Dr Liam Maloney
Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Liam Maloney graduated in Sound Technology from Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (BA Hons 2007). He began lecturing in further education, specialising in audio production and electronic music composition. During this time, he achieved an MSc in Music & Creative Industries Management with distinction from the University of Bolton (2011), with his dissertation examining the dissemination of taste after the digital revolution winning the Vice-Chancellor’s award for “outstanding academic achievement”. He undertook his doctoral work in the Music Research Centre at the University of York (2014-2020). His PhD, titled ‘Music Like Water: Exploring the Functions of Music Through Thematic Bibliometric Analysis and Comparative ESM Study’, supervised by Dr Jez Wells and Dr Catherine Laws, and was examined by Professor John Sloboda. He was awarded a Humanities Research Doctoral Fellowship for his doctoral work (2018).

His postdoctoral work, a joint venture between the Digital Creativity Labs and the Department of Music at the University of York for the ‘Musical Creativity and Emotional Content’ project (2020) concerned the development of real-time emotional expression prediction embedded within music sequencing systems.

In addition to this his sonic practice has seen him work with, support, remix, and play alongside many electronic musicians including Pendulum, Imogen Heap, Dom & Roland, DJ Fresh, Ruby, and Andrew Weatherall. His performed or presented work at the Bridgewater Hall, the Festival of Ideas, the Royal Institution, the People’s History Museum, LGBTQ+ History Month, BBC One, BBC Radio 2, and numerous festivals, clubs, and galleries.

School Roles

• Music Technology Internships Manager

Research

Overview

Liam’s main research interests concern:

Music Production and History: the development and use of the studio as an instrument; creative studio practice; production and compositional features of electronic music; historical development of production processes; the role of technology in the development of dance music genres.

Dance & Electronic Music Sociomusicology: the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and popular musics; popular music and marginalised/minority audiences; queer African American music and audiences; LGBTQ+ music history; disco and house music; the impact of redlining on musical developments; grassroots music venues and DIY music scenes/collectives.

Sound and Listening Studies: the development and innovation of technologically augmented listening; the history and (incomplete) historiography of listening technology; the development and deployment of recording technologies in everyday life; the role of listening technology in everyday life.

Music in Everyday Life: music psychology; the role of music in everyday life with specific focus on the functions of music for goal attainment; utilitarianism; the observation and analysis of listening episodes; experience sampling methodologies.

Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research: thematic analysis; sentiment analysis; ethnography and ecologically valid research; ESM studies; bibliometric and meta-analyses; inter- and trans-disciplinary research.

Liam also runs and maintains the Foundations of House research project, a project dedicated to researching and recording the history of marginalised communities in early dance music.

Publications

Full publications list

• Maloney, L. & Parkman, E. B. Forthcoming. Vinyl Records in Archaeological Context: A Case Study from Northern California. In Schofield, J. (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Plastics and Archaeology. Abingdon: Routledge.
• Maloney, L. & Masterson, A. 2023. The artist formally known as Camille – Prince’s lost album “comes out”. The Conversation.
• Maloney, L. 2022. Hip Bop: The Imaginary Collaborations of Miles Davis. Jazz Research Journal. 15(1-2), 87-106. https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.23613
• Maloney, L. & Pillai, N. 2022. Editorial. Jazz Research Journal. 15(1-2), 5-9. https://doi.org/10.1558/jazz.24677
• Maloney, L., O’Neill, K., & Gray, J. 2021. Alone Together: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Spotify Listening During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Music, Health and Wellbeing, 2021(Autumn).
• Chubb, J., Missaoui, S., Concannon, S., Maloney, L., & Walker, J. 2021. Developing Voice Technologies for Children: Technical and Ethical Considerations for the Creative Industries. Child-Computer Interaction, 32(10). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2021.100403
• Maloney, L., & Schofield, J., (ed.). 2021. Music and Heritage: New Perspectives on Place-making and Sonic Identity. Abingdon: Routledge. http://doi.org/10.4324/9780429343049
• Maloney, L., & Schofield, J. 2021. Sonic identity and the making of heritage: ‘This must be the place’, in Maloney, L. & Schofield, J. (ed.) Music and Heritage: New Perspectives on Place-making and Sonic Identity, Abingdon: Routledge, 114-125. http://doi.org/10.4324/9780429343049-1
• Maloney, L. 2021. House music, Chicago and the uncomfortable heritage of racial segregation, in Maloney, L. & Schofield, J. (ed.) Music and Heritage: New Perspectives on Place-making and Sonic Identity, Abingdon: Routledge, 114-125. http://doi.org/10.4324/9780429343049-13
• Maloney, L., & Schofield, J. 2021. Records as records: excavating the DJ’s sonic archive. Archives and Records. 43(2), 244-266. https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2021.2001319
• Maloney, L. 2020. Sampling the Sacred in House Music. Sampling Politics Today. Liechti, H., Burkhalter, T., and Rhensius, P. (ed.) (Norient Sound Series 1). Bern: Norient.
• Maloney, L. 2018. ...And House Music Was Born: Constructing a Secular Christianity of Otherness. Popular Music and Society, 41(3), 231-249. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2018.1519099
• Maloney, L. 2017. Music as Water: The Functions of Music from a Utilitarian Perspective. AVANT. Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies, 8, 57-67. http://doi.org/10.26913/80s02017.0111.0006

Teaching

Undergraduate

• Musicology of Record Production
• Analogue Studio Techniques
• Pop, Rock and Electronic Production Techniques & Aesthetics
• Dance Music Cultures

Postgraduate

• Audio Cultures & Modernities (contributor)
• Studio Live and Analogue Mixing (contributor)