Intermixtuality: Mix Stems, Fans and the Popular Music Intertext

This paper examines the recent phenomenon of interactive remixing, focussing on the relationship between artist and audience through the process of file or ‘stem’ sharing in commercially released, popular music. In making mix stems – individual instruments or groups of instruments separated out from the multitrack recording -­‐ available to the listener, the artist involves their fan base in both the practice of production and the studio workplace, an environment more commonly associated with engineers, mixers and producers.

Building  on  research  to  be  published  in  the  forthcoming  Oxford  Handbook  of  Music  &  Virtuality (featuring examples from artists including Kanye West, William Orbit, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails), this paper includes further analyses of recent mix stem projects by Bon Iver, REM, Skrillex and Deadmau5. The implications with regards to the wider dissemination of music, the availability of technology  and  the  ‘democratisation’  of  recording  &  production  skill  sets  will  be  addressed.  Furthermore, the extent to which the artist engages the fan via the production process is critically examined.