AltWeeklies Wire » Books » Nonfiction

Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear

By Matt Gorney
Orlando Weekly | July 6, 2011
Author Steve Goodman could be the Lon Chaney of underground electronic music. He's Kode9, an artist on his own Hyperdub label; he's also a media lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at University of East London. The phlegmatic head-nodding of trending dubstep might mislead a casual fan regarding Goodman's scholarly writing, though. "Sonic Warfare" details historic episodes of sound used as weaponry (with names that suggest club nights: Ghost Army, Curdler, Urban Funk Campaign). The application of (lowercase) dread driven by hyper, audible and infrasonic sound – including aggressors ranging from various militaries to mall managers driving away loitering teenagers with electronic rat-repellants – is a little-known cyberhorror of organ-rattling sonic booms and bioidentical micro-recordings of deadly viruses. After sifting through myriad extant forms of aural attack, Goodman trades hats at the book's end, echoing Philip K. Dick with hypotheses of future auditory transgressions.

Orlando Weekly

In America's theme-park Mecca, Orlando Weekly recently explored these themes: How a private group of developers pulled the strings that directed public land-use policies. How a millionaire time-share mogul made his money selling bogus promises. How an annual Gay Day...
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