ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on findings of an investigation into manifestations of gender and politics in late twentieth/early twenty-first century psychedelic free-folk music scenes in the United States, conducted at the University of Vienna. The investigation of free folk’s joyous affective alliance and community of care, with its sprawling improvising collectives and irreducibly multiplicitous solo projects, is consequently a step towards the proliferation of expanded, radically democratic collectivity. Free-folk musics are often described as simply being about friends making music together. The chapter traces modes of collectivity and individuality in the dynamic, heterogeneous fields. Jeremy Gilbert analyses the necessity of and difficulties faced by creative collective practice in a context that promotes neoliberal individualism as common sense. Following on from Gilbert’s work, the chapter aims to delineate how modes of collectivity and individuality are constituted in these scenes and to highlight their interdependence, requiring reflection and contingency-aware work of researchers.
