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Friday, April 10, 2009

READING :: MICRO BIONIC: RADICAL ELECTRONIC MUSIC AND SOUND ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY



I stumbled on a few excerpts from this upcoming book on contemporary electronic music and I thought I should spread the word. Looks like an interesting read covering lots of ground in this field.

M i c r o B i o n i c:
Radical Electronic Music and Sound Art in the 21st Century

As mainstream music consumers wait with baited breath for the next major musical upheaval a la punk rock or hip hop, a small core of tech-savvy, highly mobile individuals are re-shaping the aural landscape without the assurance of being part of any larger movement. Their ideologies, creative approaches, and end products differ wildly; but they do share a common bond of self-reliance, flexibility in the face of information overload, and a desire to take sound beyond the realm of mere entertainment.

Starting with the guerrilla media tactics of Industrial music in the late 1970s, Thomas Bey William Bailey charts an ongoing trend in electronic music: an increasing amount of sonic quality, recorded output and international contact, accomplished with a decreasing amount of tools, personnel, and capital investment. From the use of laptop computers to create massive avalanches of noise, to the establishment of micro-nations populated largely by sound artists, 21st century sound culture is expanding in its scope and popularity even as it shrinks in other respects.

The text of Micro Bionic is built up from exhaustive research into the world of audio extremity, including physical travel to the various ‘hot spots’ where these new sounds are made, and thousands of hours of immersion in live and recorded music. Numerous exclusive interviews with leading lights of the field were also conducted for this book: William Bennett (Whitehouse), Peter Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle / Coil), Peter Rehberg (Mego), John Duncan, Francisco López, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Bob Ostertag and many others weigh in with a diversity of thoughts and opinions that underscore the incredible diversity to be found within new electronic music itself. Micro-Bionic unveils a host of audio phenomena that range from the whimsical to the terrifying, and provides a perfect gateway into this parallel universe for the previously uninitiated. Over 330 pages of text- perhaps the first book of its kind in the English language.


The first hardback pressing of this book is limited to 100 copies. It is accompanied by an 11 track CD of new and previously released works by select artists discussed throughout the book.

CD TRACK LISTING:

1. Pita « Get Out 2 »
2. Fennesz « Fa »
3. COH « Beneath My Sun-Proof Eyelids, Truth Never Sleeps »
4. GOEM « Zes »
5. EVOL « Punani 7 excerpt »
6. Consumer Electronics « Crowd Pleaser (alternate mix) »
7. Leif Elggren « The North Is Protected »
8. Scott Arford « 60 La Scala »
9. John Duncan « excerpt from Tap Internal »
10. Merzbow « Anicca Part 3 (extract) »
11. Francisco Lopez « Untitled #151 »

A second "unlimited" paperback pressing is tentatively due out later this summer.

Curious? Read some excerpts

Like what you've read? Order this from Creation Books

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