Uploaded February 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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David Toop presents the keynote address 'How much world do you want?' at the Ambient@40 symposium, a two-day conference that appraised the current state of ambient music in relation to Eno’s milestone release

"Music Beyond Airports", edited by Monty Adkins and Simon Cummings, available now in hardcopy and free PDF download via Huddersfield University Press: unipress.hud.ac.uk/plugins/books/19

davidtoopblog.com
ambientat40.wordpress.com
archives.electricspring.co.uk/Seasons/2017-2018/Electric-Spring-2018

This presentation took place as part of the Ambient@40 conference, conveyed by Monty Adkins, Simon Cummings, Rupert Till, and Kristina Wolfe.

In the forty years since the release of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports the concept and aesthetics of ambient music have proliferated, influencing artists as diverse as Taylor Deupree, Steven Wilson, David Lynch and The Orb, infusing drone, microsound, minimalism and experimental electronic music as well as aspects of contemporary instrumental music. The aim of this two-day conference was to appraise ambient music in relation to Eno’s milestone release.

The conference took place at the University of Huddersfield from Friday 23 to Saturday 24 February 2018, running alongside the Electric Spring Festival (www.electricspring.co.uk).

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Video camera operator: Andie Brown, Pablo Galaz Salamanca, Sam Gillies
Video edited by Sam Gillies

Title music: Music for Airports (1/1), Brian Eno. Performed by Decibel New Music Ensemble. decibelnewmusic.com

///BIOGRAPHY

David Toop (born 1949, Enfield) has been developing a practice that crosses boundaries of sound, listening, music and materials since 1970. This practice encompasses improvised music performance, writing, electronic sound, field recording, exhibition curating, sound art installations and opera. It includes seven acclaimed books, including Rap Attack (1984), Ocean of Sound (1995), Sinister Resonance (2010) and Into the Maelstrom (2016), the latter a Guardian music book of the year, shortlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize.

Briefly a member of David Cunningham’s pop project The Flying Lizards in 1979, he has released thirteen solo albums, from New and Rediscovered Musical Instruments on Brian Eno’s Obscure label (1975) and Sound Body on David Sylvian’s Samadhisound label (2006) to Entities Inertias Faint Beings on Lawrence English’s ROOM40 (2016). His 1978 Amazonas recordings of Yanomami shamanism and ritual were released on Sub Rosa as Lost Shadows (2016).

In the early 1970s he performed with sound poet Bob Cobbing, butoh dancer Mitsutaka Ishii, artist Marie Yates, poet/performer Carlyle Reedy and drummer Paul Burwell, along with key figures in improvisation, including Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Georgie Born, Hugh Davies, John Stevens, Lol Coxhill, Frank Perry and John Zorn. In recent years he has returned to collaborative performance, working with many artists and musicians including Rie Nakajima, Akio Suzuki, Aki Onda, Max Eastley, Tania Chen, John Butcher, Ken Ikeda, Elaine Mitchener, Henry Grimes, Sharon Gal, Camille Norment, Sidsel Endresen, Alasdair Roberts, Thurston Moore, Extended Organ (with Paul McCarthy and Tom Recchion) and a revived Alterations, the iconoclastic improvising quartet with Steve Beresford, Peter Cusack and Terry Day first formed in 1977. He has also made many collaborative records, including Buried Dreams and Doll Creature with Max Eastley, Breath Taking with Akio Suzuki, Skin Tones with Ken Ikeda and co-productions (with Steve Beresford) for Frank Chickens, the 49 Americans and Ivor Cutler.

Major sound art exhibitions he has curated include Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery, London (2000) and Playing John Cage at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (2005-6). In 2008, a DVD of the Belgian film – I Never Promised You a Rose Garden: A Portrait of David Toop Through His Records Collection – was released by Sub Rosa, and in 2017 his autobiography – Flutter Echo: Living Within Sound – was published by Du Books in Japan. His most recent record release is Dirty Songs Play Dirty Songs, released on Audika in October 2017.

He is currently Professor of Audio Culture and Improvisation at London College of Communication.