Minimal techno, black metal, witch house, goth: They are all some of my favorite music genres, but they’re also some of the bleakest. While reviewing end-of-the-year lists from a slew of magazines, it appears that I am not the only one who has become obsessed with darkness. In the past decade, many genres of music have begun shifting toward dark, sluggish, and spooky themes. All of this begs the question: Why has our culture, or at the very least our musicians, become obsessed with darkness?

Darkness in music is nothing new: The ’80s, for example, were dominated by post-punk and were dark in their own right. But it’s been over 20 years since darkness has been in vogue. Perhaps music is finally becoming a reflection of the global trauma evident in the news: oil spills, economic ruin, riots, revolutions, tsunamis.

As cultural analyst Simon Reynolds points out in his 2011 book Retromania, trauma induces repetition and regression, or hyperstasis. Reynolds implies that while we appear to be moving somewhere, we are actually staying in the same spot or even traveling backwards. In this state of hyperstasis, the past is perpetually reanimated into present culture. This results in individuals exhibiting an aching nostalgia for even the most irrational sorts of retromania.

As a result of global trauma, a large portion of the music being produced today seems to be haunted by the past. It is in music that we are seeing a distinctive reaction to the political and economic atmosphere of the world. This sort of sluggish and spooky music is not like the ’80s music that was dark for the sake of being dark, but rather is a result of social, political, cultural, and environmental shocks. Musicians today are taking ideas and styles from the past and are reworking them to become a reflection of the present. The world isn’t a good place right now, but the darkest hour is just before the dawn.

Hello regulars,

I know that wrct.org has become the most frequented site on all of your browsers, surpassing even facebook and google, and we appreciate you tuning in to listen to us on our webstream, and read our blogs.

Purchase of a new rack for our servers has recently been completed, and because of this, our servers will be migrated over on March 6th 2012. At approximately 7:00pm all of WRCT’s servers will be powered down, which means that this site will be offline, as will the web stream. Please bear with us as we physically move our servers. We will not be going off the air however, and our regular Tuesday programming will continue as normal, you will just need to tune in over the air.

I appreciate your understanding and am looking forward to the new opportunities this will afford WRCT.
Thanks!

Jean Grae, Invincible, and Tamar-Kali have been cutting their teeth as professional recording artists since the late 90s. They should be at the point in their careers where their fanbases start fading away, but somehow the opposite is true. The first two are hip-hop artists. The last, Tamar-Kali, is a rock vocalist. All three are women. Tokenization as female performers is something that all three fight against. However, their identities as fiercely independent women may be what keeps drawing fans in — and what has kept them from the mainstream for so long.

All three artists will be performing at a free concert at Carnegie Mellon University on March 5, as part of the Born In Flames Tour. The name of the tour speaks to the pressure these artists feel from a world that’s often at odds with their very existence — be it black, woman, queer, punk, etc.

This multi-genre tour will cross over into education and activism, as the participating artists will host a workshop at Carnegie Mellon. The workshop, directed toward students and community members, will take a critical look into the marginalized impact of women, women of color, and queer folk in the history of music – from both artistic and business perspectives.

The workshop is scheduled for 4:30 p.m., in the University Center Building, Connan Room.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. for the concert, which will take place in the University Center Building, Rangos Ballroom.

RSVP and get more details on Facebook.

Born In Flames Tour at Carnegie Mellon is a production of The Arts Greenhouse at Carnegie Mellon. The Arts Greenhouse is a hip-hop education outreach program cultivating the artistic talents of Pittsburgh youth. More information is available at www.PghBeatmakers.org.

More information on the artists after the jump…