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tAble of contents

The learning — in brief01

The learning — at work

04

The interviews — in fullpart 117

part 231

S T U D I O W I L L D U T TA
studiowilldutta.art
The Curating Composer: Creating Cultures of New Music is written by Will Dutta
and Fiona Allison
Art Direction by Russell Warren-Fisher
Published by Studio Will Dutta on 7 May 2024

Cover image. Dialled In Festival, photo by Yushy Pachnanda, 2021 © Yushy Pachnanda
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the
publisher.
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted.

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The learning — in brief
In the last sixty years alone, many cultures of new music have comeand gone. We live in the afterglow of these and at the epicentres of
the unfamiliar where new aesthetics create new styles that soon
become techniques in the creative bank of composers and music
creators. Dub, minimalism, 2-step, PC Music: these are just a
random selection of styles that can trace their identity to a few key
individuals or collectives and the scenes that grew around them. So
how can the music industry be more supportive of these oftenprecarious communities of interest? To answer this question, we
need to first understand how cultures of new music are created.
We undertook interviews with Provhat Rahman and Ryoko Akama,founders of artist collectives Daytimers/Dialled In and ame respectively,
and Safiya Bashir and Roohi Sarwar, early adopting audiences of each,and discovered four areas of overlap with the two very different new
music scenes under discussion. These are:(1) The scenes begin with an identifiable need driven by the
curating composer with other creators and recreators buying into theirvision. Initially, the audience is not an active consideration(2) Neither founding artist feels they are necessarily the right
person to be running the scene but that a sense of necessity drives them(3) The two audience members understand the scene isprincipally artist-led and yet they still feel valued. They understand thefounders’ motivations and feel aligned with the need and vision thathas been identified(4) Clear communication, performance space and low financial
burden are key success factors for inviting and keeping an audienceengaged.
We also identified sector development that needs attending to if morecultures of new music are to flourish. These are:(1) Increase media representation by creating more development
pathways for aspiring music writers, content creators and promoters(2) Inspire, back and upskill the next generation of scene makers to doit themselves. This means investing in self-producing skills development.
Daytimers at Boiler Room, photo by Sunny formats, 2020 © Sunny formats

p1

p2

Daytimers at Boiler Room, photo by Sunny formats, 2020 © Sunny formats

p4 —5The learning — at work
Communities of interest come together up and down the country andform the backbone of a vibrant music ecology in the UK. It issomething this country rightly celebrates. But following the double
blows of the UK’s decision to quit the EU and a global pandemic, not tomention the astonishing scale of digital creativity competing for ourattention and a broken economic model—both facilitated by newtechnologies—it suddenly looks very fragile. Because of this, I want tolook at some of the individuals and collectives who drive these scenes,
so we can begin to understand how to support them better.
In 2021, my Studio published the first in a series of research papers
exploring the curating composer, as a new role with a distinct set ofpractices. An implication of the paper was that the curating composer
had another function—that is in creating cultures of new music.
Over the last 15 years or so, I have often observed how music scenes
come about through the work of a handful of individuals or collectivesof individuals, who are often music creators themselves. I want tounderstand what motivate these individuals to invest so much time(and often their own financial resources) into building communities
around their music and that of others. I also want to explore ways ofmaking these scenes more sustainable. For example, what happens tothe scene when the founders move on? What happens to the scene
when it reaches a certain level of critical or commercial success? What
more can be done by the music industry—and by this I mean majorlabels and publishers and publicly funded talent development
organisations—to better support these catalysts of creativity? This
paper goes straight to the heart of the DIY ecology, which plays a vitalrole in the wider cultural ecosystem here in the UK.
To discover the potential of the curating composer as a culture creatoror scene maker, Fiona Allison, Creative Project Leader at Sound andMusic, and I interviewed two creators of two very different scenes.
Ryoko Akama is a composer and co-founder of ame (art musicexperiment), a Community Interest Company (CIC), which runs Dai Hallin Huddersfield. She has been growing an experimental scene in North
East England since 2005. Provhat Rahman is the founder of Daytimers,a creative collective that began remotely during the first Covid-19
lockdown in 2020, and Dialled In, a one-day festival launched in 2021.
The collective and festival have had a meteoric rise and are at the heartof a flourishing South Asian creative scene. We also spoke with Roohi
Sarwar, a regular at ame events, and Safiya Bashir, a supporter andaudience member of Daytimers and Dialled In, because we wanted toknow what it is like to be in the audience.

Top. Screening of What Is Man And What Is Guitar?: Keith Rowe at ame, photo by Shirani Brookes, 2022 © Shirani Brookes
Bottom. Audrey Chen and Phil Minton at ame, photo by Shirani Brookes, 2022 © Shirani Brookesp6 —7

We have structured these contributions in the form of an edited
conversation, or ‘idobata kaigi’, which is Japanese for chit-chat, at
Ryoko’s suggestion. This is set out in the next section. For those whowant to get straight to the point, what follows is the key learning at work.
There are limitations to the research in this paper, however. For example,
there are other actors in scene creation who are not represented
here—the record shops, pirate radio stations and DJs, for example.
This is deliberate for at this point I want to see how far I can push thecurating composer role, as I seek to impact artist development andtraining pathways.

Critical success factors(1) Identifying the need
Provhat Rahman’s vision was to create an outlet to champion South
Asian artists and develop a safe space that was notably different fromthe overriding culture:‘We’ve been made to feel, for a very longtime, very unwelcome, and that the [dance music] scene as a wholeis very individualistic, it's very capitalistic.’
During the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020, Provhat spent time
researching South Asian producers and initiated a series of meetings
via Zoom to discuss his idea. He soon realised there was a groupaligned with his vision:‘It just kind of clicked and everyone
was on the same wave.’
Ryoko Akama noticed there were few opportunities for experimental
artists to play outside of cities, and particularly London. After moving to
Huddersfield from London she started getting requests frominternational artists who had come to play at the more establishedvenues in the UK for other performance oppportunities. She felt driven
to start promoting events in her local community:‘It became a bit of word-of-mouth thing, andpeople were talking about“Oh, contact Ryoko, and maybe you
could have a concert in in Huddersfield.”’
These reflections show how needs were identified and that theindividual founders gathered or encountered other like-minded artists
around them thereby building the foundations for the scene to develop.
DJ edv3ctor at ame, photo by Stephen Harvey, 2021 © Stephen Harvey

p8 —9Imposter syndrome
An addendum to this is that both artists felt they were not the right
person to be leading a scene, but that a sense of necessity drove
them. Provhat recalls:‘It was just something that I really wanted to have as athing, as opposed to something that I knew I could do.’Similarly, Ryoko says,‘I don't even feel that I am a curator.’
By acknowledging this, it is important the next generation of culture
creators are inspired not only by role models who reflect their own
experiences, but that they are given agency and a belief they can dothis for themselves. This means the music industry providing more
opportunities for self-producing and curatorial skills development

