- ISBN13: 9781852427436
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Ocean of Sound begins in 1889 at the Paris Exposition when Debussy first heard Javanese music performed. An ethereal culture absorbed in perfume, light and ambient sound developed in response to the intangibility of 20th century communications. David Toop traces the evolution of this culture, through Erik Satie to the Velvet Undergound; Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix.Amazon.com Review
A member of a radical editorial collective on the cutting edge of British … More >>
Tags: 20th century, amazon, century communications, cutting edge, david toop, debussy, erik satie, intangibility, jimi hendrix, miles davis, Ocean, ocean of sound, paris exposition, perfume, remainder mark, sound, velvet undergound
#1 by Anonymous on February 7, 2010 - 3:47 am
This is THE best music-related book I have ever read in my life (and I’ve read a lot). Buy this book.
Rating: 5 / 5
#2 by victimstance@mac.com on February 7, 2010 - 3:49 am
This is an amazing document on the sonic explorations of the last 100 years, from improv classical to backwords dub lines to the tweak tweak nob movements of our techno, this book is brought with a fun if not intoxicating writing style. the ending of this book is getting even better with jungle sounds (the nature not the genre)
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by Darren R. Chandler on February 7, 2010 - 4:57 am
I love to read about music, but there are so few good music writers it seems. This book approaches the development of incidental, ambient, experimental, avant garde, and world musics in a way that mimics the music itself – with random bursts of observations, anecdotes, interviews, and just plain bizarre missives. I encourage anyone with a sense of adventure and an open mind to grab a copy.
There is a similarly-titled double CD which came out to accompany the book, but I can’t see it on Amazon. It is as eclectic as the book and features a lot of the artists interviewed and mentioned – Sun Ra, Aphex Twin, and others. I have played the CD to death and would recommend it. You gotta respect a compilation that puts The Beach Boys right next to African Headcharge, or My Bloody Valentine next to Brian Eno – and makes it work so well.
The book also features a list of albums and artists in the appendix, which I found useful as a way of doing further research.
Another book in a similar vein is Kodwo Eshun’s “More Brilliant Than The Sun”, though it focuses solely on the innovators in electronic music.
Rating: 5 / 5
#4 by T. Ryan on February 7, 2010 - 6:21 am
If you like ambient, or….atmospheric music of any sort you should give this book a chance as it a nice erudite survey of the various genres and musicians that are linked to..or been influenced by ambient music. It is not a linear survey thru time, but rather this book reminds me of a map which Toop rolls around visiting here and there with a few jumps now and then as he discusses how in the last 100 years “music has reflected the world back to itself and to its listeners”. The writing is enjoyable, and full of poetry, such that I kept finding myself underlining odd bits and pieces every few pages and I wound up compiling them for myself for future reference. There is also a nice bibliography and discography at the end of the book.
Rating: 4 / 5
#5 by William Timothy Lukeman on February 7, 2010 - 7:06 am
As an eager but somewhat overwhelmed newcomer to the world of ambient music, I’ve found this overview to be informative & invaluable. It’s constructed like many ambient pieces: layers of information & exotica that overlap, shade into one another, and in many ways recreate in prose the experience of the music. Yet at the same time, there’s a clarity & focus to the writing, which becomes apparent as the reader flows from one topic to the next. By the end, I’d not only gained some real knowledge & understanding, I’d been given some excellent starting points for further exploration. An exemplary volume, highly recommended!
Rating: 5 / 5