enveloping, immersive and intense... The sound pervades the body' (1).
The sonic strength of a powerful sound system can quietens rational thought processes, leaving you free to experience immediate, imminent and unmediated involvement and presence, in your body, the sound, and the space you're in.
Henriques talks about extreme sensory deprivation leading to hallucinations such as the out-of-body experience. In contrast, sensory overload experienced in spaces of sonic dominance offer a 'grounding' experience, in which you're relating more deeply with your physical self. Movement and dancing is an obvious way the re-grounded body relates to abundant, excessive sound.
The reggae sound system in particular is also associated with excesses of another kind : 'extravagance, free flows.. surplus and an economy of pleasure'; and 'style and attiutude, lewd dances, immodest fashions, extravagant hair and make-up' (2). In Jamaica the politicians and middle class attempted to counter the perceived threat of excess with the Noise Abatement Act (1996), seeing the rampant excess and social dimension of the sonic as 'dangerous to the status quo'.
The essay goes on but I'll stop here to just say that although JH is talking specifically about reggae sound systems, everything he's saying is basically true for certain parties and sonic experiences available in London today, not to mention the late 80s British rave scene which gave rise to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994). This was the act which notoriously and ridiculously legislated against people dancing to 'repetitive beats' (3), a response to a perceived threat to the smooth working of the normal social order...Once the parties are inside licensed venues, on the map, accounted for, sanitised.. no problem. But illegitimate sound, dancing, drinking? Off the map it becomes charged and powerful - both to those who revel in the experience of it and enjoy it a regular stepping outside of the everyday in life, a shift of gears, a different experience, pleasurable and intense; and to those who patrol against it, determined to bring the power of sonic dominance back under their own legislation and control.
(1) page 451, 'Sonic Dominance and the Reggae Sound System', Julian Henriques, in The Auditory Culture Reader, editors Michael Bull and Les Back (Berg: Oxford/New York, 2003)
(2) page 455, as above
(3) From the Criminal Justice Act, 1994, from http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/section/63
63 Powers to remove persons attending or preparing for a rave.
(1)This section applies to a gathering on land in the open air of [F120] or more persons (whether or not trespassers) at which amplified music is played during the night (with or without intermissions) and is such as, by reason of its loudness and duration and the time at which it is played, is likely to cause serious distress to the inhabitants of the locality; and for this purpose—
(a)such a gathering continues during intermissions in the music and, where the gathering extends over several days, throughout the period during which amplified music is played at night (with or without intermissions); and
(b)“music” includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.
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