Turntablism
From Your Subculture Soundtrack, the music encyclopedia
Originating Location: US
Originating Era: 1970s
Contents |
[edit] Key Artists
[edit] Key Albums
- Kid Koala - Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- DJ Spooky - Celestial Mechanix: The Blue Series Mastermix
- Otomo Yoshihide / Les Scuplteurs Des Vinyl - Memory And Money
[edit] Genre Description
Turntablism is a genre of music based on the manipulation of vinyl discs on a turntable -- sounds simple enough. This can include scratching as well as sampling. There are two main schools of turntablism -- hip-hop based turntablism, which often creates beats out of the sounds of scratching and the samples/loops, and noise based turntablism, which grew out of the school of musique concrète and places an emphasis on collage of disparate elements, as well as just the noise of scratching/loops. In a way, both are similar to the tape-based work of many other artists, including acts like Negativland, though they use a different media for much different results, which are typically much more musical as well. Hip-Hop based turntablism, however, does not describe all DJs -- only the ones who actively participate in the playback of the records and use it as an instrument; not just the ones who tend to let records play (though there are fewer of those these days).
