Introducing a podcast series with Férdia J. Stone-Davis and Charissa Granger

The idea of a podcast looking at music, sound, and freedom came in the wake of a collaborative intervention that Férdia and Charissa made to a CRASSH trans-disciplinary symposium, Rhythm as Knowledge. As part of her FWF-funded project The Epistemic Power of Music, Férdia had recently been thinking and writing about epistemic injustice within the context of listening and the western music canon. Charissa continued her research into the liberatory potential of music practices within the context of Afro-Caribbean musics. Together we sought to draw attention to how rhythm was not an automatic and unmitigated means of being-together, but depended on practices that attempted to move from unfreedom to freedom (or refused this movement). We decided that we would like to explore this further together, in a way that gathered in voices from different disciplines, and in a way that kept open the idea of freedom as it moved across conversations. It was with this aim in mind that we decided on the format of a podcast which would invite dialogue partners from different disciplines, encouraging listeners to unsettle any inherited ideas of freedom they might have by discussing their own research and practice, and thinking through freedom not only in individual terms but as part of communities and community practices.

In Episode 1, Professor Francio Guadeloupe discusses the radical relationality of the Rastafari notion of the “I-and-I” and, reflecting on music in the Caribbean, draws out music’s capacity to enable a relational and participatory aesthetic that creates moments of freedom and denaturalises categories of race, identity and gender.

Episode 2 engages in a wide-ranging conversation with Dr Berta Joncus, who speaks about her experience of freedom and liberation as a performer, her work on eighteenth-century performer-celebrity Kitty Clive—who worked against cultural constraints to exercise musical and social freedom—and her recent AHRC-funded project, which looks at the little-known repertoire of abolition song, a form of activism circulating in polite society of the eighteenth century—particularly among women.

In Episode 3, Dr Polly Paulusma reflects on how her scholarship and creative practice are entwined, her work on the musicality of Angela Carter’s writing inflecting her own compositional approach. Polly tells us how folk song engages with freedom, allowing individuals to take on the personas and experiences of others by adapting stories and lyrics, making them their own, and offering ways of imagining different ways of being and acting.

Dr Beryl Pong discusses the freedom and unfreedom of interdisciplinary work in Episode 4, and its intersection with her work on the inter-war period between the first and second world wars, and on contemporary warfare and the use of drones. We discuss how music and sound contribute to world-making, how atmosphere politics influences the ability to think, act, and be, how everyday soundscapes are transformed by sirens and drones, and how individual and collective freedom is dynamically negotiated under such constraints.

In Episode 5, Dr Vanessa Paloma Elbaz tells us about her work in the Sephardi music tradition of the mediterranean diaspora, and particularly about women’s role in mediating and subverting traditions. She also discusses the complexities of archiving within this space, but also of its significance as it foregrounds voices that are considered unimportant, creating ruptures in larger narratives, and unravelling hierarchies of knowledge.

Professor Andrew Bowie discusses his work at the intersection of philosophy and music in Episode 6, suggesting that both practices “make sense” of things, and that aesthetic experience opens up new ways of relating that extend beyond the simply cognitive. It is within this context that ideas of freedom arise. He suggests that music is not just a metaphor for freedom but is itself a liberatory practice, responding to constraints and working to transcend these.

Concluding the series, in Episode 7, Professor Brandon LaBelle presents for us “Unscripted: Notes Toward Freedom in Music”, a selection of short reflections. This episode isn’t an interview, and it isn’t a lecture. It’s a free-flow response to everything we’ve been thinking and feeling together in the series. Think of it as a spoken score: fragments of theory, memory, and rhythm gathered into one last listening space. Let it wash over you. Take what you need; leave what you don’t.

Podcast acknowledgements

• The Sounding Freedom and Liberation podcast has been created as part of the CRASSH Events & Initiatives programme.
• The Sounding Freedom and Liberation music was composed by Samuel J. Wilson.
• The Sounding Freedom and Liberation logo was designed by Pavlína Kašparová.
• The Podcast was recorded at the Media Lab, the West Hub, Cambridge, and was edited by Mike Chivers.