A journalist and music historiographer, David Toop is the author of a pair of widely hailed books -- Rap Attack and Ocean of Sound (both Serpents Tail) -- as well as a contributing editor and columnist for U.K. experimental music magazine The Wire.
The A to Z of Electro
In its original incarnation, Electro was black science fiction teleported to the dancefloors of New York, Miami and LA; a super-stoopid fusion of video games, techno-pop, graffiti art, silver space suits and cyborg funk. Now that Electro is back, David Toop provides a thumbnail guide to the music that posed the eternal question: 'Watupski, bug byte?'
The A to Z of Dub David Toop is your guide on our whistlestop tour through the echo chamber
Steven Harvey I guess you know that David Toop and Sue Steward published Collusion in London back in the 80's
Past Futurist Arthur Russell died in obscurity of AIDS in 1992. Yet this New York composer was a true visionary, traversing dub, disco and Minimalism and anticipating the 90s obsession with musical hybrids. David Toop pays tribute.
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Books
OHM: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music [Amazon US] [BOX SET]
Track Listings Disc: 1
1. Tchaikovsky: Valse Sentimentale - Clara Rockmore
2. Oraision - Olivier Messiaen
3. Etude aux Chemins de Fer - Pierre Schaeffer
4. Williams Mix - John Cage
5. Klangstudie
6. Low Speed
7. Dripsody - Hugh Le Caine
8. Main Title from "Forbidden Planet" - Bebe Barron
9. Concertando Rubato: Elektronische Tanzsuite - Oskar Sala
10. Poème Électronique - Edgard Varèse
11. Sine Music (A Swarm of Butterflies Encountered over the Ocean) - Richard Maxfield
12. Apocalypse - Tod Dockstader
13. Kontakte - Karlheinz Stockhausen
14. Wireless Fantasy - Vladimir Ussachevsky
15. Philomel - Milton Babbitt
16. Spacecraft - M.E.V.
Disc: 2
1. Cindy Electronium - Raymond Scott
2. Pendulum Music - Steve Reich
3. Bye Bye Butterfly - Pauline Oliveros
4. Projection Esemplastic for White Noise - Joji Yuasa
5. Silver Apples of the Moon, Pt. 1 - Morton Subnotnick
6. Rainforest Version 1 - David Tudor
7. Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band - Terry Riley
8. Boat-Woman-Song - Holger Czukay
9. Music Promenade - Luc Ferrari
10. Rosace 3 - François Bayle
11. Mutations - Jean-Claude Risset
12. Hibiki/Hana/Ma - Iannis Xenakis
13. Map of 49's Dream the Two Systems of Eleven Sets of Galactic Intervals - La Monte Young
Disc: 3
1. Speech Songs: He Destroyed Her Image - Charles Dodge
2. Six Fantasies on a Poem by Thomas Campion: Her Song - Paul Lansky
3. Appalachian Grove I - Laurie Spiegel
4. En Phase/Hors Phase - Bernard Parmegiani
5. On the Other Ocean - David Behrman
6. Stria - John Chowning
7. Living Sound - Maryanne Amacher
8. Automatic Writing - Robert Ashley
9. Canti Illuminati - Alvin Curran
10. Music on a Long Thin Wire - Alvin Lucier
11. Melange - Klaus Schulze
12. Before and After Charm - Jon Hassell
13. Unfamiliar Wind (Leeks Hills) - Brian Eno
Tommy Boy - Greatest Beats Vol. 1 [1CD, Amazon US][more on Hip Hop] Spin: The four CDs of Tommy Boy's Greatest Beats aren't sequenced chronologically, but they tell the undeniable story of a music's growing pains, and they brilliantly trigger the nostalgic impulse. At the time, the fact that this music came from a zip code beginning with 9 just added to its novelty, but in retrospect it was a harbinger of the day when hip-hop would grow large enough to challenge New York chauvinism. --Spin Magazine. Liner Notes by David Toop