New Music and the Crises of Materiality: Sounding Bodies and Objects in Late Modernity

This book explores the transformation of ideas of the material in late twentieth- and early twenty-first century musical composition. Arguing that new music in this era reflects a historical moment when the idea of materiality itself is in flux, the book focuses on how recent music and sound art have expressed notions of the body and the material environment. It engages with thinkers such as Theodor Adorno and Sara Ahmed to demonstrate how this music relates to changing material conditions, from the rise of neo-liberalisms and information technologies to new concepts of the natural world.