Music
The Music of Nobuo Uematsu in the Final Fantasy Series
Nobuo Uematsu is one of the most influential Japanese composers of the current age. One of Japan’s most beloved living composers he has been composing music for the popular franchise since 1987 inspiring a new generation of classical music fans and named by Time Magazine as an ‘innovator’ of the new wave of music.
Sometimes described as the Beethoven of video game music Nobuo Uematsu has built his career and reputation from his soundtracks to the enduring Final Fantasy series of video games which are notable for their remarkable cinematic feel.
Classic FM radio describes Nobuo as ‘part John Williams part Wagnerian leitmotif part new-age soundscaper – and a legend in his own right’. He has so far appeared five times in the top 20 of the annual Classic FM Hall of Fame voted for by listeners.
This is the first book-length study on the music of Uematsu. It takes a variety of different analytical approaches to his music. It offers readers interested in ludomusicology (the study of and research into video game music) a variety of ways in which to understand Uematsu’s compositional process and the role that video game music has in the overall gaming experience.
Those interested in Uematsu’s music will gain a greater appreciation and understanding of his compositional processes and his interaction with musical narrative and those interested in ludomusicology in general will be shown various methodologies that can be applied to a single composer. Those interested in composing for video games or movies will also be given insight into how they might compose for a narrative themselves.
Professional musicians will gain deeper insight into the music from selected games in the series as each chapter applies traditional theoretical and musicological methodologies to selected games from the series. It my also be a useful educational resource for use in their own studies by student and amateur musicians.
Foreword by William Gibbons associate professor of musicology at Texas Christian University. Editor Richard Anatone is a professor of music theory at Prince George's Community College in Largo Maryland.
It will be a valuable resource for ludomusicologists as well as academics from a variety of disciplines who work in popular music and culture film and visual media and subjects traditionally marginalized by the Western 'Classical' canon. It will also be of interest to fans of the Final Fantasy series both inside and outside of academia and to composers of video game music.
It will also appeal to readers interested in the business and marketing side of the video game industry and who want to learn from the successes of live video game concerts and how symbolism and thematic interplay aids in drawing gamers’ attention to soundtracks and concerts of video game music.
Game developers will learn how to recognize potential composers and compositional approaches that will aid in storytelling fandom and gamer immersion.
General video game historians who want to learn more about Square’s early years and eventual transition into a powerhouse development company will also find much to interest them.
While there have been several edited collections in the subdiscipline of ludomusicology this is the first book to address a composer’s oeuvre as the main subject. It brings together a variety of methodologies and voices on the subject and has potential to become a model for future composer-focused studies.
Heavy Metal Armour: A Visual Study of Battle Jackets
The first of its kind – original unique and beautifully illustrated by the author. Engagingly written it will appeal to fans and academics alike.
A lavishly illustrated study of the heavy metal battle jacket in a historical and cultural context with a unique approach to analysis and interrogation of form and style through painting practice and theory.
Since the 1970s customized denim 'battle jackets' have been worn by heavy metal fans to signify their devotion to the music and subcultures of metal. Embellished by the wearers with patches badges and studs these jackets are works of art that communicate the values of metal to the world at large. This book features a series of detailed paintings that visually document examples of jackets alongside photographic portraits of the fans that wear them.
The accompanying chapters describe the significance of battle jackets in metal scenes and trace a lineage of customized clothing starting in the Middle Ages. Connections are made with a wide range of historic and contemporary artworks suggesting a broad context within which to more fully appreciate the significance of the jackets. The methodology spans a range of disciplines from art theory to ethnography and subcultural studies and the discussion is informed by responses from a series of interviews conducted over the years with metal fans.
The book has a highly original focus and the author’s approach to the subject is unique. It reaches across a range of fields: the history and cultural context of heavy metal music style and dress; art history and practice particularly painting; subcultural studies; fashion and dress; music graphics branding and marketing.
Tom Cardwell is an artist and researcher specialising in contemporary painting customized clothing and heavy metal subcultures. He is senior lecturer in painting at Camberwell University of the Arts London.
It will appeal to readers with an interest in metal subcultures; fashion style and dress; music branding and identity; contemporary art theory and practice. The writing style and content is relaxed engaging and will be of interest to a wider casual readership with an interest in popular culture and the arts.
A useful resource for academics and students interested in heavy metal customized clothing/DIY subcultures painting and visual arts. Could appeal to undergraduate as well as postgraduates and scholars in these fields and a broader interest in visual culture.