Provhat talks about how important it was to be visual in communicating
their intentions. The Boiler Room broadcast in August 2021 for thecollective was an important milestone in this respect:‘I think it clicked for a lot of
people because a lot of people saw it and they were like“ah wait,
this is a thing that’s happening that’s really new. And I've neverseen this many brown people in a dance music space, let alone ona Boiler Room.”’
Safiya Bashir, a Daytimers/Dialled In audience member, reflects that
although she could tell it was artist first:‘…they have created a really amazing community forthemselves in a space for everyone else… just the fact thatthey’
ve created this safe, regular space for a group of people whoare all into the same thing is so amazing. And that’s something toreally be celebrated.’
She also notes a sense of feeling aligned with the need and vision:(2) Understanding the value-proposition
In our research we found a common thread: the initial catalyst for thescene comes from and engages composers, music creators andrecreators first. Provhat acknowledges that audiences are a secondary
consideration. He says:‘At the beginning, the audience and theartists that were being targeted were one and the same thing.’
The same is true for Ryoko, who was driven by a need coming fromartists to play, rather than a need from an audience to experience
experimental work more broadly. This was reflected in the audienceinterviews. Roohi Sarwar, a regular at ame, says:s really that
‘I don’t think ame’dependent on the audience. I think they wouldn't mind if theaudience didn't even like it.’

However, the audience does not feel undervalued—quite the opposite:‘As an audience member, I also feel very important and an
essential part of the cog of the wheel being there.’This might seem contradictory, but the audience understands the
motivation for the scene, even if they don’t feel essential to it themselves.
It is this tension that draws them in. How the audience understands
the motivation needs to be unpacked further. It is related to how clearly
the vision is communicated and whether attendees buy into it.

‘…we felt like we manifested it a bit because we reallywanted this, we really needed it’.

(3) Reducing the risk for an audience to come and try
The third critical success factor for both scenes is to create events witha low financial burden. This allows audiences to come and try at
relatively low risk. Ryoko explains this was essential for building acommunity around ame:
‘You can take a risk, this is only five pounds,
come in and just come and listen, if you don’t like it, don’t comeback, you know!’
Roohi felt this was an important part of why she felt encouraged toattend:‘If it is on the doorstep and it is affordable, why not go, and I
think that’s originally how I got into it.’

p10

Dialled In Festival, photo by Sunny formats, 2021 © Sunny formats

p12 —13

There is a common understanding among Provhat, Ryoko, Safiya andRoohi that an audience is receptive to new things but that they can tellwhen something is purely driven by the financials (i.e., profit-led). A
scene that is more socially aware is perceived intuitively by an audienceand it is another important factor in successfully building a sense ofcommunity. Provhat explains:‘It was interesting to see thereaction from the people that were coming, when they know thatno one who is running it is in it to make money and that it is justa community focused thing, people are then willing to spend.’
Although the audience may not be pivotal in the creation of the scene,
they are essential to its sustainability. Provhat reflects on how far thecollective has grown in the space of a year, from when they started in
2020, and how important audience feedback is to them:‘…we’
re at this stage where it’s so audience oriented. It is
for the artists that haven’t had the opportunity to occupy thesekinds of spaces before but the audience is pivotal to who we are
and the entire movement.’

Provhat highlights the issue of media representation and the lack ofdiversity and imagination that is given to reporting on DIY scenes andunderrepresented communities. He says:‘…it comes across that if marginalisedcommunities want to break into spaces where they’re not reallygiven opportunities regularly, it has to be done through one
overarching umbrella body.’
He goes on to describe how the media presents Daytimers/Dialled In
as if they are the only source of South Asian creative activity, which, inturn, sets them up as the gatekeepers. He says this does a disservice
to the ethos they are trying to promote:‘So, it’s kind of breaking out of that space the media has
inadvertently made us out to be like gatekeepers . . . there’s a lotof assumptions that are being made by all the attention that we’vegot, which I think makes it more difficult for people to think that
there is an ethos of DIY culture around this community.’(2) Inspire, back and upskill the next generation of scene
makers to do it themselves. This means investing in self-producing andcuratorial skills development.
(4) Sharing space binds communities
ame and Daytimers/Dialled In began in very different contexts. Ryoko
was able to open a physical venue in Huddersfield with the support ofpublic funding whereas Provhat needed to start online because it wasmore affordable and during a period of national restrictions. The virtual
space became the springboard to a physical space. However, both
express a desire to be in physical spaces as a priority. Provhat says:‘So many seminal movements are defined by [the]spaces that they operate in, and having an anchor that solidifies the
movement, a physical, geographical anchor that actually certifies it I
think is really important.’

Both artists touch on the importance of inspiring the next generation ofscene makers and culture creators. Provhat says it is not enough tocreate the space for himself and others but that he inspires those that
follow to know they can exist and that they should do it themselves:‘It’s important that people know that there should
continually be projects that are started.’
In a stark reminder to the music industry, Ryoko says that a lack ofvisible female Asian curators was a big driving factor in her continuing
to do what she does, even though it can be stressful. She says:‘… I just feel like I must do it. You
know, I can’t just leave this, I just must do it because there’s noone else doing it.’

Recommendations
We conclude this piece of research with two recommendations for themusic industry to do more to support aspiring curating composers.
(1) Increase media representation by creating moredevelopment pathways for aspiring music writers, content creators andpromotersp14

Dialled In Festival, photo by Sunny formats, 2021 © Sunny formats

p16 —17

The interviews — in fullPart 1.
The following text is an edit of two 90-minute conversations between
Ryoko Akama, Provhat Rahman, Will Dutta and Fiona Allison, thattook place online on 13 and 27 January 2022.

Will Dutta (WD): Can we talk together about the word ‘scene’ andexplore its relevance or not for how you think about your work?
Ryoko Akama (RA): At first I thought, I find it inspiring how you chose
both of us. When I think about Provhat, who creates an experimental
scene, one that could even be defined as a mainstream scene, it’s on a
big scale for underground music, where I suppose you probably deal
with thousands of people. And then when you say smaller scale, we’retalking about a couple of hundred people. And that’s what I’m talking
about, if we have 30 people, it’s like great, you know, we have thiscrazy young person creating strange noise object music and wethought no one was going to come but then there were 35, great,
thank you very much! You know, this is where we’re targeting acts. So
yeah, that was just like my first pop-up thought when I saw thisquestion that the word scene can have a completely different meaning
when it comes to different creative practices.
Provhat Rahman (PR): It’s interesting what you said about numbers
because that came out of nowhere. Initially, if we saw one or twoothers, even just one other South Asian person, at any of the events
that we’d go to in this scene, then that would be like ‘Oh my God,
that’s crazy’. I never ever see someone else who looks like me in thesespaces. And it has now grown into something where we can fill out aroom. Dialled In, for example, was like 1,000 or 1,200 people, and I’dsay a good 70/80% of them were South Asian. So, it’s a complete 180
of what our experiences were from even just a year and a half ago. We
were really scrounging to find people who were like-minded and looked
like us basically.

