Dark Sound

Author: D Ferrett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501325833
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
Dark sound carries the dense cultural weight of darkness; it is the undertow of music that embodies melancholy, desire, grief, violence, rage, pain, loss and longing. Compelling and unnerving, dark sound immerses bodies in the darkest moments and delves into the depths of our hidden inner selves. There is a strangely perverse appeal about music that conjures intense affective states and about sound that can move its listeners to the very edge of the sayable. Through a series of case studies that include Moor Mother, Anna Calvi, Björk, Chelsea Wolfe and Diamanda Galás, D Ferrett argues that the extreme limits and transgressions of dark sound not only imply the limits of language, but are moreover tied to a cultural and historical association between darkness and the feminine within music and music discourse. Whilst the oppressive and violent associations between darkness and femininity are acknowledged, the author challenges their value to misogynistic, racist, capitalist and patriarchal power, showing how dark sound is charged with social, creative and political momentum.

The Extravagance of Music

Author: David Brown
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319918184
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
This book explores the ways in which music can engender religious experience, by virtue of its ability to evoke the ineffable and affect how the world is open to us. Arguing against approaches that limit the religious significance of music to an illustrative function, The Extravagance of Music sets out a more expansive and optimistic vision, which suggests that there is an ‘excess’ or ‘extravagance’ in both music and the divine that can open up revelatory and transformative possibilities. In Part I, David Brown argues that even in the absence of words, classical instrumental music can disclose something of the divine nature that allows us to speak of an experience analogous to contemplative prayer. In Part II, Gavin Hopps contends that, far from being a wasteland of mind-closing triviality, popular music frequently aspires to elicit the imaginative engagement of the listener and is capable of evoking intimations of transcendence. Filled with fresh and accessible discussions of diverse examples and forms of music, this ground-breaking book affirms the disclosive and affective capacities of music, and shows how it can help to awaken, vivify, and sustain a sense of the divine in everyday life.

Epiphanies of the Ordinary

Author: Charlie Cleverly
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN: 1444701932
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 315

Book Description
Through his work as a vicar both in Paris and Oxford, Charlie Cleverly has become passionate about the need to feed our love for God through every means possible, and to find ways of holding on to the love we have for God. This book is the result of that passion. Exploring moments in the Bible where God breaks through into the daily run of life, EPIPHANIES OF THE ORDINARY shows how God used these moment to change the lives of key Bible characters, drawing out the parallels with how God might intervene in our lives. With every event we get a clearer picture of the rounded relationship God wants with each of us, and how this is built up through the ins and outs of daily interaction, and occasionally through life-changing revelations. Culturally relevant and highly readable, Charlie Cleverly's challenge to follow God with our whole hearts will help you move forwards with God, and grab hold once more of the deep enthusiasm for God's plans that we all long for.

Shadowlands and Songs of Light

Author: Kevin Ott
Publisher: BroadStreet Publishing Group LLC
ISBN: 1424552923
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Book Description
The Bible tells Christians not to grieve as the world grieves and to rejoice in their sufferings. Yet when author Kevin Ott lost his mother unexpectedly in 2010, he sank into a wintry depression. When life seemed the darkest, something surprising happened. While exploring eighteen C. S. Lewis books and thirteen U2 albums, he experienced tremendous “stabs of joy”—the unusual heaven-birthed joy that Lewis wrote about—in the midst of grief. This revelation not only pulled Kevin out of depression, it forever changed the way he experienced the love and joy of Christ. In Shadowlands and Songs of Light, you will:Learn fascinating details about C. S. Lewis, discover his unique definition of joy, understand how to apply his revelations about joy to suffering, and learn to recognize and cooperate with God’s strategic use of joy.Enjoy a grand tour of U2’s discography, with a special emphasis on their exploration of joy and suffering.Clearly understand, from the perspective of music theory explained in common terms, why the music of U2 is so emotionally powerful and how it serves as a perfect analogy for Lewis’s concepts of joy and the Christian ability to rejoice in suffering.Find inspiration from the personal stories of U2, especially the tragedies that engulfed their youth in Dublin, and see how they worked through that grief and discovered a joy that has kept the band together for over thirty-five years.When the out-of-control nature of the world and your weaknesses throw you off-balance, you can experience God’s grandeur and joy— discovering heaven’s perspective until it becomes your instinctive, default vantage point every day.

