Bloomsbury, ISBN-13: 978-1501344435, English, 278 pages, 2019, UK
Territorial research on specific media art is meant to highlight the particular cultural fabric that connects different art expressions within a geographical boundary. But while territory is already a unifying fabric, that fabric is usually woven with different threads that are often explored. This book seems instead to have explored Brazilian sound art in depth, organizing the findings into five chapters that already reflect its particular fabric. Direct links to Samba and Carnival are emerging, but also to other well-known movements such as Tropicalism and Modernism. The history of mediated experimental music is traced in the second chapter, where various tape networks and radio art programs are illustrated. In the third, the celebrated ‘Gambiarra’ is framed within DIY practices, making and second-hand music shops. Field recordings and sound mapping populate part four, while part five analyses black experimentalism. This book is related to the research activities of NuSom – Research Center on Sonology, the São Paulo Research Foundation and particularly Nendú, an online platform dedicated to mapping Brazilian sound artists. And, importantly, it is part of a project that includes a three volume eponymous album on the Berro – Músicas e Som label, the perfect companion to listen to the works discussed or mentioned in the text.
