Global Beat Fusion and the New Digital Mythology

05/24/2004 08:09PM

New York – On June 3, Journalist/DJ Derek Beres will be traveling to the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Atlanta to speak and perform at Mythic Journeys 2004, a four-day conference centered around mythology in contemporary culture, featuring such renowned speakers, authors and thinkers as Coleman Barks, James Hillman, Huston Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen & Robin Larsen and Phil Cousineau. The first ever of it’s kind, Mythic Journeys will draw thousands to hear and experience today’s top minds discussing mythology’s relevance in contemporary culture, inspired by the work of late mythologist Joseph Campbell. Presenting Mythika Electronika, Beres will discuss how electronic musicians worldwide are creating a new global mythology by taking their respective traditional and sacred music forms and placing them into digital format.

An offshoot of his current book-in-progress, Global Beat Fusion, Beres has spent the last three years researching, writing and performing world electronica nationally and abroad, playing alongside and interviewing some of the biggest names in international music. Spending 2 1/2 years as Managing Editor of Global Rhythm, America’s largest international music publication, he currently writes for numerous magazines on the topic. He also co-produces and performs at two highly successful parties in New York City: the weekly Kollective at Kush alongside South Asian DJ/tabla player Karsh Kale, and the monthly GlobeSonic at Nublu with Fabian Alsultany, Events Manager for Putumayo World Music, and Bill Bragin, Director of Joe’s Pub, the city’s premiere international music venue.

A student of Mythology and Psychology – having attained an undergraduate degree in Religion at Rutgers University in 1997 – Beres draws from the works of Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, Carl Jung, Mircea Eliade and Ernest Becker in his global approach to modern music and the cultural psyche. Being involved hands-on with the music as DJ, however, Beres refuses the scholarly, detached approach to the arts, writing in a lively and experiential tone. Mythology and music go hand-in-hand, and when he found about the groundbreaking conference, he immediately approached organizers.

“I was amazed by the intent of the idea, as well as the speakers involved,” Beres says. “As I looked through the website, I realized modern electronic music was not represented; everything was traditional- and folk-oriented. Being of a younger generation, seeing and writing firsthand about the digital evolution of music, I felt it needed to be present.”

Pitching Mythika Electronika, conference organizers invited Beres to DJ and speak about the subject, as well as lead morning yoga classes (he is a certified yoga instructor). Over the course of his 90-minute workshop, he will be discussing how producers and artists have taken their culture’s sounds – ranging from Moroccan Gnawa, Pakistani Qawwali and Persian Ghazal to Eastern European Balkan, African Gospel and Jamaican Reggae – and blend them into seamless electronic music. He will also be talking about how this has created a new sonic ritual, as well as playing various tracks for the audience. During the course of the workshop he will touch upon the psychological and social effects of music and discuss how the infusion of cultures is taking place under the mainstream radar, using styles such as Bhangra and Bollywood in Hip-Hop to highlight the trend.

“Music is how we learn about each other,” he says. “There are no borders in sound. I see it every time I DJ an event, with every new CD I put into my stereo. The initial contact we have is sonic; from there cultural similarities emerge, but that introduction is through sound. Music is our connection to something beyond borders, and we’re using our technologies to experience it firsthand.”

Mythika Electronika will be presented on Saturday, June 5 at 11 AM – 12:30 PM. Beres will be DJing numerous events throughout the four days.

[Derek Beres Photo by DJ Khambata].

World Music Central
http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/20040524200916579