The Music: An Album in Words

In the last hundred years – between the invention of the microphone and the computer – music has undergone a profound revolution. No longer confined to specifically designed instruments, we are now making music out of anything. Why use a guitar when you could use a lawnmower? Why use a lawnmower when you can use an explosion?

The Music evokes a shifting sonic landscape in precise detail: Chinese concrete slowly hardening, overlaid by a splintering cassette tape in the stereo of a car mid-crash. The noise of 73,984 insects hitting number plates followed by that of a drill striking oil deep beneath the earth’s surface. Or just the silence of two unfamiliar people as they look up at the night sky.

As well as being a description of an imagined album, this book is a manifesto for sound, challenging how we hear the world itself, while listening to stories about humanity and our place in that world.

Paperback, 224 pages.
Measures 12.9 x 19.8 cm.