Strange Sounds

"Tim Taylor deftly and insightfully brings concepts from science and technology studies to bear on contemporary world music and its antecedents. This book makes the machinery of music speak.." -Paul Rabinow, University of California, Berkeley ""This is one of the first books to demonstrate how sound technologies are socially embedded and reappropriated in a variety of musical cultures. Taylor shows that throughout the esoteric history of electronic music up to modern rave, the common issue remains how humans "give meaning to technology. Strange Sounds is a fascinating, wide-ranging, and provocative account of the incorporation of technology into one of the most important human social activities--music making.." -Trevor Pinch, Cornell University "Weaving together a richly interdisciplinary theoretical Trevor Pinch, Cornell Universityrounding, close attention to musical developments-- including Pierre Schaeffer's musique concrete, "space age" pop, world music sampling, electronic dance music, and the MP3 phenomenon--together with a commitment to understanding how musicians and listeners actually use technology, "Strange Sounds will be stimulating and engaging reading for anyone with an interest in the ways culture and technology interact." -Joseph Auner, SUNY-Stony Brook "Tim Taylor always makes music social, but never simply replaces the powerful materiality of sound with its sociology. "Strange Sounds is not simple ideological readings of musical texts but critical cultural studies of music at its best--work that brings a complex and serious piece of musical history out of the closet and into the lived foreground of music as social practice." -Steven Feld, NewYork University ..."Itrange Sounds is a book both ambitious in concept and interesting to read, and it offers many new insights on a fascinating topic.." -Hans-Joachim Braun Universitat der Bundeswehr Hamburg