Devoured by music: Katie Jane Garside, improvisation and popular music

This article seeks to discuss the work of under-explored vocalist, performance artist and poet Katie Jane Garside, in the attempt to draw out themes in her post-punk performance work that interact with improvisation and popular music in a number of interesting ways. Garside’s approach to popular music performance is particularly distinctive, due to the balancing it enacts between the unpredictable modes of improvised expression, and the structural coherence of popular music form. It will be argued that this approach reflects what Nathaniel Mackey has termed a ‘discrepant engagement’ with popular music, and also represents commonly cited psychological states prevalent in the domain of improvised practice. The article also attempts to introduce aspects of Garside’s philosophical and psychoanalytical self-analysis, to enrich the discussion, and to help explain various misleading assumptions repeatedly disseminated throughout her career. One of the intended outcomes of the article is to highlight the discrepancy between the importance this artist attributes to the role of improvisation, and the (lack of) awareness of improvisation within popular music commentary in general, and punk studies in particular. While popular music studies has given some attention to the role improvisation can play, more expansive and detailed work is needed to articulate the substance of this relationship, especially at the wider edges of popular music culture, including the punk and post-punk field(s).