In the introduction to Sound Practices in the Global South: Co-listening to Resounding Plurilogues, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay promises a volume which ‘breaks new ground by bringing the Global South’s sound thinking to Eurocentric sound media studies and by developing a new decolonial theory of sound studies by examining the transcultural confluence in sound media against the colonial model of othering of cultures and hegemony over listening approaches’ (p. 6). He first chooses an interview format for this effort (a second volume of theory which refers to this first book is already in the writing stages), digging into the personal histories and concepts of 30 artists and scholars in conversations (including with himself!) from the ‘Global South’ (a term with which the author acknowledges some dissatisfaction and skepsis). The mode of questioning which is used in this research directly takes on topics of early training and educational institutions, inclusion and marginalization, ways of identifying as non-European artists, unearthing non-Western musical/sonic canons and personal artistic approaches to, and ideas about, the impact of colonialism in all the artist’s immediate artistic milieus.

In recent years, literature on sound and sound art has seen more inclusion of decolonial topics, and writing on sound in the context of specific, non-white/European cultural backgrounds, beginning with such volumes as Steingo and Sykes (Reference Steingo and Sykes2019), Eidsheim (Reference Eidsheim2019), Robinson (Reference Robinson2020), Chaves and Lazzetta (Reference Chaves and Lazzetta2019), Wang (Reference Wang2021) and Maier (Reference Maier2020). Also, the Bloomsbury Handbook of Sound Art (Schulze and Groth Reference Schulze and Groth2020) makes a point of including more diverse authors on sound art than other previous collected volumes in the field of sound. Now, the book by Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, as well as Skelchy and Taylor (Reference Skelchy and Taylor2023), Love and Fillerup (Reference Love and Fillerup2023) and Haumkamp et al. (Reference Haukamp and Hoene2023) and soon my own co-edited collected volume together with Şirin Özgün on sound, music and power in Turkey (Woodruff and Özgün Reference Woodruff and Özgünforthcoming), coming out next year, can be added to the list. More than half of the aforementioned authors, however, are themselves white and of European descent (myself included), underlining the depth of the problem that academic publishing on sound continues to exhibit, and undeniably demonstrating the culpability of the field of sound studies (among other academic fields involving sound) in its bias and continued entanglement with its colonial history, which Chattopadhyay challenges here. This volume, as it is written from the positionality of a sound artist from Calcutta, and includes exclusively non-white/non-European artists, carries with it therefore landmark significance in this ongoing discussion. For that reason, it is extremely useful and important that Chattopadhyay (I would say at the risk of some divisiveness) does not shy away from a polemical approach, imbuing his lines of questioning with provocative, and to some, confrontational, implications. As a result of so many diverse articulated viewpoints however, the book also renders a nuanced and differentiated picture, so that no foregone conclusions or reductive binaries are ever substituted for the complexity of the subject matter over the course of this 500+ page study.

One contentious position regards the relatively new discipline from which the book itself emerges: Chattopadhyay calls for ‘thinking beyond the obviously Eurocentric field of sound studies’ (p. 9) and ‘the idea of “sound art” or “sonic arts” is departing from a typical Western musical tradition where tonal structures are discreet and quantifiable’ (p. 333). Partly because there is a range of different kinds of artists interviewed in the book, including those identifying as musicians or artists in a broader sense, throughout the interviews, Chattopadhyay can unify the inquiries by preferring the term ‘sound’ (e.g., ‘sound practices’, ‘sound practitioner’ or ‘working with sound’). Chattopadhyay’s basic position though is reiterated in instances with those who do identify as sound artists, such as when he asks one interviewee, ‘How did you start your career as a so-called sound artist?’ (p. 424; emphasis mine). At many such moments the author stresses his point that the very terms ‘sound art’ and ‘sonic arts’ have solidified into a set of practices that are mainly emerging from, and create the further expectation of, European concepts and references.