Epiphanies

Author: Tony Herrington
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1907222219
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
An anthology of essays drawn from The Wire's monthly Epiphanies column. Epiphanies: Life-changing Encounters With Music is a new anthology of essays drawn from The Wire's monthly Epiphanies column, which has been running in the magazine since issue 167 (January 1998). The book includes more than 50 essays in which a wide range of musicians, authors and critics detail their personal experiences of music's transformative powers. Subjects covered range from Sun Ra to Kate Bush; Fugazi to Ligeti; South Africa's World Cup vuvuzelas to Hungarian prog rock; noisy street protests to the deathly silence inside an anechoic chamber. The book has been edited by The Wire's Editor-in-Chief & Publisher Tony Herrington and designed by the magazine's Art Director Ben Weaver, with illustrations by Sculpture's Reuben Sutherland. Contributors Little Annie, Jerry Dammers, Geeta Dayal, Paul Gilroy, Michael Gira, Kenneth Goldsmith, Jonny Greenwood, David Grubbs, Adam Harper, Stewart Lee, Lydia Lunch, Momus, Ian Penman, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, Nina Power, Simon Reynolds, Sukhdev Sandhu, Robert Wyatt and more.

Thinking While Black

Author: Daniel McNeil
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978830890
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
Thinking While Black brings together the work and ideas of the most notorious film critic in America, one of the most influential intellectuals in the United Kingdom, and a political and cultural generation that consumed images of rebellion and revolution around the world as young Black teenagers in the late 1960s. Drawing on hidden and little known archives of resistance and resilience, it sheds new light on the politics and poetics of young people who came together, often outside of conventional politics, to rock against racism in the 1970s and early ‘80s. It re-examines debates in the 1980s and ‘90s about artists who “spread out” to mount aggressive challenges to a straight, white, middle-class world, and entertainers who “sold out” to build their global brands with performances that attacked the Black poor, rejected public displays of introspection, and expressed unambiguous misogyny and homophobia. Finally, it thinks with and through the work of writers who have been celebrated and condemned as eminent intellectuals and curmudgeonly contrarians in the twenty-first century. In doing so, it delivers the smartest and most nuanced investigation into thinkers such as Paul Gilroy and Armond White as they have evolved from “young soul rebels” to “middle-aged mavericks” and “grumpy old men,” lamented the debasement and deskilling of Black film and music in a digital age, railed against the discourteous discourse and groupthink of screenies and Internet Hordes, and sought to stimulate some deeper and fresher thinking about racism, nationalism, multiculturalism, political correctness and social media. Listen along with this Spotify playlist inspired by the book! For copyright reasons, this book is available in the U.S.A only.

Quantum Change

Author: William R. Miller
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 1462504361
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 228

Book Description
Most of us walk through each day expecting few surprises. If we want to better ourselves or our lives, we map out a path of gradual change, perhaps in counseling or psychotherapy. Psychologists William Miller and Janet C'de Baca were longtime scholars and teachers of traditional approaches to self-improvement when they became intrigued by a different sort of change that was sometimes experienced by people they encountered--something often described as "a bolt from the blue" or "seeing the light." And when they placed a request in a local newspaper for people's stories of unexpected personal transformation, the deluge of responses was astounding. These compelling stories of epiphanies and sudden insights inspired Miller and C'de Baca to examine the experience of "quantum change" through the lens of scientific psychology. Where does quantum change come from? Why do some of us experience it, and what kind of people do we become as a result? The answers that this book arrives at yield remarkable insights into how human beings achieve lasting change--sometimes even in spite of ourselves.

Saving June

Author: Hannah Harrington
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 037321202X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description
Includes and excerpt from Speechless by Hannah Harrington.

The Rest Is Noise

Author: Alex Ross
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429932880
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 706

Book Description
Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

The Epiphanies Project

Author: Chris Joseph
Publisher: Manifest Publications
ISBN: 9781737664604
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Book Description
A dream, a car crash, 9/11, a death in the family, a war, a break-up, a suicide, a visit to the doctor, a confession, a moment when things shifted and life trajectories changed-each of the storytellers in The Epiphanies Project has mined a moment of transformation to bring you a unique story of an intimate, life-changing wake-up call. Explore profound life lessons through the incisive, intelligent, soulful, and sometimes very funny lens of 20 outstanding writers who, in exposing their personal turning points, provide a mirror for our own experiences and epiphanies. The Epiphanies Project features: Peter Avildsen Natalie Marie Brobin Jeanne Foot Timothy Gager Blaine Gray Lisa Harris John Ferreira Amy Liz Harrison Chris Joseph Jeff Kober Barbara Legere Heidi Le Heather Levin Sara ONeil Samantha Perkins Korey Pollard Erin Ranta Beth Robinson Suelen Romani Susan Zinn And a foreword by New York Times bestselling author Anna David! "The Epiphanies Project is a stunning collection of deeply moving and inspiring personal stories. It reflects the hard work of living through, working through, and beautifully relating some of the toughest struggles life has to offer. If you are seeking hope and strength, it's in these pages." -Lisa Smith, award-winning author of Girl Walks Out of a Bar