Film UbuWebDavid Toop (b. 1949)
Bob Cobbing, David Toop, Syntax International Festival of Sound Poetry (1978)
David Toop is a composer/musician, author and curator based in London. Since 1970 he has worked in many fields of sound art, listening practice and music, including improvisation, sound installations and video works, field recordings, pop music production, music for television, theatre and dance. He has recorded Yanomami shamanism in Amazonas, appeared on Top of the Pops with the Flying Lizards, exhibited sound installations in Tokyo, Beijing and London's National Gallery, and performed with artists ranging from John Zorn, Evan Parker, Bob Cobbing and Ivor Cutler to Akio Suzuki, Elaine Mitchener, Lore Lixenberg, Scanner and Max Eastley. He has published five books - Rap Attack, Ocean of Sound, Exotica, Haunted Weather, and Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener - released eight solo albums, including New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments (on Brian Eno's Obscure label in 1975), Screen Ceremonies, Black Chamber and Sound Body, and as a critic and theorist has written for many publications, including The Wire, The Face, Leonardo Music Journal and Bookforum. Exhibitions he has curated include Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery, London, Playing John Cage at Arnolfini, Bristol, and Blow Up at Flat-Time House, London. He was also sound curator for Radical Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum and curatorial consultant for the currently touring Crafts Council exhibition Sound Matters. His opera - Star-shaped Biscuit - was performed as an Aldeburgh Faster Than Sound project in September 2012 and his collaborative work - Who will go mad with me - was developed and performed with Alasdair Roberts, Sylvia Hallett and Luke Fowler at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in November 2013. Currently writing Into the Maelstrom: Improvised Music and the Pursuit of Freedom, he is also the co-creator of Sculpture events with artist Rie Nakajima. He is Chair of Audio Culture and Improvisation at University of the Arts London.
RESOURCES:
David Toop in UbuWeb Sound