Omnibus Press

Employing intensified studies into World Music in relation to popular (as well as marginalized) contemporary trends, David Toop has created one of the most distinctive histories of modern music thinking for our times. Flutter Echo is his memoir of a life enchanted with all aspects of music both composed and abstract. In fascinating detail, Toop explores his personal growth as a practicing musician, visual artist, and witness to some of the most significant events in modern music history. From recording for Brian Eno's Obscure Records imprint in 1975 and co-publishing the radical music magazines Musics and Collusion to developing music programming for the BBC and releasing recordings he personally made of Yanomami Shaman rituals—from working with artists such as creative pop icon Bjork to Jamaican dub pioneer Prince Far-I—Toop has experienced one of the most interesting careers in the dynamic world of contemporary sound. Musician, listener, scholar, reporter, humanitarian, parent, iconoclast—David Toop brings his own life in music to focus in a remarkable, engaging read.

Ripped and Torn was one of the first punk fanzines, and continued long after others like Sniffing Glue had stopped. Ripped and Torn began in in Glasgow in November 1976 and carried on into the next wave of punk. It ran for eighteen issues, all of which are faithfully reproduced in this book. By punks and for punks, Ripped and Torn is a fascinating document of the punk subculture and a sacred text of DIY culture.

Adrian Henri was a British poet and painter best remembered as the founder of poetry-rock group The Liverpool Scene and as one of three poets in the bestselling anthology The Mersey Sound, along with Brian Patten and Roger McGough. The trio of Liverpool poets came to prominence in that city's Merseybeat zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s. He was described by Edward Lucie-Smith as the "theoretician" of the three. His characterization of popular culture in verse helped to widen the audience for poetry among 1960s British youth. He has the distinct claim of having hosted the young Liverpool lads who became The Beatles, turning them onto avant-garde art, poetry, film, and music. Besides The Beatles, he could name among his friends George Melly and Allen Ginsberg. Unlike McGough and Patten, Henri turned his back on the trendier London scene and chose to remain in Liverpool, saying there was nowhere he loved better. This heavily illustrated biography written by Adrian's partner of fifteen years is a true celebration of Henri, Liverpool, and The Liverpool Scene.

This is the first English monograph of legendary French musique-concrète pioneer Luc Ferrari (1929–2005), founding member of Groupe de Recherches (GRM) with Pierre Schaeffer—the group and studio dedicated to the electronic medium that changed composition forever. This sumptuous volume includes facsimiles of Ferrari's original compositions, notebooks, and the first English translations of his writings, including poetry and fictional works and correspondence, as well as a special full-color section that includes the composer's own collage artwork.