Nostalgia and Videogame Music
This book the first multi-disciplinary study of nostalgia and videogame music allows readers to understand the relationships and memories they often form around games and music is central to this process. The quest into the past begins with this book a map that leads to the intersection between nostalgia and videogame music.
Informed by research on musicology and memory as well as practices of gaming culture the edited volume discusses different forms of nostalgia how video games display their relation to those and in what ways theoretically self-conscious positions can be found in games. The perspectives of the new discipline ludmusicology provide the broader framework for this project.
This significant new book focuses on an important topic that has not been sufficiently addressed in the field and is clear in its contribution to ludomusicology.
An important scholarly addition to the field of ludomusicology with potential appeal to undergraduate and graduate scholars in many related fields due to its inherent interdisciplinarity including musicology more broadly game studies and games design film studies as well as cultural and media studies. It could also appeal to practitioners particularly those nostalgic and self-reflexive artists who already engage in nostalgic practice (chiptune musicians for instance). Also to those researching and studying in the fields of memory studies and cultural studies.
Readership will include researchers educators practitioners undergraduate and graduate students fans and game players.
Scream for Me, Africa!
Scream for Me Africa! examines the hard rock and metal scenes in five African countries: Botswana Togo South Africa Kenya and Ghana. Banchs spent significant time in each country interviewing musicians producers and fans to create vivid pictures of each of these rarely discussed scenes. These scenes are 'a disruption of the norm a disruption of what we have come to expect from Africa and rock and metal music'. He has chosen to shed light on these particular scenes now because of their difference and because they are reflections of their countries.
This exciting new book considers how heavy metal's subculture is viewed in Africa and how musicians in the continent have stepped forward to make this genre their own. It looks at the continent's blossoming scenes through various themes including hybridity othering and how scenes have collided with their difficult political systems.
Scream For Me Africa! Is the first book of its kind and an engaging look at the various metal scenes across the African continent and how they are constructing an identity as metal fans in their modern nation states under the shadow of post-colonialism. Written in a clear approachable manner it is accessible to academic and non-academic readers.
Edward Banchs is a freelance writer and independent scholar – and a metal fan – based in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania USA whose writing has appeared in The Guardian Afropop Metal Hammer Metal Music Studies and The Pittsburgh City Paper. He is also author of Heavy Metal Africa (2016).
This new book fills a gap in the market for an academic text on metal in Africa expanding published scholarship on metal in the global south. It book has potential use as a resource on courses in several disciplines including sociology cultural studies musicology ethnomusicology sociology and Africa studies. It will also be of interest to the more general readers with an interest in the musical genre.
Will appeal to anyone who is interested in metal African culture anthropology and sociology and history. Particularly musicologists and ethnomusicologists and those with an interest in metal in the global south.
Living Metal
This is the first study of its kind focusing exclusively on scenes throughout the world; it makes an important contribution to metal studies.
Metal Scenes around the World is a collection of thirteen chapters that examine metal scenes from smaller communities like Dayton Ohio in the USA to entire countries such as Estonia. The goal of the book is to expand the research on metal scenes.
This is the only book produced on metal scenes to date and it will lead the way to more research in this new area of metal studies. The strongest element of the book is its international focus with chapters from such diverse settings as post-apartheid South Africa Graz Nantes Brazil and Turkey. The chapters are detailed richly embedded in local histories and contexts and provide important analyses of their respective scenes.
Foreword from Henkka Seppälä former bassist with the Finnish metal band Children Of Bodom.
Primary readership will be composed of fans and scholars of metal music and those in the fields of anthropology musicology and history. The diversity of the chapters connects metal to other disciplines in the music field and the book is likely to have appeal more widely to anyone who likes music.
Distillation of Sound
Distillation of Sound focuses on the original music of Jamaica and how through dub reggae Jamaican culture was expanded and shifted. It will further the discussion on dub music its importance to Jamaican culture and its influence on the rest of the world.
Dub music in Jamaica started in the early 1970s and by the end of the decade had influenced an entire population. The music began to use the rhythm track of a song as a song itself and spread quickly throughout the sound systems of the island. The importance of dub music and its influence on the music world frames the discussions in this new book. How dub travelled and distilled to three places in the world is covered in chapters focussing on the rise and spread of dub in New York City in England and in Japan.
