Ocean of Sound  

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"Against Nature mixed observations, often satirical, of the artistic and social atmosphere of the period with Huysmans's own adventures in imaginal esoterica. On the one hand, there were performances such as the total-art spectacle of Paul Napoléon Roinard's Cantique des Cantiques, staged by Paul Fort at the Théâtre Moderne in 1891, in front of an audience which included Debussy and the occult-poet Joseph Péladan. The poetry was augmented by music, colour projections and perfume sprayed rather ineffectually from the theatre boxes and balcony. Fights broke out and shots were fired near the ticket office. On the other hand, Huysmans was influenced by French occultists such as the Abbé Boullan. At one point, he found himself caught up in a magical war. Despite defending himself with miraculous hosts, he claimed that at bedtime he was being beaten on the head by "fluidic blows"."--Ocean of Sound (1995) by David Toop


"[Ocean of Sound 's] parallels aren't music books at all, but rather Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Michel Leiris's L'Afrique fantôme, William Gibson's Neuromancer ... David Toop is our Calvino and our Leiris, our Gibson. Ocean of Sound is as alien as the 20th century, as utterly Now as the 21st. An essential mix." --The Wire

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Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imaginary Worlds (1995) is a book by David Toop published by Serpent's Tail.

It is Toop's second book and is centered on ambient music which he defines as music that "taps into the disturbing, chaotic undertow of the environment". As an aural companion to the book.

According to AllMusic's John Bush, all of the songs compiled for the album recapitulate the theme of the book—"that Les Baxter, Aphex Twin, The Beach Boys, Herbie Hancock, King Tubby and My Bloody Valentine are all related by their effect on sound pioneering."

A two-CD set was released with the book in early 1996.

Contents

Blurb

"David Toop's second book covers a vast expanse of music. His tour-de-force survey describes a dissonant and invigorating clash of music and noise from western classical to Javanese gamelan, from Claude Debussy to Miles Davis to Brian Eno, from disco to techno to ambient. He discusses the changes in our sound world caused by the global reach of radio and recordings, and shows himself a rigorous pluralist, open to all styles and forms, but unafraid to offer robust criticism in any musical sphere."

Contents

Prologue : fragments and mantras -- Memory -- If you find earth boring -- Scanning : aether talk -- Burial rites -- Content in a void -- Altered states I : landscape -- Altered states II : fourth world -- Altered states III : crystal world -- Altered states IV : machine -- Altered states V : lucid dreaming -- Altered states VI : nature -- Theatre of sound -- Ocean of sound


2-CD compilation

Ocean Of Sound (album)

A two-disc, cross-licensed "various artists" compilation contains 32 tracks culled from a variety of musical sources, including dub, exotica, free jazz, and field recordings. Toop compiled the recordings to serve as both a historical survey of ambient music and an aural companion to the book. It was released in January 1996 by Virgin Records. It was well received by music critics and finished fourth in the voting for The Village Voice 's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. The album later went out of print.

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