Sunday: Session 2, 11am-12:30pm

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Musico-Cultural Borrowings and Transformations

Moderator: Steven Baur

Room 406, Arts Centre

Erin Walker, University of Kentucky, Bulgaria, “Bartók, and Belgian Rock: Musical Syncretism in Univers Zéro’s Ceux du Dehors”

As one of the original “Rock in Opposition” bands in the late 1970s, the Belgian group Univers Zéro has never been concerned with standard rock and roll sound, form, or ideology. Many Univers Zéro songs lack “lower art” qualities of rock and roll noted by critics such as Joseph Adorno: AABA form, electric guitar, I-IV-V-I chord progressions, 4/4 meter, simple melodies, etc. Eschewing these formulaic qualities, the band instead fuses certain elements of rock (drum set and electric keyboard, unison instrumental riffs, and rhythmic groove) with Eastern European folk music (expansive use of major/minor seconds and mixed meter punctuated by hand clapping) and 20^th century classical music (progressive instrumentation, experimental harmony, melodic juxtaposition /superimposition, and references to Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky). Though many other groups in the 1970s progressive rock idiom investigated aspects of classical music, no other band synthesized Eastern European folk elements and 20^th century classical references into such a cohesive chamber-rock setting. Univers Zéro’s seminal 1980/81 album Ceux du Dehors, considered the apex of the band’s cross-cultural and inter-genre experimentation, paved the way for later rock movements to similarly borrow elements of Eastern and Southeastern European music. Through analysis of the Eastern European folk and 20^th century classical references in songs like “Dense” from Ceux du Dehors, this presentation will specifically address the significance of Univers Zéro’s syncretism and eclecticism as a Rock in Opposition Band.

Anthony Cushing and Matthew Rohweder, University of Western Ontario, “Sad, mad, and murderous: Tracking Reflections of Victorian Sea Narratives in The Decemberists’s revised Sea Shanty: ‘The Mariner’s Revenge Song’”

This paper will explore the intersections of the emo-rock musical genre and nineteenth century maritime narratives.  We examine the references, allusions, and influences of literary tradition as they are found in the Decemberists’s modern sea shanty, “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” (2005).  The band’s lead singer, Colin Meloy, indicates a fascination with Victorian and Romantic notions of the maritime tradition in the opening verse of “The Mariner’s Revenge Song”: “We are two mariners / Our ship’s sole survivors / In this belly of a whale”. Here, Meloy alludes not only to the biblical story of Jonah and the Whale, but also Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.  This paper will investigate how the Decemberists’s adaptation of the sea shanty can be read as a dialogue with Victorian notions of the maritime experience. Namely, we argue that the Revenge Song is a novel incorporation of the sea shanty into the ‘emo’ musical genre.  One of our focuses in this paper is to explore and develop a greater understanding of how the Decemberists’s representation of the emo aesthetic is influenced by the anxieties found in nineteenth century sea narratives, specifically to reveal how such allusions enhance their shanty’s affective power.

Initially, we will explore the literature that Meloy references throughout the song: a series of close readings that align the Revenge Song with Victorian maritime narratives.  Through these allusions, Meloy achieves a stronger emotional edge within his haunting song. The paper then goes on to present a musical analysis that supports and extends evidence of the sea shanty’s influence on Meloy’s songwriting. At times of narrative stasis, musical elements in the song bridge gaps in the chronology; as well, musical motives act as placeholders for characters.