The world does not need another history of absolute music, contends Brian Kane, halfway through his excellent and audacious book. Nor, one might add, a reassessment of Pierre Schaeffer's acousmatic theory of musique concrète. Yet Kane does something unexpected and bold: he takes one to prize open and galvanize the other—using the very acuteness of Schaeffer's angle to penetrate familiar terrain in unsettling depth. On the way, his journey takes in a range of exotic staging posts: mysterious subterranean noises in Moodus, Connecticut; the myth of the Pythagorean veil and the akousmatikoi; invisible orchestras and angelic choirs; Les Paul's impossible guitar sounds; Debbie Reynolds's voice doubling in Singin' in the Rain; Francis Barraud's painting of Nipper the dog (His Master's Voice); Kafka. These are interleaved with razor-sharp readings of Husserl, Heidegger, Lacan, Chion, Nancy, Dolar, Schaeffer himself, and many “Others.” Kane's object is nothing less...

You do not currently have access to this content.