Abbey discusses the separation between dub as a product and dub as an act of the engineer. Codifying these two elements and tracing them will allow for a more definitive approach to the culture and music of dub. To define it and its surrounding elements five of the first albums produced in the genre are discussed in three parameters that help to define and set up the culture of dub music.
The albums discussed are Java Java Java Java (Impact All Stars) Aquarius Dub (Herman Chin Loy) Blackboard Jungle Dub (Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry) The Message Dubwise (Prince Buster) King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown (Augustus Pablo).
From the Preface:
‘Jamaican music has always been about creating with what is at hand. Taking what is around you and making it into something great is the key to dub and Jamaican culture. This attitude is what this project is about. There is not enough written on the music that has inspired and influenced so many people around the world and this is an addition to the conversation. Dub music fixates on the engineer as a musician and in doing so allows for the creator to interact with echnology. Through this the mixing board and other electronic elements become musical instruments. Now these technologies are dominant in contemporary music and allow for people to easily create in their own homes. Without the engineers and musicians in the following work these changes and shifts in technology and music would not have occurred.
Dub is also a refiguring of already existing music. What this demonstrates is that music is ever evolving and can be shifted through technology. It also suggests that recorded music can always be modified and expanded upon. In our contemporary world this modification is seen every day online and in people’s daily lives. Dub created a way to view these changes through music. The influence of technology in the development of culture is the key to this work and to our development in society. How technology can be modified changed and evolved through the interaction of the engineer is the focus of this project.
This work will further the importance of dub music and culture in our society. The definition and distinction between version and dub is also an important element in the following work. Jamaican music needs to be discussed more for its influence and creative force in the entirety of the music world.
The author is a professional musician with the groups J. Navarro & the Traitors Detroit Riddim Crew and 1592 and a producer of dub reggae and ska and a professor of English and literature at Oakland Community College in Michigan USA.
Genuine popular and academic appeal. Will appeal to students and scholars of music and Jamaican culture – and to academic libraries. Has genuine popular appeal to those with an interest in Jamaican culture and music.
Sight Readings
Jazz photography has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Photographs of musicians are popular with enthusiasts while historians and critics are keen to incorporate photographs as illustrations. Yet there has been little interrogation of these photographs and it is noticeable that what has become known as the jazz photography 'tradition' is dominated by a small number of well-known photographers and 'iconic' images.
Many photographers including African American photojournalists studio photographers early twentieth-century émigrés the Jewish exiles of the 1930s and vernacular snapshots are frequently overlooked. Drawing on ideas from contemporary photographic theory supported by extensive original archival research Sight Readings is a thorough exploration of twentieth century jazz photography and it includes discussions of jazz as a visual subject its attraction to different types of photographers and offers analysis of why and how they approached the subject in the way they did.
One of the remarkable things about this book is its movement back and forth between detailed archive research the empirical documentation of photographers their techniques working practices equipment etc. and cultural theory the sophisticated discussion of aesthetics cultural sociology the politics of identity etc. The result is both a fine scholarly achievement and an engaging labour of love.
The primary readership will be those with specialist interests in the history of jazz and the history of photography. The audience will include jazz scholars musicians critics and fans along with photographers photography scholars art historians and those generally interested in the history of visual images.
It will be an essential text for teaching as well as research in the fields of music and photography. It will be of interest to those teaching and studying within cultural studies American studies African American studies critical race and ethnic studies history English and sociology.
There is also a significant readership for jazz and photographic history outside the academic context. It will be of interest to the media the museum world and the general reader with interests in music or photography.
Punk Identities, Punk Utopias
Punk Identities Punk Utopias: Global Punk and Media seeks to unpack and illuminate punk as a trajectory of ‘timelesness…as a set of diverse but confluent values and appropriations’ that have both reflected and informed an increasingly complex indefinable social political and economic setting. Whereas the first two volumes in the series were broadly focused on local punk ‘scenes’ in a disparate range of countries and regions around the world Punk Identities Punk Utopias extends that critical enquiry to reflect broader social political and technological concerns impacting punk scenes around the world from digital technology and new media to gender ethnicity identity and representation. This new volume therefore draws upon the interdisciplinary areas of cultural studies musicology and social sciences to present an edited text on the notion of identities ideologies and cultural discourse surrounding contemporary global punk scenes. It is hoped that the books in the Global Punk series will add to the academic discussion of contemporary popular culture particularly in relation to punk and the critical understanding of transnational and cross-cultural dialogue.