Top. Nik Nak at ame, photo by Stephen Harvey, 2021 © Stephen Harvey
Bottom. Lyn Hodnett and Gillian Whitely at ame, photo by Nick White, 2021 © Nick White

But I think the word ‘scene’ is interesting as well because I feel like itexists for us as two separate entities. There’s the scene that we exist
within and then there’s also the scene that we're trying to create. And
the reason that I see them as two separate things is because the socalled scene that we’re in feels more like an industry. And that
obviously comes with all sorts of traditions that we don’t want totranslate across to ours. So, it’s hard to equate them as the same thing.
Because there's things like male power dynamics, typical toxic DJ
etiquettes and the illusions of grandeur, the list goes on, that you might
get in the dance music scene. These are all things that are not greatp18 —19

aspects of the dance music scene that we’ve experienced, and havemade an effort, or at least tried to make an effort, to make sure it isn’t
implemented in any kind of way in what we’re trying to create. So, I
think for me, it sort of it exists on two different spectrums.
We’ve been made to feel, for a very long time, very unwelcome, andthat the scene as a whole is very individualistic, it’s very capitalistic. A
lot of it is focused on commodifying your hobby. Whereas we’ve tried
to do a completely different take on what it means to go to a dancemusic event, or go to another art music event, where it’s very
community focused and it’s very, very much about the music. And you
know, there are so many scenes that we’ve looked to before, thatwe’ve taken inspiration from, you know, anything from like Anokha, theAsian underground, to FWD>>, Plastic People etc., where it was justabout the community and the music first and foremost. And it was acompletely welcoming environment as well.
WD: What were the motivations and catalysts for getting started?
What were the significant or transformational moments?
RA: I used to live in London surrounded by artists and musicians all thetime. That was how I was spending my early 20s, after college back inlate 90s, early 2000, and it was really easy to go from one concert toanother. And this was a time when there were squat parties andeveryone’s making music and everyone’s self-releasing cassettes andCDs and people made money out of it. I was no one, you know, but if
you play a concert, you could sell a hundred cassettes, because
everyone was keen to buy stuff in the beginning. I’m talking about preinternet time.
And then, for many reasons, I ended up being in North England, in
Huddersfield. I did my PhD research and during that time, every
musician, I’m talking about international musicians, would come to playmajor cities in the UK and they would ask me, ‘can I play somewhere
else?’ and I'm like, ‘I don't know.’ But gradually I started to create small
concerts for them. And they would always have good experiences andI would take them for a walk in the Peak District and everyone enjoys
so much that it kind of became a bit of word-of-mouth thing, andpeople were talking about ‘Oh, contact Ryoko, and maybe you could
have a concert in in Huddersfield.’ And then in 2017, after my PhD, I
decided that I could probably get funding to make a concert for people
to come and get paid properly.

So, I went for an Arts Council England Project Grant and Sound andMusic’s Composer-Curator programme and I got them both. And that's
how everything started. So, to start with, it was just purely because I
wanted my friends to come play. And then that became more like, can I
invite someone I really want to see, not to London, not to Birmingham,
not to Manchester, but to Huddersfield. It became a bit more like a tiny
bit of my pride growing by being in a rural area—why can I not do this
here? It became a bit of local community work.
PR: Initially, it was myself and Sherwyn Appadu, who was a goodfriend when I was at university… obviously still is! And he was the only
person I knew, out of everyone that you might now see in Daytimers.
At the beginning, I was like, ‘I want to set this thing up, because it's
lockdown and I want to do something or have some kind of outlet andI've always wanted to champion South Asian artists’, it was justsupposed to be producers initially. And I was like, ‘nothing too intense’.
And obviously that's not the case at all! It’s very intense.
Everyone else who is visibly part of that internal team, like Gracie T,
Yung Singh, Chandé, and others like Samia, people that you've seen on
our platform, they're just people that have either found us throughInstagram, either through the handful of South Asian artists that I
already knew about, or sometimes in the Instagramcomments, people would tag certain people when someone would ask
for tracks or someone would ask for recommendations. I scoured loads
of comments on SoundCloud and Instagram and I started connecting
dots and being like, ‘hey, uh, you do this and you do this, let's set up a
Zoom call with everyone?’ And we ran two or three of those and they
were really nice.
I’ll always remember them because of the energy. Obviously, we’dbeen in lockdown and there had been a million Zoom calls already,and even though no one really knew anyone, there was thisenergy of everyone understanding what I wanted to do and what
we were all trying to push immediately. It just kind of clicked andeveryone was on the same wave.
When we first started out everything was for charity. The compilations
were for charity and we raised a lot of money. We raised about £13k,
alongside the compilation, which raised a grand or so within the firsttwo weeks, so for the first thing we put out I was amazed. So, eventhough we were in lockdown it was still very tangible how much thecommunity wants to support itself.
When we had our Colour Factory event, which was again a fundraiser,and our first inperson event, it was still during Covid where people had
to sit down and stuff. Again, we could see that people wanted tosupport.

p20 —21

And then the first thing that we actually tried to bill, something thatwasn’t for charity, was the first birthday, which was all the way back in
August 2021. I think the tickets didn’t go above a tenner. At that point
you could see how much people wanted to support. It was interesting
to see the reaction from the people that were coming, when theyknew that no one running it was in it to make money and that it is just a
community focused thing.
WD: When I think of the word ‘community’ in the context of a scene, I
see an essential relationship between music creator, recreator (e.g.,
DJ, instrumentalists) and participant (audience). Are there other key
players with a stake in your scenes? How is power distributed? In whatways might your roles as composers influence the musical direction ofyour scenes?
PR: The key players in the scene, people like Riya, have come in andreally pushed our safer space policy. This has made me realise thatwhat we’re trying to do isn’t just to get bookings and play events,
it is to foster an actual space that people come to and feel safe
and welcome.
So, we could be offered XYZ, like when we did Fabric, but there’s still avery limited amount of control that comes with doing Fabric and that
ultimately leads to incidents happening because you can’t control thatspace to make it safer. And ultimately it did lead to incidents
happening, which were not okay and that dampened it. But obviously it
was an amazing night and it was sort of historic for us to do. But it wasalso just a reminder that we were not there to play Fabric and that’s not
our goal, it’s not like ‘we’re done now.’
We are looking to foster those spaces that people can come to again
and again, and don’t ever go away and say, ‘I did not feel that good atthat Daytimers’ event.’ And same thing with Dialled In, it’s just likepeople felt it was the first time they felt accepted, especially for queer
South Asians, like millennial/Gen Z age, they felt really accepted andwelcomed in a space like that. You can’t really ask for much more thanthat. And it’s something that you then have a responsibility tocontinually replicate because that’s too precious a thing to take awayfrom someone once you create it.

