Arcana V: Musicians on Music, Magic & Mysticism (Arcana

Arcana

by John Zorn (Editor)

For centuries musicians have tapped into mysticism, magic and alchemy, embracing ritual, spell, incantation and prayer, and experimenting with esoteric approaches to harmony, pitch and vibration. In recent decades, avant-garde musicians have rediscovered these overlaps, as occultism has reinvented itself--through Buddhist and other Asian influences, Thelema and Chaos Magic--to accommodate cultural strains from psychedelica through Punk and Industrial music. This special edition of John Zorn's much acclaimed Arcana series focuses on the magical aspects of the act of making music. Neither historical overview nor musicological study, it illuminates the sympathies between music and the esoteric tradition with the help of today's finest experimental musicians and occultists. Among these are William Breeze, Gavin Bryars, Alvin Curran, Fred Frith, Sharon Gannon, Larkin Grimm, William Kiesel, Yusef Lateef, Frank London, Meredith Monk, Mark Nauseef, Pauline Oliveros, Genesis P-Orridge, Terry Riley, David Toop, Greg Wall, Peter Lamborn Wilson and Z'ev.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Art, Esoterica

464 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2010

About the author

John Zorn (a.k.a. Dekoboko Hajime, Rav Tzizit) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Zorn

Reviews

[Taylor Ellwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like most anthologies out there, this anthology has a mix of interesting essays and essays that leave the reader (well this reader) wondering how they got accepted into the anthology. I'll admit that I found the premise of this anthology interesting, i.e. the intersection of music, magic, and mysticism, and some of the essays lived up to what I was looking for, but a fair amount of them didn't. I would've liked to have seen more essays on practical applications of music and magic. The ones in the book were excellent and intrigued me. I did appreciate some of the mystical leaning essays, but with some of the essays it seemed like nothing so much as a rant by the authors about whatever they were discussing, and not all of it readily focused on anything that was mystical or magical. I'd recommend this anthology with the caveat that you'll find some diamonds and the rest may not appeal as much as you'd hope.

[Damian Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of the Arcana books are amazing, I recommend every one of them. This one is especially of interest to me, though similar topics are to be found scattered through the other volumes as well.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely uneven.

[Federico Rodríguez-Jiménez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading on and off from this book in the last ten years or so. I do agree with most of the reviews on this site that not all the articles are great, but the are some that do give some real insight into the intimate relations and entanglements between sound and the invisible/spiritual forces. Sound being an invisible and mysterious force itself.

The multiplicity of approaches to this difficult and elusive matter are the true charm on this book, that oscillates from texts that are poetic meditations to some very detailed, well documented and complex, almost cientifical papers.

Always an interesting read, whenever I pick it up from my bookshelf, it always sparks some ideas and meditations... and sounds, of course.