Sounds Beyond: Arvo P舐t and the 1970s Soviet Underground (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226801902)

Sounds Beyond charts the origins of Arvo P舐t's most famous music, which was created in dialogue with underground creative circles in the USSR.

In Sounds Beyond, Kevin C. Karnes studies the interconnected alternative music and art scenes in the USSR during the second half of the 1970s, revealing the audacious origins of some of Estonian composer Arvo P舐t's most famous music. Karnes shows how P舐t's work was created within a vital yet forgotten culture of collective experimentation, the Soviet underground.

Mining archives and oral history from across the former USSR, Sounds Beyond carefully situates modes of creative experimentation within their late socialist contexts. In documenting P舐t's work, Karnes reveals the rich creative culture that thrived covertly in the USSR and the network of figures that made underground performances possible: students, audio engineers, sympathetic administrators, star performers, and aspiring DJs. Sounds Beyond advances a new understanding of P舐t's music as an expression of the aesthetic and religious commitments shared, nurtured, and celebrated by many in Soviet underground circles. At the same time, this story attests to the lasting power of P舐t's music. Dislodging the mythology of the solitary creative genius, Karnes shows that P舐t's work would be impossible without community.

Author: Kevin C. Karnes
ISBN-10: 022680190X
ISBN-13: 9780226801902
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 12/24/2021
Pages: 216
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.60h x 5.60w x 0.80d