MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
What is music for?
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in an open-minded exploration of music that provokes reflection on the determinants of musical taste
PICKING UP THE PIECES: A music instructor with recovering soldier in a session of neurologic music therapy at a US Naval Medical Center in San Diego
[USMC/Public domain] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Listen (On Music, Sound and Us)
Michel Faber, Canongate, £20
MICHEL FABER has near-perfect recall of the lyrics and contributing musicians of Leo Sayer’s Just a Boy, an album he hasn’t listened to for 45 years. On the other hand, he forgets the names of outstanding artists he has heard more recently.
Listen is not a book of music criticism, nor does its author want to influence your taste. His focus is the psychology, sociology and phenomenology of our engagement with sound as a mode of expression.
More from this author
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes an exuberant blend of emotion and analysis that captures the politics and contrarian nature of the French composer
ANDY HEDGECOCK admires a critique of the penetration of our lives by digital media, but is disappointed that the underlying cause is avoided
ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
