One Reason To Live: Conversations About Music with Julius Nil

by Steven Connor, Esther Leslie, Kaffe Matthews (Contributor)

If it all came down to one piece of music, what would you choose? How would you justify your choice? On live radio? These are the questions Julius Nil asked every other Sunday for a year on London's Resonance FM, before going to work at Yale under his given name, Seth Kim-Cohen. Includes 12 conversations with influential figures from classical, jazz, rock, pop, cultural theory, philosophy and the burgeoning field of sound art.

210 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2006

About the author

Steven Connor is Grace 2 Professor of English in the University of Cambridge, Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Director of the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). Among his many books are explorations of aspects of the cultural history of the senses, including Dumbstruck: A Cultural History of Ventriloquism (2000), The Book of Skin (2004), and Beckett, Modernism and the Material Imagination (2014). His most recent books are Dream Machines (2017), The Madness of Knowledge: On Wisdom, Ignorance and Fantasies of Knowledge (2019), and Giving Way: Thoughts on Unappreciated Dispositions (2019).

Reviews

[W.C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of course comes at the end of a protracted music criticism chain---beginning with listening, going through thinking, speaking, transcribing, and finally reading, a very mediated experience of music. But those interviewed here, for the most part, manage to get across the excitement of their original experience. Like most "well-meaning" anthologies this one tries to be all-encompassing, cliche-eluding, and succeeds in this rather well, within the limits of the enthusiasms of the particiopants. (No one chooses any piece of traditional folk or "indigenous" music, the received canon of classical music gets scant mention, etc.) Much of the music discussed here is progressive, and because these programs were recorded for a radio station in London, American listeners may be left clueless at times by the mention of some British bands. But the selections come from a number of frequencies across full specturm of musical possibility---from Steven Connor championing Tory Amos's "Blood Roses" (because it helped him overcome his nausea at harpsichords), to Eric Roth on Lygeti, to Esther Leslie choosing a piece that may not be music at all: she discusses Walter Ruttmann's 1930's sound collage "weekend." Others discuss works by Can and by Eno and by King Crimson. Some consider their selections guilty pleasures: John Parish seems rather sheepish about choosing Tom Petty's "American Girl." Others lovingly choose Louis Armstrong and Frank Zappa. I list these because simply looking at the book-with-blurb might give the impression that this is an academic exercise, where it is about the life of the mind as awakened by sound. The conversations range through musical specifics, to philosophy, linguistics, fandom, ethnography, the thrill of punk chords, catharses of various species, Allen Ginsberg's favorite musical instrument and more. . . .

I give this four stars rather than five because its sherbet collage visual presentation makes reading difficult while adding nothing. Next time,guys, trust your content to speak for itself....

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing discussions on music and its phenomenon. I liked how a song could be so deep in musical complexity, and touch on other worldly issues. Worth a read for anyone interested in music.