Now that the audience is assembled

<div>Following his investigation into experimental music and sound recording in <i>Records Ruin the Landscape</i> David Grubbs turns his attention to the live performance of improvised music with an altogether different form of writing. <i>Now that the audience is assembled</i> is a book-length prose poem that describes a fictional musical performance during which an unnamed musician improvises the construction of a series of invented instruments before an audience that is alternately contemplative participatory disputatious and asleep. Over the course of this phantasmagorical all-night concert repeated interruptions take the form of in-depth discussions and musical demonstrations. Both a work of literature and a study of music <i>Now that the audience is assembled</i> explores the categories of improvised music solo performance text scores instrument building aesthetic deskilling and reskilling and the odd fate of the composer in experimental music.</div>