Punk is a global phenomenon and the Global Punk series aims to reflect contemporary scenes around the world since the millennium. Punk and its subsequent variants from hardcore to post-punk have always crossed borders and become assimilated within countercultural practices with local national and regional variations.
Produced in collaboration between the Punk Scholars Network and Intellect Books the Global Punk book series focuses on the development of contemporary global punk (c. 2000 onwards) reflecting upon its origins aesthetics identity legacy membership and circulation. Critical approaches draw upon the interdisciplinary areas of (among others) cultural studies art and design sociology musicology and social sciences in order to develop a broad and inclusive picture of punk and punk-inspired subcultural developments around the globe. The series adopts an essentially analytical perspective raising questions about the dissemination of punk scenes and subcultures and their form structure and contemporary cultural significance in the daily lives of an increasing number of people around the world.
This book has a genuine crossover appealed. It will be a key resource for established academics postdoctoral researchers and Ph.D. students as well as being suitable for adoption as an undergraduate student textbook. Suitable courses will include those in the fields of popular music youth culture sociology urban/cultural geography political history heritage studies media and cultural studies.
Decolonial Metal Music in Latin America
The long-lasting effects of colonialism are still present throughout Latin America. Racism political persecution ethnic extermination and extreme capitalism are some salient examples. This new book explores how heavy metal music in the region has been used to critically challenge the historical legacy of colonialism and its present-day manifestations.
Through extensive ethnographic research in Puerto Rico Cuba Dominican Republic Mexico Guatemala Colombia Peru Chile and Argentina Varas-Díaz documents how metal music listeners and musicians engage in ‘extreme decolonial dialogues’ as a strategy to challenge past and ongoing forms of oppression. This allows readers to see metal music in a different light and as a call for justice in Latin America.
Heavy metal related scholarship has made strides in the past decade. Many books have aimed to explain its origins uses and the social meanings ascribed to the music in a variety of contexts. For the most part these have neglected to address the region of Latin America as an area of study.
It represents a historical and sociological journey in Latin American heavy metal music through rich ethnographic engagements with performers fans and scholars of music. Its central premise is the dialogic relationship amongst deep histories of coloniality systematic oppression entrenched inequalities and the expressive forms generated by ‘decolonial metal music’. The book also provides an exemplary and potentially iconic model of ethnomusicology and the anthropology of music.
Most previous work on metal music in Latin America has relied on theoretical frameworks developed in the Global North and is therefore limited in understanding the region through its particular history and experiences. There is no scholarship of heavy metal scholarship in the Latin American region that achieves the depth or breadth of analysis represented by this book. It provides a roadmap and a model for this emerging mode of musical analysis by demonstrating how decolonial metal scholarship can be achieved.
Academic readership for the book will come from multiple disciplines including cultural studies musicology ethnomusicology sociology anthropology cultural geography history and Latin American studies. It will be of interest to music studies programmes as well as for methods courses on structurally informed social research. The book will also be of interest to those outside academic settings – accessibly written with its concise reviews of historical and political-economic contexts and its vivid storytelling it will be of interest to consumers of the metal musical genre.
MEDIA
The first in the Media-Life-Universe trilogy this volume explores a transdisciplinary notion of media and technology exploring media as technology with special attention to its material historical and ecological ramifications. The authors reconceptualize media from environmental ecological and systems approaches drawing not only on media and communication studies but also philosophy sociology political science biology art computer science information studies and other disciplines.
Featuring a group of internationally known scholars this collection explores evolving definitions of media and how media technologies are transforming theory and practice. As the current media includes a wider and wider range of concepts products services and institutions the definition of media continues to be in a state of flux. What are media today? How is media studies evolving? How have technologies transformed communication and media theory and informed praxis? What are some of the futures of media?
The collection challenges traditional notions of media as well as concepts such as freedom of expression audience empowerment and participatory media and explores emergent media including transmedia virtual reality online games metatechnology remediation and makerspaces.
The book’s primary readership will be academics scholars and students in media and communication studies including a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in media studies communication studies and new media. Suitable for classroom use in the areas of philosophy of communication and media media theory media ecology cultural studies media archaeology feminist studies and political economy of communications and media.
Mathias Spahlinger
The first book-length study in English of composer Mathias Spahlinger one of Germany’s leading practitioners of contemporary music. One of the most stimulating and provocative figures on the new music scene on Germany he has long been a touchstone for leftist ‘critical’ composition there yet his work has received very little attention in Anglophone scholarship until now.
