After listening to the lecture on May 1st, I found interest in Mariam Rezaei’s SKEEN (2020), which is not merely an album—it is a radical act of sonic resistance, an interrogation of language, identity, and the sociopolitical conditions of contemporary Britain. The work pushes the boundaries of turntablism beyond its musical origins into the realm of political discourse, cultural critique, and artistic innovation.
Using only two turntables—Technics SL-1200 Mk5 and a Vestax Controller One—Rezaei manipulates a tightly limited sound palette through hyper-precise techniques. But what emerges is not austerity—it is controlled chaos, a landscape of cuts, scratches, loops, and ruptures that both challenges and redefines the medium of vinyl. The use of turntables as compositional instruments becomes an act of subversion: she refuses the slick polish of mainstream electronic production, opting instead for fragmentation, abrasion, and asymmetry.
Rezaei draws upon her own compositional framework—“Suspension Theory”—which she relates to string theory and musical materiality. This approach designs specific notational systems and turntablist techniques for vinyl records, while preserving space for improvisation. Within SKEEN, this manifests as a tension between structure and instability, much like the sociopolitical conditions it reflects.
SKEEN addresses themes of multiracial identity and the linguistic landscapes of diasporic existence. The 16-minute centerpiece, “AGENCY,” features wordless vocalizations and broken choir forms that evoke both powerlessness and defiance. Rezaei responds to how language is used as a tool of exclusion, especially in British right-wing politics and even in supposedly progressive leftist academic and feminist circles—spaces that often marginalize voices like hers.
This is not music for passive listening. It demands attention. It confronts you with the labor and pain of navigating hybrid identities, the violence embedded in institutional language, and the refusal to be categorized neatly.
While Rezaei’s work is rooted in experimental and improvisational traditions, SKEEN is uniquely positioned as a reclamation of turntablism as an intellectual, feminist, and anti-colonial tool. In a field historically dominated by male or genre-bound figures, her approach reconfigures the turntable as a medium of cultural critique, storytelling, and dissent.
“You don’t listen to SKEEN. You survive it. And in surviving it, you start to understand something about survival itself.”