Unwanted sounds

Another review of Garret Keizer's book The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want: A Book About Noise published by Perseus, this tiome in the Guardian Review, by Steve Poole

The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want: A Book About Noise, by Garret Keizer (Perseus, £16.99)
What is noise? In this thoughtfully soft-spoken and beautifully written polemic, Keizer considers noise as "unwanted sound" or "repulsive sound" or a "pollutant" or "sonic abuse": as he says, "The essential difference between music and noise is neither acoustic nor aesthetic but ethical." (Your favourite symphony might count as noise if your neighbour is blasting it out at 4am; while some people choose to incorporate the hum of machinery into sound art.) Keizer tells stories of noise disputes in cities; the harm done to birds, squirrels and whales by industrial noise; and, wryly, the surprising amount of noise it takes to make a book such as this one.

What, then, to do? Keizer would like planetary civilisation to become less noisy – which does not, he insists, mean less "festive" – for him, unamplified song and the sounds of non-motorised tools are rarely offensive. In the end, as Keizer shows, noise is basically about power: "A person who says 'My noise is my right' basically means 'Your ear is my hole'." To be read with Rage Against the Machine cranked up, but not too far, on headphones.