Born in 1944 Spahlinger has risen only gradually to prominence in his native Germany and for many years was considered an outsider within the contemporary music scene. Yet his position as one of the most venerable exponents of post-WWII modernism in his homeland is now undeniable: his music is regularly performed he has received commissions from many of the major orchestras and new music groups in Germany and in 2014 he received the Großen Berliner Kunstpreis (Berlin Art Prize – Grand Prize) from the city’s Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts).
Spahlinger is however becoming increasingly known as a significant figure within later twentieth-century music – in 2015 a festival in Chicago focused exclusively on his music and he was a keynote speaker at a conference on Compositional Aesthetics and the Political at Goldsmiths University of London.
This new book provides an essential reference for scholars of new music and twentieth-century modernism. There are no other book-length studies of Spahlinger in English though there is a monograph and a book of essays in German and books of interviews. This original work promises a more critical perspective upon the composer and his aesthetics and political ideas compared to previous publications. The illustrations include musical examples.
Its primary market will be a specialist musicological readership including academics researchers and composers but the writing style such that it could be accessible also to undergraduates interested in the field. The discussion of aesthetic debates in post-war Germany and the interesting reading of the work of Jacques Rancière means that it could also have significant appeal across the disciplines of philosophy and critical theory.
Trans-Global Punk Scenes
This new collection is the second in the Global Punk series. Following the publication of the first volume the series editors invited proposals for a second volume and selected contributions from a range of interdisciplinary areas including cultural studies musicology ethnography art and design history and the social sciences.
This collection extends the theme into new territories with a particular emphasis on contemporary global punk scenes post-2000 reflecting upon the notion of origin music(s) identity careers membership and circulation.
This area of subcultural studies is far less documented than more ‘historical’ work related to earlier punk scenes and subcultures of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This new volume covers countries and regions including New Zealand Indonesia Cuba Ireland South Africa Siberia and the Philippines alongside thematic discussions relating to trans-global scenes the evolution of subcultural styles punk demographics and the notion of punk identity across cultural and geographic boundaries.
The book series adopts an essentially analytical perspective raising questions over the dissemination of punk scenes and their form structure and contemporary cultural significance in the daily lives of an increasing number of people around the world.
This book has a genuine crossover market being designed in such a way that it can be adopted as an undergraduate student textbook while at the same time having important currency as a key resource for established academics postdoctoral researchers and PhD students.
In terms of the undergraduate market for the book it is likely that it will be adopted by convenors of courses on popular music youth culture and in discipline areas such as sociology popular music studies urban/cultural geography political history heritage studies media and cultural studies.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Some 22 years after its creation The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is still held in high critical regard as one of the finest examples of the video game medium. The same is true of the game’s music whose superlative reception continues to be evident whether in the context of the game or in orchestral concerts and recordings of the game’s music.
Given music’s well-established significance for the video game form it is no coincidence that music is placed at the forefront of this most lauded and loved of games. In Ocarina of Time music connects and unifies all aspects of the game from the narrative conceit to the interactive mechanics from the characters to the virtual worlds and even into the activity of legions of fans and gamers who play replay and reconfigure the music in an enduring cultural site that has Ocarina of Time at its centre. As video game music studies begins to mature into a coherent field it is now possible to take the theoretical apparatus and critical approaches that have been developed in antecedent scholarship and put these into practice in the context of an extended concrete game example.
The most extensive investigation into the music of a single game yet undertaken this book serves three important primary purposes: first it provides a historical-critical account of the music of an important video game text; second it uses this investigation to explore wider issues in music and media studies (including interactivity fan cultures and music and technology); and third it serves as a model for future in-depth studies of video game music.
How Belfast Got the Blues
This is not just an important music book; it is an important history book. It captures the moment before Belfast and Northern Ireland became synonymous with the Troubles. It places one of the best-known figures in global popular music Van Morrison in his historical and sociocultural context. It also reinstates Ottilie Patterson into her rightful role as a central figure in Ireland’s music. It addresses a significant gap in Ireland’s popular music studies by appraising the contribution of a politically and musically significant female figure.
It makes a major original contribution to the understanding of popular music culture in Northern Ireland and to the broader popular music culture in Britain in the 1960s. It will remain for many years the definitive study of the subject and a point of reference for further research and controversy.
