We interrupt this Manele to bring you Tikitech

Since I seem to have got a few new readers recently, here's a recap of the whole tikitech phenomenon before I bring up a large, oven-fresh batch of examples.

Last year, I noticed an increasing frequency of a particular type of visual aesthetic associated with releases of western-made, supposedly "tropical"/"ghetto" dance music, aka. global ghettotech. Instead of attaching themselves, as they'd previously done frequently, to the visual language associated with dance music genres from the developing world, they instead adopt an approach that borrows heavily from colonialist depictions of colonised places. Africa is represented as a safari, South America as a jungle, both particularly wild an untamed and dominated by animals rather than people. This parallels the tiki revival's obsession with faux-polynesian artifacts and depopulated beaches, hence the name, coined in a Google Reader comment by Wayne.

The music, as the visual imagery, is bereft of actual people from the developing world. It's the ultimate - possibly unconscious - colonialist fantasy of virgin land, free to be filled with whatever exotic content we desire.

Here are today's examples:

Diamond Bass

This Portugese dude recently added me on Facebook and has been sending me a (banana) boatload of classically formulated tikitech since. All of these are taken off his soundcloud page:





In classic tiki music fashion, there are also frequent use of "actual" ie. Hollywood jungle sounds in the tracks themselves. Also note the tiger in "Africa".

Pachazónica

Berlin-based tikitech artist. Via gen bass.


Økapi

One more borderline example. final one for today. It doesn't present itself as particularly tropical put it doesappear on gen bass, and there are both sampled and synthesised "jungle" sounds throughout the tracks.