The Significance of Sound
London-based musician, writer and curator David Toop compiled a series of ten “field recording” tracks titled Soundscape available with the July/September issue of UOVO Magazine. Thanks to matching articles in the magazine those of us with no previous contact with the field are able to truly dive into what Toop describes as “the significance of sound and silence in human society.”
After digesting the essay that serves as introduction to the reading, it is quite easy to appreciate the importance of this emerging medium in the context of the environmentalist struggle. In the words of its author, the (unofficial) sample offered above aims to examine “the close relationship between an environment and its soundscape,” as “part of a larger project entitled Sounds from Dangerous Places,” defining dangerous in terms of ecological devastation.
Peter Cusack drills on the scope of Sounds from Dangerous Places by asking, among other questions, “what insights can sound offer into the environmental, social and political contexts of a ‘dangerous place’?” As someone who grew up in an oil rich nation I can’t avoid to go back in time when listening to Cusack’s piece, reflecting on the muted sounds of possibility that were overpowered by the 24/7 cacophony of mind-numbing progress.