In light of the re-emergence of Northern Ireland in contemporary British political debate this book presents a nicely timed intervention placing Northern Ireland at the forefront of a key moment in British and Irish cultural history and presenting highly innovative readings of key popular cultural figures. Integrating its account of the popular music culture and local ‘scene’ in Northern Ireland with the broader and highly complex context of the sociopolitical milieu it offers original and insightful readings of key 1960s figures including film director Peter Whitehead The Rolling Stones Them Ottilie Patterson and Van Morrison. It includes much new material obtained in interviews and through meticulous archival research to challenge the mainstream narrative of the mid-1960s music scene in Belfast.
It is extremely well researched making use of newspaper and film archives and existing publications but also an impressive set of personal interviews with veteran musicians and others from that time. The authors challenge much of the received wisdom about the period – for instance about the decline of the showband – and present their arguments carefully and thoughtfully. While meticulously researched and thoroughly analytic the writing is uniquely accessible and engaging.
The chapter on the neglected Belfast blue singer Ottilie Patterson represents a paradigm shift in Irish popular music studies and sets her story and considerable achievements centre stage. This alone makes the book very noteworthy. The chapters on Van Morrison and his band Them place his early career in the context of the local and global music industry. The story of The Rolling Stones film made by Peter Whitehead is discussed in the context of the international fervour of the times. The knitting of the music scene with the distinctive social cultural political and religious factors is deftly done.
Primary readership will be academic – scholars researchers and students across a range of areas. Fields of interest include popular music studies Irish studies political history cultural studies film studies jazz/blues history women’s studies civil rights.
It will also appeal more broadly to fans writers journalists and musicians interested in Belfast Northern Ireland the Blues rock and roll jazz and the 1960s as well as to fans of the individual musicians.
Heavy Metal Music in Argentina
An in-depth regional discussion of heavy metal music Heavy Metal Music in Argentina explores metal music as a catalyst for social change and site for engaging political reflection. Originally published in Spanish and sold locally in Argentina this is the first time the work has been available in English.
Edited by leading researchers this collection addresses the music’s rituals circulations cultural products lyrics and allows readers to rethink the place of heavy metal within Argentinean politics and economics. Exclusively written by members of the Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA) in a communal approach to scholarship the book echoes the working-class voices that marked early post-dictatorship metal music in Argentina.
This is the first collection of essays on Argentine metal music. It has opened up research channels between different universities in the country while also engaging a non-academic audience and widening the potential market for the book.
The book makes an interdisciplinary examination of a complex and fascinating object: it allows for the examination discussion and analysis of its nationalist postulates relationship with the Creole culture (for example with nineteenth-century ‘gauchesca’ literature) indigenism and with the political processes of contemporary Argentina.
Metal Music Studies as an academic area of inquiry has focused mostly on the music’s cultural components in Europe and the United States. The few books that have addressed metal music as a global phenomenon have severely neglected the inclusion of Latin American countries. Argentina with the largest and oldest metal scene in the region has also been neglected in the existing literature. There is a growing interest in this area as demonstrated by the emergence of documentary film on metal music in Latin America.
The book has potential use as a resource on courses in several disciplines including sociology cultural studies musicology ethnomusicology sociology and Latin American studies. It will also be of interest to the more general readers with an interest in the musical genre.
Britpop Cinema
The Britpop movement of the mid-1990s defined a generation and the films were just as exciting as the music. Beginning with Shallow Grave hitting its stride with Trainspotting and going global with The Full Monty Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Human Traffic Sexy Beast Shaun of the Dead and This Is England Britpop cinema pushed boundaries paid Hollywood no heed and placed the United Kingdom all too briefly at the centre of the movie universe.
Featuring exclusive interviews with key players such as Simon Pegg Irvine Welsh Michael Winterbottom and Edgar Wright Britpop Cinema combines eyewitness accounts close analysis and social history to celebrate a golden age for UK film.
The Music of Antônio Carlos Jobim
Antônio Carlos Jobim has been called the greatest of all contemporary Brazilian songwriters. He wrote both popular and serious music and was a gifted piano guitar and flute player. One of the key figures in the creation of the bossa nova style Jobim’s music made a lasting impression worldwide and many of his songs are now standards of the popular music repertoire.
In The Music of Antônio Carlos Jobim one of the first extensive musicological analyses of the Brazilian composer Peter Freeman examines the music philosophy and circumstances surrounding the creation of Jobim’s popular songs instrumental compositions and symphonic works. Freeman attempts to elucidate not only the many musical influences that formed Jobim’s musical output but also the stylistic peculiarities that were as much the product of a gifted composer as the rich musical environment and heritage that surrounded him.