RA: I’m artistic director but we are an artist collective of five at the
moment. We’ve just hired a social media developer. I felt many times
that I didn’t want to do this anymore. It’s just so much work, you know,
admin work and so much work when it comes to creating an event. I
know it’s really great fun. In retrospect, we always had a good time, butduring or doing a performance, organising an event or promoting
something, it’s kind of a hell. And I’m like, ‘ah, how do I do this?’, youknow, or after each big concert, I’m like, ‘why do I have to do this?’ But
there are not many female Asian organisers, so I just feel like I have to
do it. You know, I can’t just leave this, I just have to do it because
there’s no one else doing it.
WD: Provhat, could you say a few words about the turning point whenSouth Asian audiences went from being in the minority to the majority?
That sounds like a transformational moment.
PR: Firstly, the first stream we did for the Indian farmers on Twitch.
People said that the best thing about it was the chat room, because thechat room was so supportive and constantly going off: people
supporting, everyone donating, saying hilarious stuff. Even people like
DJ Ahadadream, who’s been DJing for a while now, said they’d neverfelt support like that before, which is crazy because it was a text box.
So, the fact that so many people felt it was tangible, just that Twitch
chat, saw how much support was pouring out of it, especially during
Yung Singh’s set. Yeah, that’s when it first felt really real.
But I don’t think it came to fruition fully until the Boiler Room show.
And it’s funny that we were talking about selling tickets. This was a
massive stress when we were organizing Dialled In. Up until that Boiler
Room, basically it wasn’t really selling at all. Which I was confused by,because so many people watched the stream and we raised a lot ofmoney. I thought, ‘all those people will probably just transfer over and it
will be fine.’ And then we weren’t selling tickets at all. And we were atthe point where we thought, ‘Ah! we might have to cut a stage, we’ve
booked all these people and we might have to tell a third of them“sorry, we can’t do this anymore” because otherwise we’ll owe thema lot of money.’ And then we had Boiler Room, Yung Singh presents:
Daytimers, and I think people needed the visual cue of what we were
trying to do. They didn’t have that, they had people DJing on the screen
and the DJs were brown and that was cool. But they didn’t have theraucous energy of our culture, and the blends of sounds that we were
trying to make and the tracks that we’ve been producing over the past
year. So many things came to fruition. It was the first Boiler Room backin 18 months. It was one of the first events to start playing again, it
was the first time we played as a collective, which is nuts because it
was Boiler Room. It was a lot of things coming together and that’sp22 —23

when I think it clicked for people because a lot of people saw it andwere like ‘ah wait this is a thing that’s happening that’s really new. And
I've never seen this many brown people in a dance music space, letalone on a Boiler Room.’ And that’s when the tickets started selling,
literally the morning after the ticket sales were rocketing. I think people
needed those moments, and that’s when the 180 happened andeveryone started coming out of the woodwork and being like ‘we’rehere, I get it.’ We were trying to make a space for ourselves and I reallywant to be a part of this. And thankfully a lot of people have.
Fiona Allison (FA): That’s interesting, because it’s something Will and I
have spoken quite a bit about: what motivates those initial shifts when
the audience changes, from a close-knit community into this bigger
thing. And you said something interesting: that people need the visualcue to move to ‘this is new, I want to be involved in it.’ And there’s
something important about that step for someone outside wanting to
be involved in the scene.
Ryoko, could you speak a bit about the audiences you have had at yourevents. Do you have a core audience that come to all the events or is it
different depending on who you put on?
RA: A bit of both. We have familiar faces in the concerts but when an
exhibition runs, they bring their own audience, and they mix together.
And it’s nice that we have a mixed audience.
WD: I’m interested in the theoretical idea of liveness and how it means
to prioritise temporal co-presence over spatial co-presence. How
important is it for the community to be together in-person as opposed
to just spending time together online?
RA: As far as my own practice goes, it’s at the threshold between
performance and installation. So naturally, I tend to like things that talkto music, visual arts, texts. So, it’s always important to see things in aphysical sense. That’s why I like working in a gallery space where there
is no stage or spotlight. The performance can be anywhere and theaudience interact with a space. When I work with my performance, it’smore important to see the space than my fee. So, before asking
anything, I always say, ‘where do I play?’ and this becomes part of myperformance strategy. And this reflects into my organisational strategy
as well. I am interested in the performers who think of the space as apart of their performance, so when I curate, that always comes first.

PR: So many seminal movements are defined by the spaces they
operate in, and having an anchor that solidifies the movement, aphysical, geographical anchor that actually certifies it I think is really
important. And it’s the next step that I think we need to make. But
again, it also comes back to the thing of that space, not just being aBlue Note or Plastic People, not like a club environment at all. The thingof making it a safe space is always the priority, but still keeping theethos of having a space that is our own, that our community can cometo regularly and rely on is the thing that’s most important. So yeah, I
think that's probably the next step for us.
WD: What was the turning point from seeing the need to acting? What
did it take for you to feel empowered, to feel that ‘I can change/do
this?’
PR: I didn’t really feel from the start that I was 100% the right
person to be doing this. It was just something that I really wanted
to have as a thing, as opposed to something that I knew I could
do. And interestingly, at the very beginning, there was a bigger
personal aspect to what it is now. I felt at the time I was a musician. I
had just left university, I left being able to create in that collaborative
space, I felt quite away from that creative and collaborativeenvironment, and I wanted to jump straight back into it and do it in aslightly different way than what I had experienced before. I reallywanted to for the sake of me being able to create music and work withother people. I wanted to make something that I could do that throughbut that also had that cultural weight behind it.
But, as it’s grown, I’ve felt less of a need to further my own personal
profile as an artist. I've felt the pull instead towards doing things that I
wish I’d had when I was younger: for the younger generation to haveand for the wider community to have, as South Asian creatives.
So, that personal thing of not really feeling like the right person but also
really wanting to do it was more prevalent, and also that shift from it
being half of the personal thing and half to do something with culturalweight that hadn’t done before, into being pretty much entirely justabout the cultural weight behind the project was I guess what spurred
me on to continue past the initial stage.
RA: I don’t know if I saw the need to act. But I suppose it always
seems like I dig myself into something and then I just can’t get awayfrom it. So, I don’t think I saw the need to do anything, but as I went
along, I was in a situation where I was doing something that I felt like I
had to continue, like being a curator, an artistic programmer, or
whatever it is called for ame.

