I finished reading four books in April: Luciano Berio, Two Interviews, which is actually many more than two interviews with the composer, who has less than nice things to say about synthesizers (circa 1981), but very interesting things to say about tape music and how transcription was, in effect, tape recording before there was tape recording; Ludic Dreaming: How to Listen Away from Contemporary Technoculture, by the writers who collectively go by the Occulture (the chapter about a depressed Nietzsche at the end of his life just hitting the same note over and over on a piano is the highlight); Abbadon’s Gate, the third novel in the Expanse series (not as impressive as the first two, but still enjoyable); and Lost Signals, a collection of short horror fiction that involves sound, often but not exclusively variations on the haunted radio.
And I read a heap of graphic novels: the first volume in the recent Black Widow series; the first volume of Prophet; Hannah Berry’s Britten and Brülightly; Warren Ellis’ Project Superpowers: Blackcross; the second, third, and fourth volumes of Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark; Lilli Carré’s The Lagoon; the Hanuka Brothers’ The Divine; Megan Kelso’s Queen of the Black Black; and the first volume of Gail Simone’s Batgirl, mostly because it’s apparently the source of Joss Whedon’s film-in-progress, if I read correctly.