Revolve:R
Revolve:R was initiated in 2011 by Sam Treadaway and Ricarda Vidal as a multidisciplinary and international collaboration. The project explores the transmission of ideas through collaborative forms of communication ranging from the physical and tactile (such as the sharing of original artworks via the postal service) to the digital and intangible (which includes a parallel interplay online). Besides visual artworks Revolve:R includes poetry film soundscapes and music. The complete work of each Revolve:R edition is presented as a limited-edition bookwork. Revolve:R: edition three is available through Intellect.
Revolve:R: edition three is the result of a two-year-long collaboration between 2016 and 2018 in which artists poets and musicians from around the UK USA Africa and Continental Europe created artworks in reply and response to one another. During this time many of the artworks featured have physically travelled many thousands of miles before coming together in this publication.
Edition three is a continuation of editions one and two (Arrow Bookworks 2013 and 2015) which explored concepts relating to chaos theory chance and synchronicity. The first artwork-page of Revolve:R edition three (page 217) references the final artwork sequence from Revolve:R edition two (ending on page 216). Throughout the evolution of this third edition the editors have continued the development of the initial ideas and working processes that formed the basis and structure of the original Revolve:R project and have further reflected upon the nature of collaboration. In doing so their awareness and consideration of certain parallels and connections between the artworks has developed their insight into the act of co-creation and the phenomenon of collective consciousness.
Each Revolve:R edition is formed of six rounds or Revolves (effectively forming six chapters within the book) which follow the same pattern. A single 2D two-sided artwork of 21cm² is sent by post to a number of invited artists with the request that they respond with an artwork of their own by a specific date. Thus the initial artwork sets in motion a multitude of alternative creative responses reflecting the recipients’ various ways of reading interpreting and responding.
Revolve:R: edition three (Arrow Bookworks and Intellect 2019) follows Revolve:R edition one (Arrow Bookworks 2013) and Revolve:R edition two (Arrow Bookworks 2015). All three Revolve:R editions also function as catalogues and artworks are available to purchase as high quality limited edition prints. Further information about the Revolve:R project including how to purchase the prints can be found here: www.revolve-r.com
Revolve:R: edition three is a powerful and beautiful example of the power of collaborative practice a vehicle for new artistic dialogue and an artwork in its own right.
Singing for Our Lives
The Campaign Choirs Network is a loose affiliation of like-minded choirs across the UK sharing a belief in a better world for all and dedicated to taking action by singing about it; the Campaign Choirs Writing Collective is a part of that network.
The book intends to inspire the reader to engage with this world: to find out more to join a choir in their community to enlist their local street choir to support campaigns for social change and more generally to mobilize artistic creativity in progressive social movements.
It is an introduction to street choirs and their history exploring origins in and connections with other social movements for example the Workers Education Association the Clarion movement Big Flame and the Social Forum movement. The book identifies the political nodes where choir histories intersect notably Greenham Common the Miners’ Strike anti-apartheid and Palestinian struggles. The title of the book is taken from a song by the respected American musician and activist Holly Near and is popular in the repertoire of many street choirs. Exploring the role of street choirs in political culture Singing For Our Lives introduces this neglected world to a wider public including activists and academics.
Signing for Our Lives also elaborates the personal stories and experiences of people who participate in street choirs and the unique social practices created within them. The book tells the important if often overlooked story of how making music can contribute to non-violent just and sustainable social transitions.
Fat Activism
What is Fat Activism and why is it important?
Charlotte Cooper a fat activist with around 30 years experience answers this question by lifting the lid on a previously unexplored social movement and offering a fresh perspective on one of the major problems of our times.
In her expansive grassroots study she:
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Reveals details of fat activist methods and approaches and explodes myths
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Charts extensive accounts of international fat activist historical roots going back over four decades
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Explores controversies and tensions in the movement
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Shows that fat activism is an undeniably feminist and queer phenomenon
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Explains why fat activism presents exciting possibilities for anyone interested in social justice
Fat Activism: A Radical Social Movement is a rare insider’s view of fat people speaking about their lives and politics on their own terms. It is part of a new wave of accessible accountable and rigorous work emerging through Research Justice and the Para-Academy.
This is the book you have been waiting for.