In The Score this week I tout the dvd of Plow that Broke the Plains as well as two books, Michael Veal’s Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae (Wesleyan) and Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? (MIT Press) by Barry Blesser.

Here’s a quote from Dub:

In existential terms, the spaces of the dub mix may be similarly perceived as either barren, monotonous craters devoid of warmth, meaning, optimism, and human presence, or as fertile tropical wellsprings taut with anticipatory tension in which the pleasurable sensation of free-floating is periodically interrupted by glimpses of the divine. Like doomed prophet/historians who managed to leave their scriptural fragments behind, the creators of dub offered an Afro-psychedelic vision of the turbulent cultural past as well as the digital/cybernetic future…

Also, in a recent talk, Blesser discusses aural architecture: listening as a health issue, the concert hall as instrument, evil commerical uses of the sonic spotlight, and more.

Finally, there are two clips of Plow that Broke the Plains here and here.