More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures iIn Sonic Fiction

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Essayist and cultural critic Kodwu Eshun really loves his music collection. Chances are he'll make you want to go out and buy some CDs too. In this fast-moving mix of clever observations, imagistic descriptions, and paragraph-sized soundbites, Eshun takes on various musics of the black diaspora, from American hip-hop and funk to British jungle, from Detroit techno to German proto-electronics. Eshun favors linguistic impact and theoretical evocation over basic descriptions, a tactic that may confuse breakbeat neophytes. But this approach means that More Brilliant embraces the freewheeling cut 'n paste attitudes of the music discussed and thus becomes much more interesting than a traditional scholarly examination of transatlantic “sonic fictions”.