Pioneering New York based author and DJ, DeForrest Brown Jr, will be in Galway this Saturday to give a talk on the history of techno and perform a live electronic music set.
DeForrest will attend the opening of an exhibition by Turner Prize nominated artist-led collective, The Otolith Group, in the afternoon of Saturday 13th.
The illustrated talk will take place at 3pm in the Galway Arts Centre’s Nuns Island Theatre, where DeForrest will give an illustrated talk on the history of Techno music, and the vital role played in its development by African-Americans.
He will then play a live electronic music set in The Galway Distillery, Merchant’s Road, at 8pm.
The Galway Arts Centre talk stems from his recent book, Assembling A Black Counter Culture (Primary Information, 2021).
While the influence of German electronic music on techno – via the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen in the 1950s and 1960s and Kraftwerk in the 1970s – is well known, Germany did not actually create the genre.
Techno and house were first created and developed in Detroit and Chicago in the early/mid-1980s by pioneering African-American DJs, musicians, and producers inspired by George Clinton, Kraftwerk, disco, and hip-hop, and their impact would reverberate around the world, profoundly changing dance and electronic music forever.
Despite this, the role of African-Americans in birthing techno has largely been written out of the genre’s history.
DeForrest has been an important figure in reclaiming the Black origins of techno. He is a representative of the Make Techno Black Again campaign, while his written work, which explores the links between the Black experience in industrialised labour systems and Black innovation in electronic music, has appeared in Mixmag, Artforum, Triple Canopy, NPR, CTM Festival, among others.
His talk in Galway will look at, and highlight, the genre’s Black, working class, origins in the US midwest.
Admission to both shows is free, but booking is advised through Eventbrite.
