More on David Toop

[A more extensive review of a writer whose work I got to read a bit more of while I was offline...]

Ocean of Sound and Exotica by David Toop - Toop is one of the most ambitious “rock critics” I’ve encountered - he goes pretty far afield from the original, basic subjects of his work.  He delves a lot into anthropology, somewhat into history, and sometimes directly into magical realism, surrealism, and even his own hallucinations (or at least deep imaginings), inspired by his many travels and personal trials. 

Ocean of Sound is focused on ambient music, or more broadly, electronic music, rave music and all the things that influenced those genres, covering everything from Brian Eno to The Orb to Gamelan music to Sun Ra.  Exotica focuses on (even) stranger stuff, including some acts that would at first seem to be extremely unlikely artistic “befellows”:  Carmen Miranda, Sun Ra (again), Les Baxter, Joesephine Baker, Bo Diddley, The Beach Boys, Throbbing Gristle, Burt Bacharach, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan…

I enjoyed Ocean of Sound because it told me a bunch of things I didn’t know already about music that I do know pretty well.  I think I liked Exotica even more because it delved a lot into human history and anthropology while informing me about plenty of music that is far less familiar to me. 

The only “rock critic” whose work I’ve encountered who explores this wide a range is Greil Marcus (that is, in Lipstick Traces).  But Toop is a little less overtly political and probably less grandiose.  (Though I don’t mean to slight Marcus - I think he is also a brilliant writer in many ways.)  Moreover, Toop doesn’t display Marcus’ overt interest in revolutionary movements and subversive music and culture of the 20th century.  But Toop does display a strong interest in the history of western imperialism and the way it influenced western imagination, which is directly related to Toop’s explorations of the ways that music that originated in the eastern or southern hemispheres, or from pre-capitalist or ”primitive” communities, got mixed in with a lot of popular music in the ”advanced” capitalist world. 

This is particularly true of Exotica, which discusses a lot of western literature as well.  In fact, Toop seems to become most political when he writes about fiction, and in Exotica, he engages us with some fascinating discussions of Conrad, Melville and Poe.

Sometimes I do wish that Toop would delve more deeply into the workings of the political and economic engines that drive the imperialism to which he so often refers. (And by the way, its obvious, from references here and there, that he has read his share of Marx.)  But he certainly takes on enough material already in these impressive books.