Ocean of Sound

What an adventure. Weaving personal experience with myriad interviews and deep knowledge as both a musician and a listener, David Toop fills the reader’s mind with musical history. Not so much a chronological history as it is a tale of organic evolution encompassing everything from classical to dub, Musique concréte to minialmilism, Kraut Rock to cosmic jazz. Going pretty far afield at times, you’ll find yourself reading an interview of Brian Eno on one page and a while later, an account of the author recording a group of shamans deep in the Amazon rainforest. Even if you’re not a huge fan of Ambient music, you may still get a lot out of this book. For me, it was a joy to read.