![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Good Morning
Dec. 6th, 2021 09:23 am
Dec. 6th, 2021
Monday Musings
Dec. 6th, 2021 07:41 pmI rarely get paper cuts but I had one today on my finger and it bled like hell..and in fact, on checking out the paperwork I was discarding from old jobs, I did not notice a half-forgotten staple. Bugger it.
Apart from that, it has been an uneventful day. However, the Christmas tree is finally up in the common room. It is now switched off so I will take a picture in another post.
Weather-wise it was dour with dark clouds and occasional rain. Luckily Carol from number 35 was driving into town and she dropped me off at Tescos so I could do some shopping, and then I caught the bus back.
Last night was the sixth and final episode of The Flux in the current Dr.Who feature. The next episode is now on New Years Day.
Tonight is quiz night so I will be watching on the BBC iPlayer platform, Mastermind, Only Connect, and University Challenge. Monday night always seems to be quia night these days,
Apart from that, it has been an uneventful day. However, the Christmas tree is finally up in the common room. It is now switched off so I will take a picture in another post.
Weather-wise it was dour with dark clouds and occasional rain. Luckily Carol from number 35 was driving into town and she dropped me off at Tescos so I could do some shopping, and then I caught the bus back.
Last night was the sixth and final episode of The Flux in the current Dr.Who feature. The next episode is now on New Years Day.
Tonight is quiz night so I will be watching on the BBC iPlayer platform, Mastermind, Only Connect, and University Challenge. Monday night always seems to be quia night these days,
Book 75 - David Toop "Ocean Of Sound"
Dec. 6th, 2021 11:25 pmDavid Toop "Ocean Of Sound" (Serpents Tail)
It seems as if every book title has to have a subtitle these days and Ocean of Sound is no exception: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds provides a useful clue to Toop's wide-ranging interests. The book discusses ambient music in passing, touching on Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, The Orb, Mixmaster Morris, Jon Hassell, Harold Budd, Scanner, Paul Schütze, Pauline Oliveros, Thomas Köner and others. It also explores more wide-ranging musical points of reference, such as John Cage, Claude Debussy, Luigi Russolo, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Riley, Derek Bailey, R. Murray Schafer and John Oswald.
But it's also about virtual reality, shamanism, semi-mythical invented instruments, science fiction, post-modernism, environmental sound, the digital revolution, and more. One moment Toop will recount a dream, the next he'll be discussing post-modern philosophy, and then it's on to an autobiographical episode or an interview with a musician. Trivia, theory, anecdote: it's all here.
Ocean of Sound is a survey of the disintegration of all music and sound in the twentieth century, taking Debussy's encounters with gamelan music as a possible point of departure. For Toop, it has become increasingly difficult to tell music apart from background noise, and increasingly unnecessary to differentiate. Music has lost the plot: narrative and structure have been replaced by decentring and formlessness. Space has become more important to music than time.
I'll admit to having in the past found Toop's writing opaque: shoe-horned into a record review or magazine interview, speculation of the sort that fills Ocean of Sound often seems irrelevant. Here, however, everything coalesces, everything makes sense.
It's easily the best music book I've read in years, articulate and enlightening. This is true however much I disagree with Toop's generally positive attitude towards the musical trends he surveys.
At one point he writes: "Blankness - at best a stillness which suggests, rightly or wrongly, political passivity; at worst, a numbness which confirms it - may be one aspect of losing the anchor, circling around an empty centre or whatever the condition is. But openness, another symptom of the condition, may be more significant." I find his willingness to promote post-modern escapism and ignore the "political passivity" which these musical trends breed to be a little disagreeable, but it's a mark of Toop's ability to deal with such substantial issues that his ideas are so provocative. Recommended.
It seems as if every book title has to have a subtitle these days and Ocean of Sound is no exception: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds provides a useful clue to Toop's wide-ranging interests. The book discusses ambient music in passing, touching on Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, The Orb, Mixmaster Morris, Jon Hassell, Harold Budd, Scanner, Paul Schütze, Pauline Oliveros, Thomas Köner and others. It also explores more wide-ranging musical points of reference, such as John Cage, Claude Debussy, Luigi Russolo, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Riley, Derek Bailey, R. Murray Schafer and John Oswald.
But it's also about virtual reality, shamanism, semi-mythical invented instruments, science fiction, post-modernism, environmental sound, the digital revolution, and more. One moment Toop will recount a dream, the next he'll be discussing post-modern philosophy, and then it's on to an autobiographical episode or an interview with a musician. Trivia, theory, anecdote: it's all here.
Ocean of Sound is a survey of the disintegration of all music and sound in the twentieth century, taking Debussy's encounters with gamelan music as a possible point of departure. For Toop, it has become increasingly difficult to tell music apart from background noise, and increasingly unnecessary to differentiate. Music has lost the plot: narrative and structure have been replaced by decentring and formlessness. Space has become more important to music than time.
