Spectres I - Composing Listening

Spectres I - Composing Listening / 228-page paperback / Bilingual English & French / Shelter Press (France)

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Spectres is an annual publication dedicated to sound and music experimentation, co-published by Shelter Press and Ina GRM.

The first issue presents a series of texts by composers (Félicia Atkinson, François Bayle, Brunhild Ferrari, Stephen O'Malley, Jim O'Rourke, Éliane Radigue, Chris Watson...) who discuss personal dimension in the practice of experimental sound art and music.

This book has been conceived as both a prism and a manual. Following the “traditional” arc of electroacoustic composition (listen—record—compose—deploy—feel), each of the contributions collected together here focuses in on a personal aspect, a fragment of that thrilling territory that is sonic and musical experimentation.

Although the term “experimental music” may now have be understood as referring to a genre, or even a particular style, we ought to hold on to the original use of this term, which was based more on an approach than on any particular aesthetic line to be followed. The experimental is first and foremost a spirit, the spirit of the exploration of unknown territories, a spirit of invention which sees musical composition more as a voyage into uncertain territories than as a self-assured approach working safe within the bosom of fully mapped out and recognized lands.