Where is that Batallón de San Patricio Groove?

Paul Stapleton, and Ricki O'Rawe

Music Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract:

Our duo -ence improvises live remixes of augmented 7” vinyl records combined with performance on, and sequenced sampling of, custom-made elecroacoustic instruments. Our collaboration draws on O’Rawe’s experience in art installation contexts and with electronic dance music group Not Squares, and Stapleton’s work as an instrument inventor, sound designer and improviser in groups such as Ens Ekt and 3BP. Our performance for NIME 2023 begins by asking, what kind of strange rhythmic futures will continue to be built at the intersection of Mexican and Irish cultures? To aid this endeavour, we invoke the mythology of Batallón de San Patricio, a group of disenfranchised European (largely Irish) immigrants and African slaves who defected from the United States Army to fight on the side of the Mexican Army during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. The battalion has been memorialised by a broad range of musicians, novelists and filmmakers. These accounts provide stories of cultural resonances in the lives of diverse peoples, unlikely collectives who formed allegiances through their shared oppression at the hands of dominant imperialist powers. Our storytelling here is similar, but also different. While we are interested in resonances, allegiances, and points of connection that form moments of tense but productive co-existences between different communities, we are likewise drawn towards the precarious, noisy and uncertain material processes enacted in such meetings. Thus, we seek a kind of dissensual groove, an oscillation between distance and relation, remixing fragments from Irish and Mexican music traditions into fragile and ever-collapsing rhythmic architectures, creating spaces in which to move.

Citation:

Paul Stapleton, and Ricki O'Rawe. 2023. Where is that Batallón de San Patricio Groove?. Music Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.11194662

BibTeX Entry:

  @article{nime23-music-66,
 abstract = {Our duo -ence improvises live remixes of augmented 7” vinyl records combined with performance on, and sequenced sampling of, custom-made elecroacoustic instruments. Our collaboration draws on O’Rawe’s experience in art installation contexts and with electronic dance music group Not Squares, and Stapleton’s work as an instrument inventor, sound designer and improviser in groups such as Ens Ekt and 3BP. Our performance for NIME 2023 begins by asking, what kind of strange rhythmic futures will continue to be built at the intersection of Mexican and Irish cultures? To aid this endeavour, we invoke the mythology of Batallón de San Patricio, a group of disenfranchised European (largely Irish) immigrants and African slaves who defected from the United States Army to fight on the side of the Mexican Army during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. The battalion has been memorialised by a broad range of musicians, novelists and filmmakers. These accounts provide stories of cultural resonances in the lives of diverse peoples, unlikely collectives who formed allegiances through their shared oppression at the hands of dominant imperialist powers. Our storytelling here is similar, but also different. While we are interested in resonances, allegiances, and points of connection that form moments of tense but productive co-existences between different communities, we are likewise drawn towards the precarious, noisy and uncertain material processes enacted in such meetings. Thus, we seek a kind of dissensual groove, an oscillation between distance and relation, remixing fragments from Irish and Mexican music traditions into fragile and ever-collapsing rhythmic architectures, creating spaces in which to move.},
 address = {Mexico City, Mexico},
 articleno = {66},
 author = {Paul Stapleton and Ricki O'Rawe},
 booktitle = {Music Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.11194662},
 editor = {Rob Hamilton},
 month = {May},
 note = {Live Concert 4, Thursday June 1, Centro de Cultura Digital},
 title = {Where is that Batallón de San Patricio Groove?},
 url = {https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2023/nime2023_music_66.pdf},
 urlsuppl1 = {https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2023/nime23_concert_4.pdf},
 year = {2023}
}