Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music

Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music attempts to map the sonic and discursive terrain of the new culture of sound that has emerged over the past half-century--and, particularly, in the last decade. This new audio culture largely ignores the conventional hierarchy that distinguishes "art music" from "popular music" and the segregation of music into genres such as "classical music," "jazz," "rock," and "dance music." Instead, it builds networks and alliances across these boundaries and reveals that cutting-edge music and sound art today is happening in an experimental zone where all these musics meet and cross-fertilize.

The tests included in this volume are drawn from a heterogenous array of sources. Statements by composers, improvisers, and producers appear alongside essays by theorists and critics who provide lines of connection and historical contexts. The book explores musical practices such as open form composition, improvised music, DJ Culture, experimental music and electronica, offering a snapshot and geneaology of today's most vital and radical music.

The book includes writings by: Jacques Attali, John Cage, Simon Reynolds, Brian Eno, Glenn Gould, Umberto Eco, Michael Nyman, Ornette Coleman, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and many others.