The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop

Politics & Social Sciences

TOOP, David

Social Sciences

South End Pr

A major new work from one of the world's most erudite, intellectual, and influential thinkers and writers about sound and music.&gt;

Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener

Arts & Photography

Music

Continuum Intl Pub Group

Sinister Resonance begins with the premise that sound is a haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location is ambiguous and whose existence is transitory. The intangibility of sound is uncanny – a phenomenal presence in the head, at its point of source and all around. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there.The history of listening must be constructed from the narratives of myth and fiction, 'silent' arts such as painting, the resonance of architecture, auditory artefacts and nature. In such contexts, sound often functions as a metaphor for mystical revelation, forbidden desires, formlessness, the unknown, and the unconscious. As if reading a map of hitherto unexplored territory, Sinister Resonance deciphers sounds and silences buried within the ghostly horrors of Arthur Machen, Shirley Jackson, Charles Dickens, M.R. James and Edgar Allen Poe, Dutch genre painting from Rembrandt to Vermeer, artists as diverse as Francis Bacon and Juan Munoz, and the writing of many modernist authors including Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, and James Joyce.

Continuum

In this first installment of acclaimed music writer David Toop's interdisciplinary and sweeping overview of free improvisation, Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970 introduces the philosophy and practice of improvisation (both musical and otherwise) within the historical context of the post-World War II era. Neither strictly chronological, or exclusively a history, Into the Maelstrom investigates a wide range of improvisational tendencies: from surrealist automatism to stream-of-consciousness in literature and vocalization; from the free music of Percy Grainger to the free improvising groups emerging out of the early 1960s (Group Ongaku, Nuova Consonanza, MEV, AMM, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble); and from free jazz to the strands of free improvisation that sought to distance itself from jazz. In exploring the diverse ways in which spontaneity became a core value in the early twentieth century as well as free improvisation's connection to both 1960s rock (The Beatles, Cream, Pink Floyd) and the era of post-Cagean indeterminacy in composition, Toop provides a definitive and all-encompassing exploration of free improvisation up to 1970, ending with the late 1960s international developments of free music from Roscoe Mitchell in Chicago, Peter Brötzmann in Berlin and Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg in Amsterdam.

Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970

Bloomsbury Academic

In this first installment of acclaimed music writer David Toop's interdisciplinary and sweeping overview of free improvisation, Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970 introduces the philosophy and practice of improvisation (both musical and otherwise) within the historical context of the post-World War II era. Neither strictly chronological, or exclusively a history, Into the Maelstrom investigates a wide range of improvisational tendencies: from surrealist automatism to stream-of-consciousness in literature and vocalization; from the free music of Percy Grainger to the free improvising groups emerging out of the early 1960s (Group Ongaku, Nuova Consonanza, MEV, AMM, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble); and from free jazz to the strands of free improvisation that sought to distance itself from jazz. In exploring the diverse ways in which spontaneity became a core value in the early twentieth century as well as free improvisation's connection to both 1960s rock (The Beatles, Cream, Pink Floyd) and the era of post-Cagean indeterminacy in composition, Toop provides a definitive and all-encompassing exploration of free improvisation up to 1970, ending with the late 1960s international developments of free music from Roscoe Mitchell in Chicago, Peter Brötzmann in Berlin and Han Bennink and Misha Mengelberg in Amsterdam.

Employing intensified studies into World Music in relation to popular (as well as marginalized) contemporary trends, David Toop has created one of the most distinctive histories of modern music thinking for our times. Flutter Echo is his memoir of a life enchanted with all aspects of music both composed and abstract. In fascinating detail, Toop explores his personal growth as a practicing musician, visual artist, and witness to some of the most significant events in modern music history. From recording for Brian Eno's Obscure Records imprint in 1975 and co-publishing the radical music magazines Musics and Collusion to developing music programming for the BBC and releasing recordings he personally made of Yanomami Shaman rituals—from working with artists such as creative pop icon Bjork to Jamaican dub pioneer Prince Far-I—Toop has experienced one of the most interesting careers in the dynamic world of contemporary sound. Musician, listener, scholar, reporter, humanitarian, parent, iconoclast—David Toop brings his own life in music to focus in a remarkable, engaging read.

Flutter Echo

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Ecstatic Peace Library

David Toop's extraordinary work of sonic history travels from the rainforests of Amazonas to the megalopolis of Tokyo via the work of artists as diverse as Brian Eno, Sun Ra, Erik Satie, Kate Bush, Kraftwerk and Brian Wilson. Beginning in 1889 at the Paris exposition when Debussy first heard Javanese music performed, Ocean of Sound channels the competing instincts of 20th century music into an exhilarating, path-breaking account of ambient sound.

Ocean of Sound: Ambient sound and radical listening in the age of communication

Serpent's Tail

Rap Attack 2

An extraordinary work of sonic history that travels from the rainforests of the Amazon to virtual Las Vegas, from erik Satie to the Velvet Underground, from the new digital technology to the sounds of war, in exploration of a new musical culture. Also includes extensive discography and bibliography.

Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds

Exotica takes a look at the music and people behind some of the world's most witty, experimental and adventurous sound recordings. Since the invention of the microphone, people have experimented with sound, putting everything from thunderstorms and dolphin sounds, medical operations, native jungle drums and junkyard trash down on vinyl. Notions of the exotic have inspired popular music and musicians in all fields from classical, through "easy listening" to rap - from Stravinsky to the Boo-Yah T.R.I.B.E David Toop takes the reader through the 20th century's fascination with exotica, its icons and practitioners, taking in the work of Les Baxter, the meaning of Carmen Miranda, leopard skin leotards and pink fluffy cubicles, elevator music and more. Included are interviews with Burt Bacharach, Ornette Coleman, Bill Laswell, YMO's Haroumi Hosono, and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Exotica: Fabricated Soundscapes in a Real World

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by TOOP, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by TOOP, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by TOOP, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Rap Attack: African Jive to New York Hip Hop

Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener

Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener

Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970

Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970

Flutter Echo

Ocean of Sound: Ambient sound and radical listening in the age of communication

Rap Attack 2

Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds

Exotica: Fabricated Soundscapes in a Real World