Noisy Memory Now Available for Pre-Order
Out on August 26th with the University of North Carolina Press
Click the button below to pre-order Noisy Memory, and use the code “01SOCIAL30” to get 30% off:
Two decades ago, I took a trip to Kentucky that would change the way that I understood music. I was on a fellowship at the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives, and while there, I learned how to work with historical recordings and the many people connected to them. And just as importantly, I was learning how to both listen to and perform an archive.
Ever since then, I’ve been doing projects all over Appalachia and the Midwest, where I bring together archival recordings and film with my own ensemble of musicians to make new music. I’ve gotten to work with the Sun Ra Collection in Chicago, the Anne Grimes Collection at the Library of Congress, the Thomas Merton Collection in Kentucky, and even small town archives in Appalachian Ohio. And with each project, I discovered something new about the people on the recordings, the places where they lived, and the communities touched by those recordings. I discovered something about myself, too, and saw that each interaction and new friendship affected me deeply.
So, I thought it would be a great idea to write these stories down and share them. The result is this book — Noisy Memory: Recording Sound, Performing Archives — which spends time in several places and archives, so that the reader might get a sense of what it is like to use the past as a creative lens for the present, to make something new from something old.
But Noisy Memory is also a detailed account of the creative process, and how places and friendships can influence and even be a feature of one’s work. Looking back, it is easy to see the events and patterns that can shape a career. But when you are in the middle of it, you feel lost and uncertain among the chaos. For me, what seemed like a series of mistakes and failures and left turns and dead ends added up to something I could never have anticipated or planned: all kinds of meaningful interactions that shaped to the way that I understand others, and opened a new way of experiencing and listening to the world.
And then the book does a deep dive into individual archival recordings, too, providing their historical and cultural contexts, alongside my own personal connection to and admiration for them. I explore the lives and words of well-known figures, such as Sun Ra and Thomas Merton, but there are the extraordinary lives of everyday people, too: Jim Bath and Judd Matheney in Shawnee, Ohio, or Addie Graham in Kentucky, or even my own father, Paul.
Sharing all of this extra information is something I shied away from when making albums from the archival recordings, but it seems appropriate to do so here. My friend Joe Duddell cautions against composers offering too much about their work; he rightly observes that it’s better to let the music speak for itself and maintain a sense of mystery, and that often what the composer has to say in prose only succeeds in confusing the listener (or worse, closes down their imagination). I took this insight to heart, and decided to keep the writing centered on the people in each recording and their lives, rather than a technical description of the music alone.
All of this is to say that I am very excited to share Noisy Memory with you, and hope that you might pre-order it now or pick up a copy this fall. In the upcoming months, look for more here at Sound Is Magic about the book, including excerpts, music compilations, and a new, six-part podcast that I am currently making. And finally, if you are interested in the music discussed throughout the book, I’ve created a media companion/guide that shares recordings, videos, and scores from each chapter. You can find it here.
Once again, you can read a description of the book and can pre-order it from the UNC Press site. And you can use the code “01SOCIAL30” to get 30% off:
Thank you for reading and listening!
Brian