Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture | 
 enlarge | Creators: Paul D. Miller, Steve Reich
Publisher: The MIT Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 45507
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 362
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0262633639
Dewey Decimal Number: 780.905
EAN: 9780262633635
ASIN: 0262633639
Publication Date: May 31, 2008
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Product Description
The groundbreaking mix CD that accompanies this book features Nam Jun Paik, the Dada Movement, John Cage, Sonic Youth, and many other examples of avant-garde music. Most of the CD's content comes from the archives of Sub Rosa, a legendary record label that has been the benchmark for archival sounds since the beginnings of electronic music. (For a complete list of audio credits, see below.)
If Rhythm Science was about the flow of things, Sound Unbound is about the remix--how music, art, and literature have blurred the lines between what an artist can do and what a composer can create. In Sound Unbound, Rhythm Science author Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid asks artists to describe their work and compositional strategies in their own words. These are reports from the front lines on the role of sound and digital media in an information-based society. The topics are as diverse as the contributors: composer Steve Reich offers a memoir of his life with technology, from tape loops to video opera; Miller himself considers sampling and civilization; novelist Jonathan Lethem writes about appropriation and plagiarism; science fiction writer Bruce Sterling looks at dead media; Ron Eglash examines racial signifiers in electrical engineering; media activist Naeem Mohaiemen explores the influence of Islam on hip hop; rapper Chuck D contributes "Three Pieces"; musician Brian Eno explores the sound and history of bells; Hans Ulrich Obrist and Philippe Parreno interview composer-conductor Pierre Boulez; and much more. "Press 'play,'" Miller writes, "and this anthology says 'here goes.'"
Contributors:
David Allenby, Pierre Boulez, Catherine Corman, Chuck D, Erik Davis, Scott De Lahunta, Manuel DeLanda, Cory Doctorow, Eveline Domnitch, Frances Dyson, Ron Eglash, Brian Eno, Dmitry Gelfand, Dick Hebdige, Lee Hirsch, Vijay Iyer, Ken Jordan, Douglas Kahn, Daphne Keller, Beryl Korot, Jaron Lanier, Joseph Lanza, Jonathan Lethem, Carlo McCormick, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid, Moby, Naeem Mohaiemen, Alondra Nelson, Keith and Mendi Obadike, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Pauline Oliveros, Philippe Parreno, Ibrahim Quraishi, Steve Reich, Simon Reynolds, Scanner aka Robin Rimbaud, Nadine Robinson, Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Alex Steinweiss, Bruce Sterling, Lucy Walker, Saul Williams, Jeff E. Winner.
On the CD:
- RadioMentale and Matthew Herbert, "Cool Noises"
- Martyn Bates/Allen Ginsberg, "Once Loved/A Footnote to 'Howl' (DJ Spooky Remix)"
- Jean Cocteau, "Le buste (DJ Spooky Remix)"
- Sun Ra, "Imagination"
- Mikhail/Gertrude Stein, "Untitled in CoF Minor/A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson (DJ Spooky Remix)"
- DJ Spooky vs. Rob Swift, "Scratch Battle"
- Marcel Duchamp/The Master Musicians of Joujouka/RadioMentale, "The Creative Act/Interview with George Heard Hamilton/Boujeloud (Solo Drums)/I Could Never Make That Music Again"
- Raymond Scott, "The Paperwork Explosion"
- Alter Echo/Pamela Z, "Perpetual Next/Pop Titles 'You'"*
- Liam Gillick/ RadioMentale and Aphex Twin, "Sarah (Los Angeles Soundtrack)/I Could Never Make That Music Again"
- James Joyce/Erik Satie, "Eolian Episode/Gnossiene (DJ Spooky Dub Version)"
- Steve Reich, "Reed Phase"
- Shukar/RadioMentale/Raoul Hausmann, "Cika-Laka/Cool Noises/Bbb"
- Augustos de Campos/Bill Laswell/To Rococo Rot, "Dias Dias Dias (Spoken by Caetano Veloso)/Above the Earth/Contacte"
- John Cage, "Rozart Mix"
- Antonin Artaud, "Pour Finir avec le Jugement de Dieu (To Have Done with God's Judgment) (DJ Spooky Remix)"
- DJ Spooky, "One Laptop Theme"
- Susan Deyhim, "The Spilled Cup (DJ Spooky Remix)"
- Raymond Scott, "General Motors: Futurama (Interstitial)"
- Marcel Duchamp/George Lewis and Aki Takase, "Erratum Musical (Score for Three Voices)/Voyage for Three"
- Bill Laswell/Rene Magritte, "Ghost Dub/Le Surrealisme et les Questions"
- Anthony Braxton and Evan Parker/Pauline Oliveros, "The First Set? Area 4 (Solo)/A Little Noise in the System (Moog System)"
- Bora Yoon, "// (DJ Spooky Remix)"
- Pierre Schaeffer, "Cinqetudes de bruits: Etude violette"
- Daniel Bernard Roumain and Ryuichi Sakamoto, "The Need to Be"**
- Phillip Glass, "Music in Fifths"
- Edgard Varese, "Poeme electronique"
- Iannis Xenakis, "Concret PH"
- Ryoji Ikeda, "One Minute"
- Sonic Youth, "Audience (DJ Spooky Remix)"
- Alter Echo/Ge-te Do-pe, "Aftermath of Creations Dub (in Three Parts)/Dong Lim"
- Terry Riley/Alter Echo, "Dorian Reeds/Aftermath of Creations Dub (in Three Parts)"
- Luigi Russolo/DJ Spooky, "Corale/FTP > Bundle/Conduit 23"
- Fanfare Savale/Vladimir Mayakovsky, "Rumba Lu Georgel/I Know the Power of Words"
- Droma/Trilok Gurtu and Bill Laswell, "Pilgrim's Song (Trala Shepa)/Kala"
- Nam Jun Paik, "Hommage a John Cage"
- Morton Subotnick/DJ Spooky, "Mandolin/Acid Bassline"
- The Master Musicians of Joujouka/Hans Arp, "Mali Mal Hal M'Halmaz/Boujeloud (Solo Drums)/Dada-Sprueche"
- Sub Swara/Kurt Schwitters, "Koli Stance/Anna Blume"
- Walter Ruttmann/Troupe from Taschingang, "Week End/Ache Lhamo"
- Raymond Scott, "Bendix 1: The Tomorrow People"
- Martyn Bates/Trinlem, "I Can't Look for You/The Palaces of Gesar's Family (DJ Spooky Remix)"
- Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky, "Incantation for Tape"
- Carsten Nicolai, "Time ... Dot(3)"
- William S. Burroughs and Iggy Pop with Techno Animal, "The Western Land"
*From Pamela Z's A Delay Is Better CD released by Starkland (www.starkland.com).
**"The Need to Be" is from DBR's album etudes4violin&electronix released on Thirsty Ear Recordings.
Special thanks for Editorial Assistance to Roy Christopher.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Sounds good, reads even better. July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is excellent. It comes with a a CD of some really excellent mashup too. I've really enjoyed the differnt writing styles and the great anecdotes that present themselves in this compilation of what is essentially a book of post-graduate papers on music and it's evolving relationship with the world. Delightfully rich with first person experience and gives you something to listen too in the background.Yummy for my sonic tummy.
Sound Has Never Transvered at Such Speeds! July 2, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sound Unbound brilliantly details the explosion of culteral diffusion in the 21st century as a result of advancements in technology. The book consists of several excellently written essays whose authors range from rappers to scientists, sampling various viewpioints from one another. DJ Spooky successfully conveys how both in the past and today, now more than ever, art is naturally derrivative; stemming from one source after another.
What a trip! June 14, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I just finished this one. If you're looking for insight from the myriad influential contributors, you'll find that and much more here. The book's themes run deep, weaving together music history and theory with meditations on technology, perception, and cultural zeitgeist. I went in curious how the ideas of Brian Eno, Bruce Sterling, Cory Doctorow, and Chuck D would cohere under the editorial hand of DJ Spooky. Color me surprised - it's an enlightening trip! A must-read!
DJ Spooky's Allstar Essay Compilation on Digital Culture & Sampling has much food for thought and it rocks June 13, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book shows off Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky's two biggest strengths, the mashup and the teamup. The big name roster didn't deliver scraps; they all provide thoughtful and entertaining essays, for example Jonathan Lethem's essay also features the key to that same essay showing where he "plagiarized" just about ever phrase in the proceeding few pages. Saul Williams, provides a pensive meditation on words as magic, something I was more used to hearing out of Grant Morrison or Alan Moore, but Williams is sincere and Smart. And the inclusion of unsung geniuses like Alex Steinweiss, the inventor of the record jacket (before him there was no art on albums, you only saw their spine at the store) pushes it over the top and into the zone. The included CD is way cool in and of itself; its easy to poopoo such ambitious works, but Spooky lays it all down with love not pretense, throwing snippets of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs -- all actual spoken word from the Sub Rosa archivce over some avantgarde classical like John Cage, and then enriched by textured groovy beats... Spooky's having a ball and sharing the fun
 Sub par amalgam. June 13, 2008
2 out of 12 found this review helpful
As a disclaimer I am only 100 pages in, but it's been enough to form an opinion, and warnt hose who might be buying this book based on its sub-title.
DJ Spooky is a farce. His writing lacks content, and is more concerned with flashy language and textual slight of hand. He seems to be doing a great job of fooling some people who are as disconnected as he is from DJ/Hip Hop/Sampling culture. Contrary to the back cover's summation of the accompanying cd the musical work is far from "groundbreaking." The drums are weak (ebay acquired sample library, or cheesy keyboard?), and That Subliminal Kid doesn't do much to work his loops aside from just looping them.
Some of the writing thus far has been worth it, some I've skipped outright as it has absolutely nothing to do with sampling, and some I've been dissatisfied with.
If you're looking for a book on sampling you'll have to do a fair amount of sifting here.
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