In the latest issue of The Wire Magazine, David Rothenberg reviews Alien Listening: Voyager’s Golden Record and Music from Earth by Daniel Chua and Alexander Rehding. Click here to learn more about the book. Click here to access the review or read it via the button to the left. An excerpt appears below:

“This is the worthiest heir to John Cage’s Zen questioning of music’s shape and form, without the old master’s fear of pop music or jazz.

Alien Listening is the best example we’ve yet seen of what 21st century music theory can be. It explains to us why music can be about everything without reducing its subjects to the numb face of data of any kind. Chua and Rehding celebrate an idea of music as vast as the universe itself. The aliens have been with us all along…in this strange thing called music that we can never define but always want to share…as far as our reach can go.”