David Toop.Born in Enfield, near London, in 1949, David Toop is a musician/composer (guitar, flutes, laptop), writer, and curator. Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts London, and Senior Research Fellow at the Sound Arts & Design Department of the London College of Communication, he recently completed an AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) Research Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts. His project – Sound Body – was a three year study of digital technology and improvised music performance.
He has written four books, currently translated into eight languages: Rap Attack (now in its third edition), Ocean of Sound (included in the Observer Music Monthly’s 50 Greatest Music Books Ever), Exotica (a winner of the 21st annual American Books Awards for 2000), and Haunted Weather. His first album, New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments, was released on Brian Eno's Obscure label in 1975; since 1995 he has released seven solo albums, including Screen Ceremonies, Pink Noir, and Black Chamber. His most recent releases are Doll Creature, with Max Eastley, and breath taking, with Akio Suzuki, and his latest solo album, Sound Body, was released by David Sylvian’s samadhisound label on February 19th, 2007.
He studied fine art and graphic design at Hornsey College of Art and Watford College of Art and Design in the late 1960s, then in 1971-2 took part in the first improvisation workshops led by jazz drummer John Stevens. Having played improvised music since the beginning of the 1970s, he has also recorded shamanistic ceremonies in Amazonas, appeared on Top Of The Pops with the Flying Lizards, worked with musicians including Brian Eno, John Zorn, Prince Far I, Jon Hassell, Derek Bailey, Talvin Singh, Evan Parker, Scanner, Ivor Cutler, Akio Suzuki and Jin Hi Kim, and collaborated with artists such as theatre director/actor Steven Berkoff, Japanese Butoh dancer Mitsutaka Ishii, sound poet Bob Cobbing, visual artist John Latham, and novelist Jeff Noon.
As a critic and columnist he has written for many publications, including The Wire, The Face, The Times, The New York Times and The Village Voice. In 2000, he curated Sonic Boom, the UK's largest ever exhibition of sound art, displayed at the Hayward Gallery, London, from April to June of that year. In 2001-02 he was sound curator for Radical Fashion, an exhibition of work by designers including Issey Miyake, Junya Watanabe and Martin Margiela, held at the Victoria and Albert Museum and featuring music by Björk, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and others.
In 1998 he composed the soundtrack for Acqua Matrix, the outdoor spectacular that closed every night of Lisbon Expo '98. Siren Space, his composition for tug boat horns, electronics and the solo saxophone of Lol Coxhill, was performed on the River Thames for the Thames Festival in 2002, and his composition, Black Chamber, was used in the acclaimed Complicite theatre production of The Elephant Vanishes. In 2005 he curated Playing John Cage for the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, co-curated Sound Out, an exhibition of outdoor sound installations in Cork, Ireland, and curated sound for the Bob Cobbing retrospective exhibited at Bury Museum. Also in 2005 his sound installation - Beijing Water Writing - was exhibited in Beijing’s Zhongshan Park as the inaugural event of the British Council Sound and the City project, and his collaborative installation with Peter Cusack of Beijing soundscapes was launched at the new Beijing Capital Museum. Other sound installations in 2005-6 have been exhibited in Kinsale, southern Ireland, Belfast, and Stourhead National Trust garden, Wiltshire.
His writings on music and sound have been published recently in the following books: Audio Culture: Readings In Modern Music; That's the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader; Techno Visionen; Pop Fiction: The Song In Cinema; Francis Alys: Seven Walks, London, 2004-5; Blocks of Consciousness and the Unbroken Continuum; Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook; and Autumn Leaves: Sound and the Environment In Practice. His short story, The Magnetic Field, and prose poem, On a realization: music, have been published in the CalArts literary journal, Black Clock (edited by Steve Erickson). He is currently playing in two improvising trios: with Rhodri Davies (harp) and Lee Patterson (field recordings/amplified devices); and with Phil Durrant (laptop) and Stefano Tedesco (vibraphone/electronics). He also leads Unknown Devices: the Laptop Orchestra, a large improvising ensemble convened at London College of Communication.Free MySpace Layouts by Iron Spider
