Ways of Hearing

John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” was first published in 1972. It looked at visual images and how they shape us. In “Ways of Hearing” Ben Thompson does a similar thing for music – albeit in a non-sociological, highly subjective, fairly irreverent and extremely entertaining manner. He explores the role of music in the mediums of radio, TV, film, literature and video, and interviews a wildly disparate bunch of musicians and djs, from Brian Eno, John Peel, Captain Beefheart and Neil Young, to Lee Perry, Sir Cliff Richard, the Chemical Brothers and Mercury Rev.