Blank Forms Editions, ISBN: 978-1953691002, English, 398 pages, 2021, USA

This book is a carefully curated selection from the archive of Maryanne Amacher, whose more than one hundred boxes were eventually donated to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. It is a painstaking editing job by composer Bill Dietz and musicologist Amy Cimini, who have extracted a remarkable array of small, mostly unpublished treasures from this archive, ranging from scores to personal correspondence with Cage to visionary but mostly rejected grant proposals and insightful notes, all contextualised through texts and interviews. Such multi-faceted artists have multi-layered souls and in this selection you will find an excellent cross-section of Amacher’s research. She has created ground-breaking work, from the telematic audio performance series ‘City Links’ in the 1970s, to ‘perceptual geography’, a work that experimented with aural and interaural sonic imaging, to the use of the skin as an ‘organ’ for perceiving vibrations. This book probes her refusal to make a record for many years, as well as her self-directed research into the physics of sound and the concept of the ‘listening mind’, which brought her to this particular border zone beyond any possible schematisation. Her technical knowledge, unique vision and obsession make this volume an exemplary collection and an inexhaustible source of inspiration.