p24 —25

As Provhat says, I don’t think I’m the right person to do so. I don’t evenfeel that I am a curator. It’s such a big word in our world nowadays, it’sa bit like composer, I don’t feel like I’m a composer, but that what I’mdoing is just something that’s been categorised as a composer. It
seems that I am the only female label manager and that makes me
think that I just must keep going until it becomes the norm.
FA: It sounds like you’re both really driven by things outside ofyourselves. It sounds like you view your own artistry second to what’s
driving you on most of your projects.
PR: Yeah, it’s interesting what Ryoko was saying because for me,
regardless of how comfortable I felt, or what I was in it for, one thingthat I was certain of was that there was a necessity for what I wastrying to do because it just didn’t exist or existed only in a very limited
capacity. And maybe this is what informed my push away from the sortof individual aspects of it, but the scene that existed only really existed
on an individual basis. There wasn’t a lot of cross-collaboration andthere wasn’t much of a collective force behind the community as awhole. So, I knew that whatever I did, or whatever I was going to try
and do the scene needed something. And obviously I didn't know whatkind of impact I would ultimately have or be able to do with this wholething. So yeah, it felt like it like it was needed from the very start.
WD: How do you invite and respond to audience feedback as thescene develops? To what extent do you and your team allow audience
feedback to shape your plans?
PR: It’s twofold: the feedback comes from the internal team as well as
the audience. Because I think, at the beginning, the audience and theartists that were being targeted, were one and the same thing, wewere focusing on finding the artists and making a space for them. Andso, the artists were in the audience as well. And that's since changed
to being multiple entities as it’s grown.

members, sat down and said ‘okay, here is everyone that organises it,
this is who we are, what our intentions are, here is some of the
feedback that we have and we welcome any and all criticism orcomments that people might have’ and have it as a really open
discussion, just so people can say what they want and make sure thatthey know that we are listening as well.
We’re at this stage where it’s so audience oriented. It is for the artists
that haven't had the opportunity to occupy these kinds of spaces
before but the audience is pivotal to who we are and the entire
movement that it’s paramount that we’re like ‘please let us know what
you guys think and how you think we can improve and what things
we’re missing, what errors we’ve made’, because we’ve already abunch of errors that are totally fair for people to bring up, things thatwe’ve missed. And yeah, it’s that interplay between the audience andthe organising team, it can’t really be stressed enough how important it
is for us, because it ultimately makes or breaks the whole movement, I
think.
RA: When we started getting some public money, I was aware that we
had to do some questionnaires. So, we had a printed questionnaire
sheet and asked everyone to fill it in, but I didn’t feel like it was working
well. Because if you are in the audience, it’s kind of pain in the neckthat you get a piece of paper and so on, they’re like ‘oh, I just want togo home’, and they’ve never been generously giving enough time to do
feedback anyway. So we don’t do that anymore.
But I think the feedback always comes from the community. When we
do workshops or artist talks or when people spend more time with us,
that’s when I try to gather information about what people think.
And then social media—if something’s good people tweet. It’s a niceplace to see and hear what’s been retweeted and mentioned. I think
we keep that level of getting feedback from the audiences. So yeah, I
suppose it’s a bit low level but that’s what we think it's sufficient at thismoment.

But for us, the feedback is really important. We’ll get feedback with theteam, about how things are going, how transparent the organisation isand how transparent everything is in terms of projects and how people
can get involved, but also how the whole movement comes across to
the wider South Asian community and not just the creatives.

FA: Does having a physical space mean that you have more organic
conversations with people? Do the public walk in and do they interact
with you?

Creating spaces that are based around feedback has been something
we’ve started doing recently, especially with Dialled In where we’ve
started the Dialled In Conversations. They were initially supposed to be
like panel discussions but we tried to make them more intimate andwelcoming and as casual as possible. We had our first one at RichMix
in London where myself, Ahad and Dhruva, three of the five team

RA: Yeah! Having a space means we have different kinds of audiences.
Just casual drop-ins all the time and they don’t necessarily know
anything about contemporary art, so that’s really interesting. And I quite
like that there’s a real diversity of people coming in and out because weare not a proper gallery space. So, different questions and comments
and sometimes really bad comments. Sometimes we have homelesspeople coming in and just stay there for a few hours and talk about art.

p26 —27

I do enjoy that. But on the downside, we are not in a place where wehave 200 people coming in all the time.
So, I think there’s always pros and cons, but I do like talking to people
who don’t really do art or music. It’s always something interesting
about talking to real people.
WD: Does that change you?
RA: Yes definitely. I always like that balance anyway, that there’s thislittle sort of boundary, a wall, between people who understandcontemporary art and people who are not very familiar with
contemporary art. If I go to London and spend five days all I meet areartists and musicians and someone who’s an activist of Greenpeace,and it’s really interesting, you know, if you have a dinner party like 10
out of 10 are doing something very radical and interesting. But thencoming back to my village and especially because I have two children I
deal with parents and I try to say something about what I do and thenthey're like, ‘err what, so do you have a job... do you play piano, do you
sing?’, that's how the conversation starts.
And I think it’s necessary for me to be a part of that community. And
it’s also necessary for them to understand that there are very different
people out there because not everyone’s racist or not everyone’s
against the people for many reasons. So just me saying, well, there’s
this sort of sound music scene that maybe you don’t know about, butmaybe you can come and see something in this gallery. I’m doing
something quite important for that community. I’m not trying to change
the world or anything. I never think that I’m making something new.
That’s just not how I am, but just being there, just a little essence, sothat people understand that there’s weird people out there. Which you
know, I don’t really have when I’m in London. I think I’ve learnt a lot
since I came to Huddersfield.
WD: What might a sustainable DIY culture look like? What support
could the wider music industry provide to enable this?
RA: It’s the question I’m looking for the answer too! When I talk to
people of a similar age, we always end up talking like grandma andgranddad, like ‘back in the 90s and back in early 2000,’ we’ve justbecome grandmothers and grandfathers. I come from the era when, if
you wanted to do a gig, you just go and play. So, I’m looking for theanswer still for it. Because it’s just difficult.
I think the younger generations are struggling more financially. You
know, who can live in London? People here in Huddersfield arestruggling as well. We are talking about really cheap rent in North

