From a piece today by Simon Sellars on the manner in which dystopian bard J.G. Ballard‘s worldview is suffused into contemporary sound (ballardian.com):
In recent times, Ballard’s influence on music seems to have waned although there is convergence with a cadre of sound artists who have magnified and critiqued the sonic footprint of the world’s cities and conurbations. Interact with any aspect of the Big City today, virtual or actual, and you will be enveloped with noise. When you pick up the handle of a petrol pump, an ad jingle plays.
Sellars even produced a “muxtape,” featuring Noel Coward, Foetus, Kode9 and the Spaceape, and a rendition of “Teddy Bear’s Picnic”: ballardian.muxtape.com. Me being American, I find the latter creepier than Sellars does, because I only really know it from its association with Dennis Potter‘s TV mini-series The Singing Detective.