The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music. Ed. by James Saunders.
Clemens Gresser · Music and Letters · 2011
It is exciting to welcome The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music; so far there are only two other volumes in this series: The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music and The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Musicology. Judging from the table of contents of both volumes, the editors have compartmentalized the contributions neatly: the volume on Japanese music seems to follow a clear time and area structure; the Popular Musicology anthology has lucid chapter headings, such as ‘Film, Video and Multimedia’ or ‘Gender and Sexuality’. If these companions ‘are designed to offer scholars and graduate students a comprehensive and authoritative state-of-the-art review of current research in a particular area’ (Companion to Experimental Music, p. ii), it is best if the volume adapts a systematic and transparent approach and allows the reader to explore the field as the chosen contributors evaluate the work of other scholars. In contrast to these earlier volumes, the Companion to Experimental Music is divided into two parts: ‘nine authored chapters exploring aspects of experimental music’ (p. 1), and a collection of interviews with experimental musicians. For Saunders, these two parts ‘contextualise and exemplify each other respectively’ (p. 1). This volume thus provides more primary sources than either of the other two books in the series. This slightly skews its function, from being an overview of the field to being a reader of relevant texts.