This position is to a very large extent substantiated by one of the greatest strengths of the book: it becomes clear from the large overall accumulation of anecdotal evidence that all the subjects interviewed, although some come from more privilege than others despite their non-European heritage, have been subjected to various forms of intellectual and/or physical violence and exclusion. The most often encountered form of this violence manifests as an intense pressure to self-censure and conform into European modes, values, references and strictures (especially including exoticisation) which usually do not correspond to certain, or all, of their artistic needs, bases or backgrounds. It is such questions from Chattopadhyay as ‘What is your comment on European colonization of Latin American sound and listening? How do you like to decolonize sounds in your own work?’ (p. 400) that allow these stories to emerge. Even in cases where the subjects might state that such an attempt is not part of their practice (at least not consciously), the question invariably elicits the description of other sonic forms of resistance to the historical fact of colonialism and its ongoing effects.

Recognising the multiple forms of violence and their commonalities and differences, in the way that is possible to trace in this book, is an invaluable starting point for the possibility of re-imagining, reforming and reparation to allow more diversity in universities and in cultural institutions. This is a place from which I hope the author will start in his further writings given the wealth of overlapping material in this book to help us address the injustices and conceptual, and moral deafnesses of cultural and educational institutions. I hope though that the cultural capital that this attempt itself carries will not help perpetuate the colonialist tendencies’ own existence like so many ‘world music’ concerts have, which in requiring the exoticisation of the idea of repression for its own consumption, unfortunately subtly perpetuate or maybe even strengthen it. This problem is also addressed between the lines in the interviews, and surely a scholar as erudite as the author will help us further navigate the way forward in this perilous field with the experience gained in this book. It is a superb foundation to overcome the conundrum of perpetually emphasising the ‘victim role’ of one’s subjects only to wind up subtly valorising it – a move which over-villainises and alienates. I try to be keenly vigilant of this danger, as insipid as it is, in my own transcultural research, and welcome this volume for its enormous potential value in countering it.

Consensus among the artists on certain topics clearly emerges in the book, although in differently nuanced ways. Most of the artists completely agree that (early) colonial recording of various music traditions had a negative, corrosive impact on music and culture in those places. It was also widely agreed that the straitjacketing that occurs through the classification of music into Western music theoretical models (particularly equal temperament and scales) is an egregious form of colonial violence. Interestingly, the question of how the artists identified themselves culturally and how it may feature in their work resulted for practically all the artists in problematic issues, often having to do with a split between traditional forms of expression and one’s reliance on technology. Further, it seems other music systems in various cultural settings also have built-in hegemonies of their own which can pose considerable artistic restrictions. Chattopadhyay states that all of those interviewed have an ‘ambivalence in the national, social, cultural, and political identities’ (p. 288) with which they might be variously associated in some way. Of course, this also relates, however, to discussions in the interviews about exoticisation and expectations created by the cultural politics of funding institutions and of other supporting institutions in Europe.

One of the most interesting common aspects of all the artists chosen is the auto-didactic character of their unusual backgrounds and the directions from which they began working artistically with sound. As most were not at first offered the luxury of easy access to information or to a traditional education, their hunger and search for sonic knowledge presented most of the artists represented here with fascinating formative early journeys and relationships. This leads fluidly in all the interviews to the question of what alternative non-European canons they could imagine as the basis for their work in sound, which could as well extend to others’ sound work. This is some of the most interesting and rewarding material of the book, as what becomes clear is that a personal or social canon is an often-held, operable and progressive concept among many of the artists interviewed – whether a community, an alternative source, or under-the-radar flow of sonic archival information.

Although some aspects detract from the readability of the text (including, unavoidably, some anachronistic general ideas common during the Covid years, during which some of the interviews were gathered, and also very literal transcriptions of the conversational flow of the interviews, containing some unnecessary redundancies in exchange for capturing the personalities of the subjects and the feel of the interview), the book is overall a wonderful and much needed reference point for many new and important voices who are working meaningfully, originally and authentically from what are generally perceived as the margins of the field. This book will undoubtedly embolden more scholars and publishers to hear beyond the same well-trodden white, Eurocentric ways of thinking about sound and reach for epistemologies that challenge the institutional frameworks that are keeping us back from more inclusive and imaginative ways of working. Sound Practices in the Global South is therefore an invaluable contribution with a nexus of concepts which I hope can take root and grow into a more encompassing and alive theoretical ground than we have yet been able to produce with certain structures maintained by our current, largely white, male, Eurocentric systems of knowledge production.