England, but people are still struggling. So how do we maintain thatspirit of DIY culture for the generations to come? I am kind of stepping
a little bit back and will see what is going to happen especially when
we have really bad politics. I always think it’s not a bad thing for
creative people. Because when politics is bad, something good
happens in the creative sectors. So, I’m waiting for something big tohappen after Brexit and pandemics and all sorts of things. So, it’s more
like I’m looking forward to it. But I don’t have the answer.
I think I want to be a part of it. But I’m looking at this younger
generations with a power, like what what's going to happen? And
hopefully something really wacky is going to happen, especially in thiscountry. It’s difficult to take a risk though. What comes out of this huge
dilemma of DIY culture, what comes out of this in 2030?
WD: Are we looking in the wrong place to think that DIY culture will
look the same as it did? Should we be looking online, is that the rentfree space? While there’s a real issue of digital poverty and lack ofaccess, is that perhaps where the beating heart of DIY is? Provhat,
what’s your experience?
PR: I’m definitely gonna agree with that, based off the fact that both
Dialled In and Daytimers were born in online spaces. It’s hard to say
about DIY culture in general, but for Daytimers, it feels like a lot of the
responsibility for the whole community is placed on us. I think to someextent the achievements of a lot of the queer South Asian parties havebeen inadvertently erased by the press that we’ve got as well. Parties
like Pussy Palace and Hungama and Misery and Club Cali and all theseother parties that have been around for queer South Asians just in
London, have been around much, much longer than we have. So, it’s acase of making sure that people don’t see Daytimers and Dialled In as
this monolith for any kind of representation for South Asians in creative
spaces. I think people still look to us because we have that coverage tobe the ones to represent South Asians all over the place. Whereas inreality, we just want to get more versions of Daytimers and Dialled In
to exist all over the world. That’s the best way to do it, because it
cements it as an actual cultural movement as opposed to a momentthat is spearheaded to some extent by to two bodies. So, it’s breaking
out of that space the media has inadvertently made us out to be likegatekeepers.
For example, if you want to book South Asian DJs you have to comethrough us and if there’s ever a South Asian DJ and in any one spacethen that must be Daytimers. There’s a lot of assumptions that are
being made by all the attention we’ve got, which I think makes it moredifficult for people to think that there is an ethos of DIY culture aroundthis community and maybe even other communities as well, where itcomes across that if marginalised communities want to break into

p28 —29

spaces where they’re not really given opportunities regularly, it has tobe done through one overarching umbrella body. And that’s not how it
works.
I didn’t have my ear to the ground as much as I do now, in terms of thedance music community, but I still managed to carve out the space fora lot of people in it. And that’s just through wanting to, and there’s still
so many spaces out there that still need carving out, not just for theSouth Asian community, but for a lot of other marginalisedcommunities as well.
So, it’s just making sure that people know that they can do itthemselves. As opposed to finding someone who has managed to do it
and then being like, ‘well, let me try and do it through them’ or, tellthem that they need to be doing it this way.
As much as you should be able to critique movements like thisbecause we’re not going to get everything right, it’s difficult for anyone
to really get everything right when it comes to representing
marginalised communities. It’s important people know that there
should continually be projects that are started. As much the white
owned media will tell you that there isn’t space.
Dhruva said this story at the Dialled In Conversations recently, about anartist (or Daytimers) he was pitching to write about, to one of the major
music publications, and they were like, oh, sorry, we’ve alreadyspotlighted a South Asian artist this month, like that would be too manylately. That’s literally the email that he got back. So, we understand,people aren’t stupid, the reason why they maybe see us as thegatekeepers or come to us immediately with criticism before they start
their own things because they know that the spaces that we're trying
to infiltrate will only allow one at a time, like one-in one-out policy. So, I
get it, I totally get it.
But hopefully we’re starting to see a shift away from that where South
Asian DJs, for example, are now getting booked outside of theDaytimers’ name. It’s gone from being individuals to a collective
movement and back to individuals, but in a much better way where it
has the community behind it now. And the community can then push
for all these individual artists, they can really make a name forthemselves. And then as long as those artists are also bringing up the
people who are supporting them. I think that’s really important. Butyeah, it’s a case of people having faith in a scene that I guess it’s quite
hard to keep faith in. But just the fact that we’re making strides, butpeople should know that there are more to be made and it’s not just us
that can make them.

FA: That’s really interesting, because quite often, when we think about
how to encourage scenes, we think about stuff like finances andspace. But media and reporting are not something that’s talked about. I
think you’ve hit on something important there. It’s about demystifying,
because like both of you have just said that you didn’t really think you
could do it or you didn’t even consider it much when you started out.
You just started doing it. But once it gets to that level where someone
writes an article on it, there’s a sort of shininess that’s put around it.
There’s this magic of it happening that people reading it might think,‘Oh, I could never do that.’ But it’s about changing the perspectives of
those people seeing a scene and then empowering them to be like, ‘I
could do that too.’
PR: Exactly. And I think, importantly, where we’re also representing acommunity and not just doing it for the sake of making individualcareers and getting people booked. Obviously, that’s part of it, but
that’s not the whole thing.
FA: Just on that point Ryoko, what were your measurements ofsuccess with your projects?
RA: Success. Hmm I suppose reflecting a bit on what Provhat’s been
saying... occasionally, some people come up to me and say, ‘Oh I’ve
seen you doing this and now I’m doing that,’ that’s really nice. So,
passing on, I view that as a success. I don’t know if that’s what theword success means. And also, when other sort of like-mindedorgansations and artists, when they come up and say, shall we dosomething or, I can help you to support this. So that feels likefriendships expanding? I think that’s kind of personal success, butwhen it comes to, I suppose as organisation, as a professional success,maybe the increase of the audience numbers, that’s always nice. That’s
a professional success, I suppose. And then trying to think ahead forbigger project. It’s nice when I can see that clearly in retrospect.

p30 —31

Part 2.
The following text is taken from a single 90-minute conversation
between Roohi Sarwar, Safiya Bashir and Fiona Allison, that took
place online on 3 May 2022.

Fiona Allison (FA): What was the turning point from seeing
promotional materials to feeling like you wanted to go? If it was wordof mouth, how were you convinced to go?
Safiya Bashir (SB): I think with Daytimers I had been following themfor a while and I think they kicked off in lockdown. I was following
them online and aware of a lot of work they did and really got into thatscene through my own interests and projects that I have. So yeah, forme, it was like a no brainer. I’m not actually based in the UK most of
the time. I’m from the UK but I am currently living in the Netherlands
and because they started off in lockdown they had a lot of great online
events, I saw a lot of them and heard about them and then they started
doing some in person ones and I really would have loved to be in there
but never could. So, then when Dialled In came around it was justsomething I immediately wanted to be a part of.
I was speaking to someone about it recently, it’s not just about the factthat it’s the South Asian community, but on top of that it’s South Asianpeople plus the extra niche of dance music and DJs and that crowd, so
it is bringing those two parts of my life together into one, it really islike ‘Okay, wow, these really are my people.’ So, I think when
Dialled In happened, I definitely wanted to be there for the first one.
And it was just extra exciting having followed and spoken to a lot of theDaytimers crew and the people involved and the people who are DJing,
it’s the first festival I’ve been to that I was kind of a bit of a nerd about
it. I think a lot of times people just rock up to festivals, maybe know a
few people in the line-up and just want to go for the good time but thiswas one where I was like, I actually feel part of the community thatthey’re trying to make. So, that was really great.

