David Toop (born 5 May 1949) is an English musician, author,curator, sound artist, and academic, widely known for his work on improvisation, sound culture, and listening practices. He was a long-standing contributor toThe Wire[2] andThe Face, and a member of the British new wave bandThe Flying Lizards.[3]
He has been active acrossexperimental music, sound art,ethnography, and writing for more than five decades. Toop has performed on a wide array of instruments and sound-making devices, authored influential books on sound and popular music, and held senior academic appointments at theUniversity of the Arts London (UAL). He is Emeritus Professor at theLondon College of Communication (LCC).
Since 1974, Toop has been a visiting lecturer at art schools, universities, andconservatoires internationally. From 2000 to 2005 he served as Research Fellow at theLondon College of Communication and subsequently held an AHRC Research Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts (2005–2007) for a project examining digital technology’s impact on contemporary music and improvised performance.[5]
He was Visiting Professor at theUniversity of the Arts London from 2005 to 2012[6] and Visiting Professor atLeeds College of Music from 2012 onward.[7] Toop was appointed Professor at UAL in 2013, serving as Chair and later Professor of Audio Culture and Improvisation between 2013 and 2021.[8] He became Emeritus Professor at LCC following his retirement.[5]
In 1978 he travelled to the Venezuelan Amazon to recordYanomamishamanistic ceremonies[21], resulting in releases such asHekura (1980) andLost Shadows (2013).[22] In 1979 he founded the Quartz label, issuing rare ethnographic and experimental music recordings alongside new work by British improvisers.[18]
He is a member of the improvising, genre-hopping quartetAlterations, active from 1977 to 1986 and reforming in 2015.[27]
In 2000, Toop curated the sound art exhibitionSonic Boom, and the following year, he curated a 2-CD collection entitledNot Necessarily English Music: A Collection of Experimental Music from Great Britain, 1960–1977. More experimentally, Toop has also actively engaged with 'sounding objects' from a range of museums.[28] His operaStar-shaped Biscuit was performed as a Faster Than Sound Project at Aldeburgh in 2012.[29]
In recent years, Toop has continued an active collaborative practice, working withRyuichi Sakamoto,Akio Suzuki,Lawrence English,John Butcher, Sharon Gal, and others, producing recordings that combine field recording, improvisation, and environmental sound.[17]
His bookRap Attack (1984) was the second book ever published on hip hop, tracing the music’s roots from Africa and theCaribbean toNew York. It has since appeared in multiple expanded editions and is widely cited as foundational hip-hop scholarship.[32]
His later bookOcean of Sound (1995), exploring ambient music, listening, and imaginary worlds, remains in print and continues to sell internationally, influencing writing on sound art,electronic music, and auditory culture.[33]
In August 2025, Toop co-authored the article “Against the Grain: David Toop and Ania Psenitsnikova on moving beyond music and dance” with performance artist Ania Psenitsnikova forThe Wire (issue 499). The article accompanied work by their collaborative duo Moreskinsound and articulated a shared position that conventional categories such as music and dance can constrain how sound, movement, and embodiment are perceived.[2]
Drawing on ecological listening, ritual performance, and embodied practice, the article framed listening as a way of entering and leaving spaces without trace, contrasting human temporality withgeological and environmental time. The text combined poetic reflection with theoretical references, including writings on time, perception, and the body, and was illustrated with documentation of aMoreskinsound performance in Cornwall (2023) photographed by Toop.[34]
This collaboration reflects Toop’s later-career shift toward interdisciplinary performance practices that merge sound art, improvisation, writing, and ritual action, extending themes previously explored in his booksSinister Resonance, Flutter Echo, and Inflamed Invisible.[35]
