A Rethinking of ‘Religiosity’ in Ireland through Sound: Meaning, Identity and Community Located within the Ineffable Sonority of an Experimental Sound Scene.

Abstract

Scholarship on the interface between non-conventional music ‘scenes’ and religions is an emerging field of enquiry within the academic study of religions. This paper examines how, in an unorthodox music scene in Ireland, the quest for meaning and identity goes beyond what we know of conventional understandings of religion and spirituality and can be found instead within the ineffable sonority of experimental music when observed within contemporary definitions of these problematic terms. Through interviews with ‘experimental’ and ‘live improv’ sound artists and their fans in Cork City and through observations at sound events, I suggest that these seemingly chaotic sonic compositions and performances and the scene in which they are situated in Ireland could represent an important ‘field’ where new sites of meaning and identity and can be located.