Mick Beck at ame, photo by Nick White, 2021 © Nick White

Roohi Sarwar (RS): I live in Huddersfield, it is quite a small community
and we’re lucky that we have quite a good music scene. I think a lot of
people go to the university to study music and then hang around andthey’re quite open, creative and experimental. And I found out about
ame through word of mouth and social media because once you know
a few bands or a few music venues in Huddersfield, you tend to just to
get to know everybody. It’s quite a tight knit community and everyone
knows everyone and I’m very keen on trying new things. I just thought
it’d be something that’s different and at first, I was a bit like ‘Oh, whatis this?’, you know, ‘is this music, are these sounds, what are they?’and I got more and more interested in it, even just the simplicity of it,

p32 —33

about how you can get small objects and create beautiful sounds andcreate an atmosphere.
And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a finely tuned song that’s on theradio for example, you can go somewhere and just immerse yourself
into something that you wouldn’t normally expect to be classed as amusical performance. I work in a theatre part time in the box office. I
was quite familiar with the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival,
which has had some quite out-there events over the years and I’ve also
been to see a lot of shows at the theatre, which are quite experimental
and I’ve been to sound installations as part of theatre performances.
So, I have experienced that kind of stuff, that kind of work before alittle bit. I didn’t go into it stone cold. It was in my own town and it wasaccessible. And sometimes you don’t get stuff like that in small towns,
you have to go somewhere like London or Manchester to experience
things that are a little bit different. It’s nice, it’s on the doorstep. And if
it is on the doorstep and it is affordable, why not go, and I think that's
originally how I got into it.
FA: How often do you attend ame/Daytimers/Dialled In events?
SB: I think the first Dialled In I happened to be in the UK anyway, which
was really handy and great, but the one that just happened I went backfor it. Those are the only ones I’ve actually gone to but I’m always
aware of what they’re doing and I’m kind of following them very
closely. And also aware of the fact that a lot of scenes are very London
centric and Daytimers is trying very hard, and that’s quite clear fromfollowing them, that they’re really trying to diversify where they’relocated by having the northern branch and having events all over thecountry and I think they’re going to come to Bristol soon, which iswhere I’m from. I’m unable to attend a lot of the events, like when they
were at Fabric and stuff like that. I was very like, ‘Oh, I wish I could
have been there’ and was clicking through and watching all the
footage. But yeah, unfortunately just unable to be there in person. But
if I was in the UK when anything was happening, I definitely would
make my way over if possible.
RS: Usually about once a month if there’s an event on and I can makeit. Luckily, it's on my doorstep, it’s in the town centre. I work in the
town centre and if I’m not working from home that day, it’s very easy
to get to for me. So, I’m lucky. I have a friend who sometimes comesover from Leeds and he’s like ‘we don’t have stuff like this in Leeds’
and I’m like ‘you must do’ and he says ‘no we really don’t.’ And he's
like ‘I love going to this, I just love the surprise of it and the fact that I
don't know what to expect or what I’m going to get, I'm open to cometo any of these events.’

And at one of the ame events they showed a film about women inelectronic music, the first women that were in electronic music, about
the whole history of it and there’s so much stuff we didn’t know. Off
the back of that we found out that one of the artists is coming from
America and going to be in Leeds and we’ve got tickets to go and seeher, because we watched her in that film. We’d have never known
about her before. I didn't know about women with transistors and thewhole electronic music scene back in the day and how it was reallysexist and a real struggle.
I feel like some of the events are really eye opening and educational.
And they open doors to other things that I want to try. I’ll see
something at ame and I’ll look it up and research it and I think I actuallyquite like that, let me just go into that field a little bit more and see
what else is out there. I think it opens your eyes to new things.
FA: Do you feel part of a community? If so, what does being part of thecommunity mean to you?
SB: It’s an interesting one, because, obviously, I want to say yes,because the space has been created and they’re inviting everyone into
it, as like, a guest. But I think it’s really hard with anything like thiswhere it is at the end of the day a collective, a group of people who are
all organising and all DJing and all present at the same ones, andeveryone else, when you’re in that space, it's really amazing, but you
don’t know anyone here, you know the main people, they’re the big
names you know you want to see and who’s part of this group, but it’s
hard because the word community, I feel for me, it means something
more personal. Like at Dialled In, I’m really interested in this scene any
way and I’ve spoken to a lot of them individually and know who
everyone is.
So, I would be kind of more at the forefront of that, but it still feels like,and I guess for a lot of the audience, you still feel like you’re a guest
attending a party, you’re still going to be surrounded by strangers, andit’s the same group who are organising them and they’ve, I think,maybe have created a really amazing community for themselvesin a space for everyone else. It’s weird because I was just thinking
about this when I was at Dialled In, it’s an amazing space, but
community for me is just a funny word, but I’ve always thought thatabout how we refer to any community like, oh, the South Asian
community, or the black community. I’m like ‘what does that mean,
though?’ It doesn’t mean we're all interacting and know each other.
FA: For sure, it’s about South Asian creatives, but also, like you said,rather than community, you specifically said a space for South Asian
audience members as well. Which is not a common space created in
the dance music scene, for marginalised communities.

p34 —35

SB: Yeah, and just the fact that they’ve created this safe, regular space
for a group of people who are all into the same thing is so amazing.
And that’s something to really be celebrated. But community I justthink is a funny word.
RS: I’ve just looked up the word community just to see what Google
says. It says a group of people living in the same place or having aparticular characteristic in common or the condition of sharing or having
certain attitudes and interests in common.
So, with the second one, sharing interests and living in the same place,
I definitely feel like I’m part of the community with the ame events. I
know that the creators probably feel like they’ve got a stronger senseof community because they’re creating work in a similar kind of field.
But as an audience member out, I also feel very important and an
essential part of the cog of the wheel being there, and it’s a small
town as well so you see the same people you start talking to them, westart getting to know them, we start talking to them about their future
projects. And then you feel like you’re part of that, and then you get tosee it performed, what their dreams were, what they were talking
about, and you’re part of that process going along from when they’redevising it to when they’re performing it and, you know, that’s only
really possible in a place like Huddersfield because of the size of it.
Obviously in London, people are busy, you might go to one event, you
might not go to another one until six months later, you might not see
the same people so it’s harder to be that involved in it. But where I am,
I definitely would say I feel like I’m part of the community, even though
I’m not a creator myself, and I’m just an audience member. And I do
feel sort of important being there and contributing by being an audience
member.
SB: Yeah, that was probably the piece of the puzzle that I was missing.
Like one, a lot of the events being based in London and secondly, arereally quite huge ones, but just by the fact that they’re in London every
time you turn up I think it’s lots of different people there. And also, a
big factor of this is that I haven’t been to a lot of events and I haven’t
been able to keep going back and recognising the same people. So,
that’s why I’m probably lacking that feeling.
FA: That’s interesting how much space feels important for community
to develop, in a sense where community means really knowing thepeople. Here’s another word for you that I’m just going throw at you to
see what you think of it, what do you think of the word ‘scene’? And do
you think you’re involved in a scene or being involved in the two eventsand collectives that you’re both a part of?

