Sonic Bodies

The reggae sound system has exerted a major influence on music and popular culture. Out on the streets of inner city Kingston, Jamaica, every night, sound systems stage dancehall sessions for the crowd to share the immediate, intensive and immersive visceral pleasures of sonic dominance. Sonic Bodies concentrates on the skilled performance of the crewmembers responsible for this signature sound of Jamaican music: the audio engineers designing, building and fine-tuning the hugely powerful "sets" of equipment; the selectors choosing the music tracks to play; and MCs(DJs) on the mic hyping up the crowd. Julian Henriques proposes that these dancehall "vibes" are taken literally as the periodic motion of vibrations. He offers an analysis of how a sound system operates - at auditory, corporeal and sociocultural frequencies. Sonic Bodies formulates a fascinating critique of visual dominance and the dualities inherent in ideas of image, text or discourse. This innovative book questions the assumptions that reason resides only in a disembodied mind, that communication is an exchange of information, and that meaning is only ever representation.

Julian Henriques

Introduction: Thinking Through Sound Chapter 1: The Dancehall Scene and the Wavebands of Sounding Chapter 2: Sound Systems, Instruments and Techniques Chapter 3: The Engineer: Fine-tuning Chapter 4: Learning to Listen Chapter 5: The Selector: Juggling Chapter 6: Cut, Mix n' Rewind Chapter 7: The MC: Voicing Chapter 8: Rhetoric and Ways of Knowing Conclusion: A Sonic Logos Bibliography Discography Index