The electronic medium allows any audible sound to be contextualized as music. This creates unique structural possibilities as spectrum, dynamics, space, and time become continuous dimensions of musical articulation. What we hear in electronic music ventures beyond what we traditionally characterize as musical sound and challenges our auditory perception, on the one hand, and our imagination, on the other. Based on an extensive listening study conducted over four years, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of the cognitive processes involved in the experience of electronic music. It pairs artistic practice with theories from a range of disciplines to communicate how this music operates on perceptual, conceptual, and affective levels. Looking at the common and divergent ways in which our minds respond to electronic sound, it investigates how we build narratives from our experience of electronic music and situate ourselves in them.

Sonic Identity at the Margins convenes the interdisciplinary work of 17 academics, composers, and performers to examine sonic identity from the 19th century to the present. Recognizing the myriad aspects of identity formation, the authors in this volume adopt methodological approaches that range from personal accounts and embodied expression to archival research and hermeneutic interpretation. They examine real and imagined spaces—from video games and monument sites to films and depictions of outer space—by focusing on sonic creation, performance, and reception. Drawing broadly from artistic and performance disciplines, the authors reimagine the roles played by music and sound in constructing notions of identity in a broad array of musical experiences, from anti-slavery songsters to Indigenous tunes and soundscapes, noise and multimedia to popular music and symphonic works. Exploring relationships between sound and various markers of identity—including race, gender, ability, and nationality—the authors explore challenging, timely topics, including the legacies of slavery, indigeneity, immigration, and colonial expansion. In heeding recent calls to decolonize music studies and confront its hegemonic methods, the authors interrogate privileged perspectives embedded in creating, performing, and listening to sound, as well as the approaches used to analyze these experiences.

BELIEVE IN MAGIC tells the story of Heavenly Recordings in thirty vignettes, photography and ephemera, all of which relate to landmark records, moments and characters in the label's first three decades.

A label responsible for creating satellite communities of fans around the world and at all the major festivals, Heavenly was set up by Jeff Barrett in 1990 after several years working for Factory and Creation as the acid house revolution was in full swing; early releases set the tone and tempo for the mood of the decade to come - their first single was produced by perhaps the most revered acid house DJ of them all, Andrew Weatherall; and this was quickly followed by era-defining singles from Saint Etienne, Flowered Up and Manic Street Preachers, music which perhaps captures the flavour of the early '90s better than any other.

Heavenly was always tuned to an aesthetic that was sensitive to the anarchic spirt of the times; defiantly eclectic with a radar set to taste and a never-ending commitment to discovering new talent. In 1994 they set up The Heavenly Sunday Social, which became one of the most influential and mythologised clubs in recent British history, where the Chemical Brothers - then the Dust Brothers - made their name. For thirteen weeks, it was the hottest nightclub on the planet. For 180 demented acolytes in a basement room below the Albany pub.

Over nearly 200 releases in thirty years Heavenly have consistently produced some of the most exciting music across all genres, and this book collects rare artwork and wild anecdotal evidence into a celebration of a label that is one of the most beloved institutions on the independent landscape.

BELIEVE IN MAGIC includes contributions from Manic Street Preachers, Beth Orton, Doves, Don Letts, Edwyn Collins, Confidence Man, Mark Lanegan, King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard.

The Beatles. The Beach Boys. Blur, Bowie, Kylie Minogue, Kate Bush and Coldplay. EMI was one of the big four record companies, with some of the biggest names in the history of recorded music on its roster. Dominating the music industry for over 100 years, by 2010 EMI Group had reported massive pre-tax losses. The group was divided up and sold in 2011. How could one of the greatest recording companies of the 20th century have ended like this? With interviews from insiders and music industry experts, Eamonn Forde pieces together the tragic end to a financial juggernaut and a cultural institution in forensic detail. The Final Days of EMI: Selling the Pig is the story of the British recording industry, laid bare in all its hubris and glory.

In this book, Barbara Ellison and Thomas B. W. Bailey lay out and explore the mystifying and evanescent musical territory of 'sonic phantoms': auditory illusions within the musical material that convey a 'phantasmatic' presence. Structured around a large body of compositional work developed by Ellison over the past decade, sonic phantoms are revealed and illustrated as they arise through a diverse array of musical sources, materials, techniques, and compositional tools: voices (real and synthetic), field recordings, instrument manipulation, object amplification, improvisation, and recording studio techniques. Somehow inherent in all music--and perhaps in all sound--sonic phantoms lurk and stalk with the promise of mystery and elevation. We just need to conjure them.

In Performance and Technological Mediation in Popular Music, the relationship between performance, technological mediation, and the sense of live presence is investigated through a series of case studies related to popular music products. Alessandro Bratus explores technological mediation as a process of authentication that involves a chain of interconnected instances that have their roots in the cultural context in which the media products are designed to be marketed, and that also shape its recording technique and post-production. The book analyzes posthumous records, a peculiar case of the organization of recorded tracks made in absentia of their original performers that puts forward the possibility of an “otherworldly” collaboration between the living and the dead. Bratus also argues that the crucial significance of live performance for the construction of a personal, intimate relationship between performers and audiences reverberates in the audiovisual construction of the filmed concert, in which the spectator is put in the position of a witness rather than an active participant.

Known as the "Father of Festival Sound," Bill Hanley (b. 1937) made his indelible mark as a sound engineer at the 1969 WoodStock Music and Arts Fair. Hanley is credited with creating the sound of WoodStock, which literally made the massive festival possible. Stories of his on-the-fly solutions resonate as legend among festivalgoers, music lovers, and sound engineers. Since the 1950s his passion for audio has changed the way Audiences listen to and technicians approach quality live concert sound. John Kane examines Hanley's echoing impact on the entire field of sound engineering, that crucial but often-overlooked carrier wave of contemporary music. Hanley's innovations founded the sound reinforcement industry and launched a new area of technology, rich with clarity and intelligibility. By the early seventies the post-WoodStock festival mass gathering movement collapsed. The music industry shifted, and new sound companies surfaced. After huge financial losses and facing stiff competition, Hanley lost his hold on a business he helped create. By studying both his history during the festivals and his independent business ventures, Kane seeks to present an honest portrayal of Hanley and his acumen and contributions. Since 2011, Kane conducted extensive research, including over one hundred interviews with music legends from the Production and performance side of the industry. These carefully selected respondents witnessed Hanley's expertise at various events and venues like Lyndon B. Johnson's second inauguration, the Newport Folk/Jazz Festivals, the Beatles' final tour of 1966, the Fillmore East, Madison Square Garden, and more. The Last Seat in the House will intrigue and inform anyone who cares about the modern music industry.