Determinations
Field notes from searchers and operators
At the intersection of 1950s rock revivalism, pop art, and British camp, glam rock produced music that was both retrospective and genuinely shocking. Marc Bolan took the electric guitar back to its most primal boogie; David Bowie turned persona into high art; Roxy Music arrived already fully formed. The movement lasted only a few years before fragmenting into punk and disco—but in those years it permanently changed what was acceptable in both music and visual culture.
ReadLipstick, Lightning Bolts, and the Birth of Glam
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Glam rock arrived in Britain in the early 1970s like a theatrical detonation— sequins, platform boots, gender ambiguity, and enormous riffs. It made pop strange again at a moment when rock had grown earnest and self-important.
The Sound of Thinking: A Guide to Ambient Music
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Ambient music, as both genre and philosophy, proposes that sound can exist alongside consciousness without demanding its full attention. Pioneered by Brian Eno, it has grown into one of music's most expansive and variously inhabited territories.
Green and Ancient: The Making of British Folk Rock
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British folk rock fused the island's deep reserves of traditional song with the amplification and rhythmic energy of rock, producing music that felt simultaneously archaic and urgent. Few genres have a stronger sense of particular place.