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lanadelgray's review
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Toop's writing, like his sound art, invites meditation. Part monograph and part memoir, Sinister Resonance brings us on a haunted house ride through a lifetime of art and influence. This does make for some fumbling in the dark - Toop's breadth of sources required several trips to Wikipedia for illumination - but most of these incisive explorations of sound (particularly Duchamp and Joyce) take a consistent and ear-opening critical approach. I left with an entirely new and simple framework for exploring art, a little like reading the much-referenced John Berger for the first time.
Despite the heady topics, Toop writes approachably and with his own distinct musicality.
Despite the heady topics, Toop writes approachably and with his own distinct musicality.
arnzen's review
4.0
Toop likes to riff on lists of examples -- it's a very academic book -- yet I'm inspired by his emphasis on the weirdness of sound and the way it carries a sinister subtext. I'm getting ideas from this book for my horror fiction. A good read.
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