Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Musical Avant-Garde

Jennifer Iverson's book explores how the electronic music studio at the WDR radio in Cologne was a beacon of hope for a decimated post-war West Germany, using wartime machines, spaces, and discourses to create new sounds. The studio's composers collaborated with scientists and technicians to reclaim military communication technologies and fascist propaganda broadcasting spaces, resulting in a revolutionary synthesis of science, technology, politics, and aesthetics that transformed mid-century music and continues to reverberate today.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 10 January 2019
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

In the aftermath of World War II, a devastated West Germany found solace in the electronic music studio at the WDR radio in Cologne. Jennifer Iverson's captivating book, Electronic Inspirations: Technologies of the Cold War Musical Avant-Garde, delves into the remarkable transformation of wartime machines, spaces, and discourses into the innovative sounds of the mid-century studio. As West Germany embarked on its journey of reconstruction in the 1950s, driven by a fervent desire to rebuild its cultural prestige, it embraced aesthetic and technical advancements to achieve its goals. The studio's composers, in collaboration with scientists and technicians, coaxed music from a variety of devices, including sine-tone oscillators, noise generators, band-pass filters, and magnetic tape. By drawing upon core principles from information theory and phonetics, they reclaimed military communication technologies and repurposed fascist propaganda broadcasting spaces for their artistic purposes. The electronic studio fostered a revolutionary fusion of science, technology, politics, and aesthetics, resulting in a genre of music that would profoundly impact mid-century music and continue to resonate even today. Electronic music, with its echoes of cultural anxiety and promise, stands as a quintessential Cold War innovation, symbolizing the complex interplay between technology, culture, and the geopolitical tensions of the era.

Weight: 478g
Dimension: 234 x 168 x 18 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780190868208