Overview

During the 1970s, the synthesizer spurred many fundamental shifts in the mechanisms of music-making. Along with the popularization of the musical aesthetics established by both the punk and post-punk movements, the synthesizer led to ground-breaking effects and processes. Dark Waves examines the role of the synthesizer in shaping the dark and dystopian sound of electronic music in 1970s Britain and is the first collected musicological analysis of The Normal, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and John Foxx. Many of these acts, dark in content, presentation and manner, would go on to influence the more commercial sound of 1980s synth pop, which in turn shaped mainstream electronic music today.

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9781538165300

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Growing up with the music that Neil O'Connor discusses so successfully in this book, I had an inkling that synthesizers were speaking of a greater, subterranean truth than one I could grasp, a truth of impending doom and fragile hope, of blurred distinctions between machines and humans. O'Connor lays out, with love and precision, the hidden contours of this truth, combining meticulous historical detail with canny reflections on how synthesizers defined a generation of music. --Joanna Demers, professor of musicology, USC Thornton School of Music

Author Information

Dr. Neil O'Connor is Electronic Music Producer and academic at DMARC (Digital Media Research Centre), Dept. of Computer Science, University of Limerick, Ireland. Neil has published with Bloomsbury, Taylor & Francis, Routledge, and Cambridge University Press.

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