The Voice in the Headphones

by David Grubbs

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Book cover for The Voice in the Headphones

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The voice in the headphones says, "you're rolling" . . .

The Voice in the Headphones is an experiment in music writing in the form of a long poem centered on the culture of the recording studio. It describes in intricate, prismatic detail one marathon day in a recording studio during which an unnamed musician struggles to complete a film soundtrack. The book extends the form of Grubbs's previous volume Now that the audience is assembled, sharing its goal of musicalizing the language of writing about music. Mulling the insight that "studio is the absence of pushback"-now that no audience is assembled-The Voice in the Headphones details one musician's strategies for applying the requisite pressure to the proceedings, for making it count. The Voice in the Headphones is both a literary work and a meditation on sound recording, delivered at a moment in which the commercial recording studio shades into oblivion. It draws upon Grubbs's own history of several decades as a recording artist, and its location could be described as every studio in which he has set foot.
  • ISBN10 1478007680
  • ISBN13 9781478007685
  • Publish Date 20 March 2020
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Duke University Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 160
  • Language English