Please join us for tea and conversation with Dr. Jim Sykes, Assistant Professor of Music. Dr. Sykes is an ethnomusicologist with a focus on South and Southeast Asia. He is the author of The Musical Gift: Sonic Generosity in Post-War Sri Lanka (Oxford, 2018). Sykes has also had a parallel career as a drummer playing in experimental and noise rock groups. He was the founding drummer of the Brooklyn band Parts & Labor, a member of Grooms (part of the Death by Audio collective, a well-known Brooklyn DIY venue), and touring drummer for Marnie Stern (on the Kill Rock Stars label) and Martin Bisi (producer of Sonic Youth, John Zorn, and others). More recently, he recorded an album with Hidden Rifles, a group that includes legendary bassist Mike Watt and guitarist Norman Westburg of the influential band Swans.

In today’s research tea, Jim will talk about the relationship between his research and his music, providing a brief introduction to Sinhala Buddhist drumming from Sri Lanka and explaining how he mixes some ideas from the genre into music by his band Invisible Things (with the guitarist Mark Shippy of the indie rock group U.S. Maple).