Simon Zagorski-Thomas' book aims at no less than mapping an emergent field of music scholarship. Already well known for his championing of record production as an aesthetic activity worthy of investigation in more than just pragmatic terms (through an international conference and journal), here he fleshes out his vision in such a way as to both lay foundations and create areas for debate, tasks essential to the launching of any new endeavour.

Zagorski-Thomas has undoubted command of the field. He is equally at home discussing the historical advances created by John Culshaw's Wagner recordings in the 1960s, the application of various of Bourdieu's concepts to questions of valuation of what record producers produce, or the relevance of metaphor theory and neuroscience to the making of sense from recordings. Indeed, the range of the author's disciplinary mining of ideas is impressive; I regard myself as reasonably well-read in the fields he has traversed, but time and again I encountered ideas, writers and nuances new to me. This is not to say that the author makes equal, or even equally pertinent, use of all his sources, but it does mean that the foundation and scope for debate he presents are well worth taking seriously.

The structure of The Musicology of Record Production is built on eight pillars, which Zagorski-Thomas argues circumscribe the field. His emphasis, though, is not simply on what it is, but on how we should make sense of it – his Introduction is followed by chapters which, in turn, put the case for making record production an object of study, and then address the means by which one might do so. In this, his own position becomes clear, based as it is in work in ecological perception, embodied cognition, actor-network theory and the systems approach to creativity. Even if this ideological conglomeration is not to your liking, there is much in this book that you will find of value.

So, to those pillars. They are offered as four pairs, opening with consideration of sonic cartoons and staging, linked as they are by question of perception. I'm unsure exactly what the author means to identify by the former, although in general it seems to mark the difference between discussing music as (recorded) sound rather than music as concept, an issue which incorporates questions of the manifest origins of what we hear, and questions of what we take musical sounds to represent, where he pits Roger Scruton against theorists of metaphor. The chapter on staging is all about issues of realism, recognition that recorded reality is always staged, and how different types of staging are achieved and can be conceptualised.

Zagorski-Thomas' second pair concern recording technology, broadly separating its history from its employment. Far from considering mere chronology, the author focuses on the availability and dissemination of technology in a given circumstance, with particular reference to Latour's actor-network theory and to his understanding of the social construction of technology. It is perhaps here, in what could be a particularly mechanistic aspect of his programme, that he again finds links with theories of ecological perception and embodied cognition. The same models underpin his discussion of the uses of recording technology, drawing in questions of ergonomics, visual representation and creative abuse.

In his third pair, he discusses the recording studio, first focusing on technicians (sound engineers and record producers), and secondly on the musicians, although of course in focusing on the one he has to discuss relationships with the other. The key idea in the first of these chapters is surely that of distributed creativity, although issues of learning and of communication are also prominent. In the second I found focus on issues of collaboration, power relationships and trust, returning to questions of recording fidelity, but the chapter is so rich that other readers will be left with different impressions. The final pair of chapters, which I found less striking, focus on audiences. The first raises the relationship between listeners and gatekeepers: questions of ideology, habitus, authenticity are all addressed. The final chapter discusses business and the operation of the market, and how these impact on recording practices.

I have tried to give a flavour of the way Zagorski-Thomas' book sets out to achieve its aim, that of laying the foundations for the musicological study of recordings. I found the constant sub- and sub-sub-headings a distraction, but I concede that some readers will find them of value. They do provide a useful way of getting something from even a cursory read. The constant switch between theory (of many types, as we've seen) and musical examples is very effective. Likewise, in the way that chapters flow (and they do – the book's narrative is nicely constructed) through a chain of logic, but not in necessarily predictable ways, the reader is kept engaged. I have to say that I'm not convinced the term ‘musicology’ is either necessary or accurate here, although defending that latter would require discussion of how we understand musicology per se – most importantly, I'm not sure it matters in this context. The author has produced a book which will repay careful reading by anyone interested in understanding how we get to hear what we hear but, more importantly, it offers the potential to explore avenues which are only introduced here. Overall, despite the performative nature of the subject matter, my greatest impression of the book is an invitation to get thinking again, rather than just doing: a very necessary corrective.