Resonances - by Michael N Goddard & Benjamin Halligan & Nicola Spelman (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Resonances is a compelling collection of new essays by scholars, writers and musicians, all seeking to explore and enlighten this field of study. Noise seems to stand for a lack of aesthetic grace, to alienate or distract rather than enrapture. And yet the drones of psychedelia, the racket of garage rock and punk, the thudding of rave, the feedback of shoegaze and post-rock, the bombast of thrash and metal, the clatter of jungle and the stuttering of electronica, together with notable examples of avant-garde noise art, have all found a place in the history of contemporary musics, and are recognised as representing key evolutionary moments. Noise therefore is the untold story of contemporary popular music, and in a critical exploration of noise lies the possibility of a new narrative: one that is wide-ranging, connects the popular to the underground and avant-garde, fully posits the studio as a musical instrument, and demands new critical and theoretical paradigms of those seeking to write about music.

Review Quotes

"The collection itself is a diverse mix...Resonances is fairly highbrow. The book's language is intensively scholarly, and its appeal mostly academic." --Guy Crucianelli, PopMatters!

"When I taught my first sound studies survey in 2005, the number of booksavailable was quite small and the field felt, for lack of a better word, largely'knowable.' In the decade since, a stunning range of new offerings from a variety of publishers has become readily available, and sound studies is a far more expansive discipline. This fact is nowhere more evident than in Bloomsbury Academic's excellent sound studies catalog ... the scholarship here shows how adept the cultural study of sound can be at unearthing the thorny political and social tensions that define contemporary culture." --Nicholas C. Laudadio, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Journal of Popular Music Studies

"Resonances offers a conceptually diverse yet simultaneously minutely detailed investigation of noise that draws a line between popular music, cultural and sound studies. ... [Reverberations and Resonances] are a significant achievement, a comprehensive collection of thinking to date about where noise fits into our cultural lives, pointing forward towards a fertile development of the field." - Adam Behr, University of Edinburgh, UK, Popular Music

About the Author

Michael Goddard is Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Salford, UK. He has published research in media and aesthetic theory, Eastern European film and visual culture and anomalous forms of popular music.

Ben Halligan runs the Graduate Programme for the School of Media, Music and Performance at the University of Salford, UK, teaching in the areas of Critical Theory, Media Studies and Performance at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Nicola Spelman is Senior Lecturer in Popular Music at the University of Salford, UK.