Category Archives: live sound

a voice, uncanny instrument

Posted on November 7, 2015 by davidtoop

The Quiet Coach on a train is often a site of tension. So when three male off-shore workers, all of them drunk as wasps drowning in a whiskey vat, decided to occupy a table just by the sign that said … Continue reading →

Posted in into the maelstrom, live sound, live talk | 1 Comment

Skin and Bone Listening

Posted on December 15, 2014 by davidtoop

How to be, where to be, in a space, with sound, with other bodies? For me, in relation to what performance is becoming, this has been the biggest question of the past year. What does it mean to hear? What … Continue reading →

Posted in into the maelstrom, live sound | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

that lead beneath brambles to the bodies and minds of others

Posted on September 7, 2014 by davidtoop

The book jacket is designed by Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginia Woolf. Her drawing for the front of the jacket is of trees and grasses, many black pen lines pulling and curling in vortical movement, little differentiation made between figure … Continue reading →

Posted in into the maelstrom, live sound, writing sound | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Who will go mad with me

Posted on November 24, 2013 by davidtoop

We were on Dartmoor, Brent Fore Hill at Ball Gate to be exact. The date was the 29th July, 1971, though there was little evidence of summer to be heard in the howling wind. During the same year I was … Continue reading →

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Sound Thinking: Stuart Marshall’s Idiophonics

Posted on July 10, 2013 by davidtoop

Wood striking wood, quick, hard, BOK! Impact sound sprays out, an omni-directional striking of all reflective surfaces and returning through time to the distributed centres of listening, the BOK-space of audition. This is the basis of Stuart Marshall’s composition known … Continue reading →

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FLAT TIME/sounding: the absent desire object

Posted on December 11, 2012 by davidtoop

A question to be asked: why compose for improvisers? Questions are directed at time: what are the possibilities for articulating time? Improvisations splinter time. Hit a sheet of glass with a hammer and if the tap achieves the right velocity … Continue reading →

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Why do we have to be quiet tonight: Christian Marclay’s Everyday

Posted on October 15, 2012 by davidtoop

Everyday, a struggle with language, with time. Just to say something simple: on Saturday night I went to a concert, but to see it, to hear it? What we have learned from gender and language is that these problems are … Continue reading →

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harp on fire: Rhodri Davies

Posted on October 9, 2012 by davidtoop

Recently I’ve been watching YouTube clips of Max Wall performing in his role as Professor Wallofski – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEU8Hr4nqV8. The weirdness of antiquity hangs over this kind of comedy but unlike other entertainers of the Music Hall era, Wall’s influence (on … Continue reading →

Posted in instrumentality, into the maelstrom, live sound | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments