David Toop's publication Into the Maelstrom has been shortlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize.
The Penderyn Music Book Prize is the only UK-based book prize specifically for music titles including history, theory, biography, autobiography. Into the Maelstrom is one of eight shortlisted titles which include The Rise, the Fall and the Rise by Brix Smith Start and Testimony by Robbie Robertson.
"Into the Maelstrom is the first volume in a projected series by David Toop looking into the roots and impact of free improvised music, who is both a veteran music writer and luminary of this low-profile genre." - Lindesay Irvine, The Guardian.
The winner of the prize will be announced on 9 April 2017.
Read the full Penderyn Music Book Prize shortlist announcement.
Into the Maelstrom
In this first instalment of acclaimed music writer David Toop's interdisciplinary and sweeping overview of free improvisation, Into the Maelstrom: Music, Improvisation and the Dream of Freedom: Before 1970 introduces the philosophy and practice of improvisation (both musical and otherwise) within the historical context of the post-World War II era. Neither strictly chronological, or exclusively a history, Into the Maelstrom investigates a wide range of improvisational tendencies: from surrealist automatism to stream-of-consciousness in literature and vocalization; from the free music of Percy Grainger to the free improvising groups emerging out of the early 1960s (Group Ongaku, Nuova Consonanza, MEV, AMM, the Spontaneous Music Ensemble); and from free jazz to the strands of free improvisation that sought to distance itself from jazz. Read more.