Sinister Resonance

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.

Autorentext

David Toop is a musician, author and professor of Audio Culture and Improvisation at London College of Communication, UK. He has published five books including Ocean of Sound, Rap Attack and Sinister Resonance. Exhibitions curated include Sonic Boom for the Hayward Gallery, and Playing John Cage for Arnolfini Bristol. His first album, New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments, was released on Brian Eno's Obscure label in 1975 and he has collaborated with many improvising musicians and artists.

Inhalt

Section one: Aerial

1. Drowned by voices
2. Each echoing opening; each muffled closure
3. Dark senses
4. Writhing sigla
5. The jagged dog
   Section two: Vessels and Volumes
6. Act of silence
7. Art of silence
8. A conversation piece
   Section three: Spectral
9. Chair creaks, but no one sits there
   Section four: Interior Resonance
10. Snow falling on snow
    Coda: Distant Voices
    Acknowledgements
    Notes
    Index