David Toop (original) (raw)

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English musician, author, curator, and emeritus professor

David Toop
Background information
Born (1949-05-05) 5 May 1949 (age 75)Enfield, England
Genres Ambient experimental free improvisation
Occupations Authormusiciancollege professorcurator
Instruments Guitarfluteelectronics
Years active 1970–present
Labels Obscure Records Virgin Sub Rosa Samadhi Sound Home Normal ROOM40 Audika
Website davidtoopblog.com

Musical artist

David Toop (born 5 May 1949)[1] is an English musician, author, curator, and emeritus professor. From 2013 to 2021 he was professor of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a regular contributor to British music magazine The Wire and the British magazine The Face. He was a member of British new wave band The Flying Lizards.

Early life and education

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Soon after Toop's birth, his parents moved to Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire, where he grew up. He was educated at Broxbourne Grammar School, which he left in 1967 to study at Hornsey College of Art and Watford School of Art.

In 1974 Toop edited and co-published the book, New/Rediscovered Musical Instruments, featuring the work of Max Eastley, Hugh Davies, Evan Parker, Paul Lytton, Paul Burwell and himself. He was a founder member of the London Musicians Collective, Musics magazine and Collusion magazine, and in 1977 founded his record label, Quartz Publications. He published a book on hip hop, Rap Attack, in 1984.[2] Eleven years later, Ocean of Sound was published, described as Toop's "poetic survey of contemporary musical life from Debussy through Ambient, Techno, and drum 'n' bass."[3] Subsequent books include Exotica, a winner of the American Book Awards in 2000, Sinister Resonance (2010),[4] and Into the Maelstrom,[5] his survey of free improvisation shortlisted for the Penderyn Music Book prize in 2017.

He was a regular contributor to British music magazine The Wire and the British magazine The Face.

Since the early 1970s, Toop has also been a presence on the British experimental and improvised music scene, collaborating with Paul Burwell (playing guitar and flutes in their duo, Rain in the Face), Bob Cobbing with the group abAna, Hugh Davies, Max Eastley, Brian Eno, and others, more recently performing with Rie Nakajima, Thurston Moore, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sidsel Endresen, Camille Norment, Akio Suzuki and Elaine Mitchener. He was a member of the Flying Lizards. He is a member of the improvising, genre-hopping quartet Alterations, active from 1977 to 1986 and reforming in 2015.[6]

In 2000, Toop curated the sound art exhibition Sonic Boom, and the following year, he curated a 2-CD collection entitled Not Necessarily English Music: A Collection of Experimental Music from Great Britain, 1960–1977. More experimentally, Toop has also actively engaged with 'sounding objects' from a range of museums.[7] His opera Star-shaped Biscuit was performed as a Faster Than Sound Project at Aldeburgh in 2012.[8]

From 2013 to 2021 he was professor of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication where he now holds emeritus status.[9]

Solo and collaborations

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  1. ^ "David Toop | British Music Collection". Sound and Music. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
  2. ^ Fikentscher, Kai (1994). "Review of Rap Attack 2: African Rap to Global Hip Hop; The Emergency of Black and the Emergence of Rap. A Special Issue of Black Sacred Music: A Journal of Theomusicology". Ethnomusicology. 38 (2): 349–351. doi:10.2307/851745. ISSN 0014-1836. JSTOR 851745.
  3. ^ Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, p. 355.
  4. ^ Dixon, Martin Parker (2013). "Review of Sinister Resonance". Popular Music. 32 (2): 315–318. doi:10.1017/S0261143013000135. ISSN 0261-1430. JSTOR 24736765. S2CID 162013482.
  5. ^ Studies, Journal of Sonic (24 March 2021). "JSS Book reviews". Journal of Sonic Studies.
  6. ^ Bell, Clive. "Clive Bell: What's so funny 'bout British improvising? – The Wire". The Wire Magazine – Adventures in Modern Music. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  7. ^ Toop, David (1 October 2012). "Sounding the Object: a Timebase Archive". Journal of Conservation and Museum Studies. 10 (1): 39–43. doi:10.5334/jcms.1011203.
  8. ^ Burnett, Joseph. "David Toop's Star-Shaped Biscuit". The Quietus. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  9. ^ Toop, David. "University of the Arts Biography". University of the Arts. Retrieved 6 August 2024.