This comprehensive book presents a collection of writings by composers, performers, producers, philosophers and cultural theorists. It seeks to reflect the new audio culture as a discourse, a collection of terms and concepts gathered from across the cultural field and through a half-century of cultural history; a discourse that challenges aesthetic distinctions between 'high art' and 'pop' culture, highlighting the connections between vanguard music of today and the sonic experimentation of the past. It also presents a historical chronology of major events, a selected discography to support each section, and a glossary of terms.

Table of contents:

Part One: Theories

• I. Music and Its Others: Noise, Sound, Silence
• II. Modes of Listening
• III. Music in the Age of Electronic (Re)production

Part Two: Practices

• IV. The Open Work
• V. Experimental Musics
• VI. Improvised Musics
• VII. Minimalisms
• VIII. DJ Culture
• IX. Electronic Music and Electronica