quoted 1 line david toop, author of "rap attack" and "ocean of sound", will come to> david toop, author of "rap attack" and "ocean of sound", will come to
There's a review of "Ocean of Sound" (US $16.99 paperback) in the current
edition of the L.A. Weekly (main free weekly newspaper in Los Angeles), in
case anyone is interested. The book sounds interesting. Apparently Scanner
is given some column inches, among other things.
Sample review snippet (swiped without permission):
[Snip]
One of Ocean's more unsettling subjects is Robin Rimbaud, who
records under the name Scanner. With his home-built tool of the same
name, Rimbaud picks phone conversations out of the air and layers
them into sound collages. He has released several discs, and has also
performed all-night scanner excursions at the Electronic Lounge, a
London club he helped organize. The idea that any conversation we
have can be snatched and subsumed into a musical composition at the
moment we're having it is frightening, and morally questionable besides.
[Hah hah - Ed.] But listening to these records, Toop accurately notes,
"is a compulsive experience" where "banal talk is revealed as a Trojan
Horse carrying other levels of communication."
"Ocean of Sound" is often a thrilling read, faltering only when
Toop loses critical perspective. Defending against the common critical
charge that most of today's Trance/Ambient scene is regressive
[Shurely shome mishteak? - Ed.], the music itself too sugary to induce
sleep and too repetitive to induce anything else [Duh ... - Ed.], Toop
argues that this is "the 1960s'/70s'/80s' retro future rolled into a
package too open, loose and scruffy to be anything other than a
manifestion of real commitment and enthusiasm." But he doesn't say just
what these artists and participants are so committed to/enthusiastic
about. If there's a sociopolitical component to contemporary Ambient
music beyond soothing the documented-to-death sense of isolation and
loneliness that stalks the information superhighway [HAH HAH - Ed.],
Toop fails to identify it.
Maybe it's beside the point, though, to challenge "Ocean of Sound"
for its periodic critical lapses. More than anything else, this is a
celebration, a vindication of sorts, for a genre (or related set of
genres) much maligned for its passivity and lack of depth. [I guess
Mr. Reviewer hasn't learned the difference between "Ambient" and
"Newage (rhymes with "sewage") - Ed.]
[Snip]
I, of course would NEVER stoop so low as to merely include the most contentious
parts of an extremely misguided critic's review, now would I??? :-)
- Greg