Extreme Sounds Studies: Global Socio-Cultural Explorations

Music and sound are a reflection of particular social contexts. They are grounded in geographies, people’s lived experiences, and specific events. Therefore, when we conceptualize music and sound as 'extreme,' we do so in recognition of this contextual anchoring, and as an acknowledgment that contexts are produced and reflected through them.

Metal music studies have used the terminology of 'extreme music' to describe sounds, aesthetics, and practices that are usually interpreted as distant from, and challenging of, the societies in which music is created and consumed. People and communities use music and sound to reflect how the conditions they live through have become extreme; politically, economically, and socially. How can this invitation to understand extremity be applied to other types of music and sounds?

This book series aims to explore how the idea of 'the extreme' might serve to understand the roles of sounds in our lives. It aims to address the following questions: What makes some kinds of music and sounds extreme? Is there an aesthetic of extreme in music and sound to be unpacked that can be encountered elsewhere, for example in the analysis of noise or other forms of experimental music, even in the extremity of the mundane? How do diverse people and communities think about the extreme when referencing music and sound?

Series Editors: Niall Scott, Nelson Varas-Díaz, and Bryan Bardine