2008
In the French translation of his seminal work, Ocean of Sound (Kargo/L'Éclat, 2008), David Toop positions Max Neuhaus as a vital architect of "ambient" and "environmental" consciousness.
Toop’s analysis focuses on how Neuhaus moved sound away from the "event" and into the "ether":
Toop describes Neuhaus's works, such as Times Square, as sounds that "lurk" within the city. He argues that Neuhaus doesn't just add noise to an environment but creates a hidden sonic layer that listeners "fall into" rather than "listen to" in a traditional, frontal way.
The Aesthetics of Disappearance: A key theme for Toop is the erasure of the performer. He highlights how Neuhaus transitioned from being a virtuoso percussionist to an invisible engineer. By removing himself from the stage, Neuhaus allowed the sound to become an autonomous part of the world's "imaginary landscape."
Toop explores Neuhaus’s underwater works (Water Whistle), using them to illustrate the concept of total immersion. In these pieces, sound is felt through the body as much as the ears, perfectly fitting Toop’s broader "oceanic" metaphor for music that lacks boundaries or centers.
In the section on "Voices of the Ether," Toop references Neuhaus’s radio works (Public Supply) as early experiments in tele-presence. He sees Neuhaus as a pioneer who used the airwaves to create a "global" or "distributed" space, predating the digital ambient networks of the 1990s.