I'll admit to having in the past found Toop's writing opaque: shoe-horned into a record review or magazine interview, speculation of the sort that fills Ocean of Sound often seems irrelevant. Here, however, everything coalesces, everything makes sense.
It's easily the best music book I've read in years, articulate and enlightening. This is true however much I disagree with Toop's generally positive attitude towards the musical trends he surveys.
At one point he writes: "Blankness - at best a stillness which suggests, rightly or wrongly, political passivity; at worst, a numbness which confirms it - may be one aspect of losing the anchor, circling around an empty centre or whatever the condition is. But openness, another symptom of the condition, may be more significant." I find his willingness to promote post-modern escapism and ignore the "political passivity" which these musical trends breed to be a little disagreeable, but it's a mark of Toop's ability to deal with such substantial issues that his ideas are so provocative. Recommended.
Book 75 - David Toop "Ocean Of Sound"
Dec. 6th, 2021 11:48 pmDavid Toop "Ocean Of Sound" (Serpents Tail)
It seems as if every book title has to have a subtitle these days and Ocean of Sound is no exception: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds provides a useful clue to Toop's wide-ranging interests. The book discusses ambient music in passing, touching on Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, The Orb, Mixmaster Morris, Jon Hassell, Harold Budd, Scanner, Paul Schütze, Pauline Oliveros, Thomas Köner and others. It also explores more wide-ranging musical points of reference, such as John Cage, Claude Debussy, Luigi Russolo, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Riley, Derek Bailey, R. Murray Schafer and John Oswald.
But it's also about virtual reality, shamanism, semi-mythical invented instruments, science fiction, post-modernism, environmental sound, the digital revolution, and more. One moment Toop will recount a dream, the next he'll be discussing post-modern philosophy, and then it's on to an autobiographical episode or an interview with a musician. Trivia, theory, anecdote: it's all here.
Ocean of Sound is a survey of the disintegration of all music and sound in the twentieth century, taking Debussy's encounters with gamelan music as a possible point of departure. For Toop, it has become increasingly difficult to tell music apart from background noise, and increasingly unnecessary to differentiate. Music has lost the plot: narrative and structure have been replaced by decentring and formlessness. Space has become more important to music than time.
I'll admit to having in the past found Toop's writing opaque: shoe-horned into a record review or magazine interview, speculation of the sort that fills Ocean of Sound often seems irrelevant. Here, however, everything coalesces, everything makes sense.
It's easily the best music book I've read in years, articulate and enlightening. This is true however much I disagree with Toop's generally positive attitude towards the musical trends he surveys.
At one point he writes: "Blankness - at best a stillness which suggests, rightly or wrongly, political passivity; at worst, a numbness which confirms it - may be one aspect of losing the anchor, circling around an empty centre or whatever the condition is. But openness, another symptom of the condition, may be more significant." I find his willingness to promote post-modern escapism and ignore the "political passivity" which these musical trends breed to be a little disagreeable, but it's a mark of Toop's ability to deal with such substantial issues that his ideas are so provocative. Recommended.
It seems as if every book title has to have a subtitle these days and Ocean of Sound is no exception: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds provides a useful clue to Toop's wide-ranging interests. The book discusses ambient music in passing, touching on Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Aphex Twin, The Orb, Mixmaster Morris, Jon Hassell, Harold Budd, Scanner, Paul Schütze, Pauline Oliveros, Thomas Köner and others. It also explores more wide-ranging musical points of reference, such as John Cage, Claude Debussy, Luigi Russolo, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Terry Riley, Derek Bailey, R. Murray Schafer and John Oswald.
But it's also about virtual reality, shamanism, semi-mythical invented instruments, science fiction, post-modernism, environmental sound, the digital revolution, and more. One moment Toop will recount a dream, the next he'll be discussing post-modern philosophy, and then it's on to an autobiographical episode or an interview with a musician. Trivia, theory, anecdote: it's all here.
Ocean of Sound is a survey of the disintegration of all music and sound in the twentieth century, taking Debussy's encounters with gamelan music as a possible point of departure. For Toop, it has become increasingly difficult to tell music apart from background noise, and increasingly unnecessary to differentiate. Music has lost the plot: narrative and structure have been replaced by decentring and formlessness. Space has become more important to music than time.
I'll admit to having in the past found Toop's writing opaque: shoe-horned into a record review or magazine interview, speculation of the sort that fills Ocean of Sound often seems irrelevant. Here, however, everything coalesces, everything makes sense.
It's easily the best music book I've read in years, articulate and enlightening. This is true however much I disagree with Toop's generally positive attitude towards the musical trends he surveys.
At one point he writes: "Blankness - at best a stillness which suggests, rightly or wrongly, political passivity; at worst, a numbness which confirms it - may be one aspect of losing the anchor, circling around an empty centre or whatever the condition is. But openness, another symptom of the condition, may be more significant." I find his willingness to promote post-modern escapism and ignore the "political passivity" which these musical trends breed to be a little disagreeable, but it's a mark of Toop's ability to deal with such substantial issues that his ideas are so provocative. Recommended.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}