RS: I am involved as an audience member in the experimental musicscene, I think. What do I think of the word? I feel like it describes a
genre but one that’s active at the moment and moving.
SB: Yeah, I think that’s what I felt when you said the word scene, I felt
like it is something that is quite current. Like you said, not quite agenre, because a genre will forever be there, but a scene as it’shappening right now, it is this group of people in this space, doing
something at the moment. And do I feel part of the scene? I guess so.
Yeah. Because I have my own kind of projects that’re similar to what
the Daytimers do, so, having that bit of a crossover and being able tochat to them and get to know them a little bit and do my own things
around that in Bristol. I think the word scene for me feels like forexample, the Daytimers is our scene currently, but what they want toachieve is way more longevity than that. They don’t want to be like theoriginal Daytimers movement, which was quite small in the late 80s
and then just faded out. This new South Asian underground, this newcollective of Daytimers, has wanted to be more permanent, rather thanjust like a scene that happened.
FA: To what extent did you feel there was a need for this work and that
ame/Daytimers are meeting it?
SB: I think for Daytimers, it was a huge need. Before I’d heard of theDaytimers, it was something that me and my brother, he’s a DJ and I
was just very into music in general, we were complaining about it a lot.
We lived together in lockdown in London. And I was just really
recognising the fact that, I was also learning to DJ at the time, I didn’t
see any kind of any role models that were South Asian. And the thingis, as soon as I started doing research, I realised that they were actuallyloads but it just wasn’t mainstream and they were kind of more on theedges. And then as soon as we had this chat and decided to do ourown project, that’s when we came across the Daytimers and they justlike, grew and grew and grew and it was just really amazing to kind ofwatch it from what felt like the start and we felt like we manifested it
a bit because we really wanted this, we really needed it.
And now this amazing group of people have created this space and it’s
just so multi-dimensional as well, which I think is so important. It's notjust DJs and club nights. We’re going back to community: I think that’s
something that they are doing that’s quite strong. And it’s really
inclusive and there’s talks and they did Iftar over Ramadan and it reallyis bringing together a group of people. And they’ve been successful at
portraying that to a much wider audience, to people like me who reallywanted this and needed this, but also bringing it to the attention ofpeople who maybe didn’t want it or need it, but now they’re aware of it
and are really interested in it as well.

p36 —37

RS: I think the kind of performances that ame do, they’re not easily
accessible music. I mean, if you want to go and listen to a guy with aguitar, it’s pretty easy to walk into any open mic night or go to a lot ofgigs and you can hear that kind of music, or a jazz band or you know,such like. And I think the kind of work ame do, a lot of university
students that are studying music will have had access to that kind ofwork, but the general public, we don’t, not really, not unless you knowthat it exists, and you’ve done your research and you know where togo. It’s not something that you see very often. So, in that sense, I think
there is a need to get that kind of performance out there. I thinkthey’ve definitely met it in Huddersfield.
They’ve had quite a variety of performances and they’ve all been
extremely interesting and I’ve seen different people there. And I thinkthey’ve done a great job and they make it accessible, even the ticket
prices and everything; it’s been affordable to go and listen to. Usuallywhen you have experimental music, sometimes it can be quite
expensive, and that would put people off, but when you’re only paying
a little bit for something that you’re not sure you’ll take the risk, but if
you’re paying £30 for something you might be like, I need to know I likethat before I can commit because I could you know go to a show that I
know that I’m going to like, so I think they’re definitely affordable. And
yeah, there is definitely a need for it.

work against this. But I think, maybe for people who aren’t so involved,
it can feel a bit excluding. But yeah, I think obviously they are aware ofthis and through initiatives like that are trying to make sure that isn’t
the case.
RS: I don’t think I play a part in shaping ame’s work at all. I don’t thinkit’s really that dependent on the audience. I think they wouldn’t mind if
the audience didn’t even like it. I mean, I think it is the artists’ creationand it’s not there to please the audience. It’s just there to exist as it is.
And people can observe it and take away whatever they want from it
and people will take different things away from it. And that’s the whole
point of it. So no, I don’t think I shape it, I just think I allow them toperform to someone.

For more information about the work of Provhat Rahman and Ryoko
Akama, visit:https://www.dialled-in.com/
https://daytimers.bandcamp.com/
https://amespace.uk/

FA: How do you respond to audience feedback requests as the scene
develops? Do you want to feel included in the shaping of the scene orare you satisfied just to be part of it or to have it happen to you?
SB: I think it’s great being an audience member and with Daytimers, I
think they’ve created this platform where they’re inviting people to join
in, maybe an example of that being DJ lessons. I’m saying this, but it'salso really hard, and I think that what the Daytimers are doing is reallygreat and they are trying to bring people in with them, but I think withthings like this, it’s inevitable that it’s a handful of people, you know,
doing the organising, calling all the shots and it’s hard to invite otherpeople into that. So, if their thing is about South Asian DJs in dancemusic, then it is, of course, the same handful of DJs from thatcollective who are kind of doing the circuit, and I’m sure, maybe I’ve
just like missed that, I’m sure there are working on this and they’reprobably talking about this all the time, but the fact that it is really
important that South Asian DJs can't be this one handful of DJs. The
point should be, and probably is to be, we need to find people whoaren’t us to play at our nights.
Another example, as well as the lessons, for Dialled In, they had
performance slots and they did a call out for new DJs where they said,‘please send us a mix and here’s a slot you can play it out’. And so,things like that are amazing and proves that they’re trying to actively

Dr Will Dutta is a curating composer based in East Kent (UK). He is
Chief Executive of Sound and Music, Director of Studio Will Dutta, aTrustee of Electric Medway, Fellow of the Institute of Cultural andCreative Industries at the University of Kent and Guest Lecturer at
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
Fiona Allison is a Creative Project Leader at Sound and Music where
she has guided and supported a wide range of artists, including Nneka
Cummins, Shirley Tetteh and Hollyseus Fly, on industry leading
development programmes, such as New Voices, Adopt a Music
Creator and In Motion. She is a producer and also works for Unit 137, asound system based in Lewisham, London (UK).
Ref: Dutta, W. and Allison, F., 2024. The Curating Composer: Creating
Cultures of New Music. [PDF] Available at: http://studiowilldutta.art/

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