David Toop

British writer and composer David Toop has been highly influential as both a musician and journalist since the 1970s, contributing to numerous publications, authoring several highly regarded books about music, and producing myriad styles of music, both as a solo artist and collaborator. Although Toop's recorded output has included everything from experimental rock and jazz to musique concrète, the bulk of his solo and collaborative works has been in the vein of experimental ambient. Many of his recordings blend alien abstraction with earthly melodicism, incorporating acoustic instruments, spoken word samples, and global influences. Better known perhaps as a journalist and music historiographer, Toop wrote one of the first books about hip-hop -- 1984's groundbreaking Rap Attack -- and has been a longtime contributing editor and columnist for U.K. experimental music magazine The Wire.