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.
David Toop’s first music book, Rap Attack, applied his wide-ranging knowledge and peerless musical ear to the music of a very specific time and place: New York City in the late 1970s and early ’80s, when hip-hop was first getting rolling. What his second book lacked in specificity it made up tenfold in breadth and imagination. Ocean of Sound is partly a mediation on immersive sound and the development of modern music, but there’s no single term that is adequate to describe what Toop has accomplished here.
An exploration of Debussy’s experience with Gamelan music at the 1889 Paris Exposition leads Toop to probe the nature of 20th century musical experience, but his path through it all is meandering and non-linear. So Toop talks to David Lynch about “Twin Peaks” and the Julee Cruise album Floating Into the Night, shares thoughts on the sonic alchemy of Joe Meek and follows them into an interview with Lee Perry about his Black Ark studio, and figures out the meaning of Deep Listening with Pauline Oliveros. The book’s dream-like structure shouldn’t obscure Toop’s scholarship; there’s plenty to learn here, and it’s far more than extended reverie. Mixing interviews, criticism, history, and memory, Toop moves seamlessly between sounds, styles, genres, and eras, using listening as a tool in a search for a deeper understanding. –Mark Richardson
