Jonny Greenwood, Robert Wyatt and others to write essays for book about creative epiphanies

A host of music’s most esteemed are contributing to a new book about creative epiphanies. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, Michael Gira of Swans, Robert Wyatt, Lydia Lunch and Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis P-Orridge are just some of the names to be included in Epiphanies: Life Changing Encounters With Music.

A collection of 55 essays previously featured in Epiphanies, a column which has been running in magazine the Wire since 1998, its contributors have each written about singular moments of musical realisations.

According to the Wire, it will include Jonny Greenwood on “the irreconcilable musical differences between live and recorded sound”, Robert Wyatt on the genius of Ray Charles, Swans’s Michael Gira on “the sounds of fear and loathing”, and no wave pioneer Lydia Lunch on “the industrial opera of a New York race riot”.

There will also be columns from Specials founder Jerry Dammers on Sun Ra, Simon Reynolds on Scritti Politti, Throbbing Gristle’ Genesis Breyer P-Orridge on psychedelic artists Hapshash And The Coloured Coat and comedian Stewart Lee on “the common ability of great humour and great music to surprise”.

The book is out on 30 April via publisher Strange Attractor.

Full list of chapters:

Little Annie Bandez on the rhythms and blues of New York

Ed Baxter on the crepuscular blues of Nehemiah “Skip” James

Clive Bell on Henry Cow’s chamber music

Marcus Boon on the contagious sounds of the global south

Philip Brophy on the problem with John Cage

Samantha Brown on the lesson Bob Dylan learned from a song by a girl from the north country

Byron Coley on the DIY cut-ups of Orchid Spangiafora

Matthew Collin on the sounds of resistance in war-torn Serbia

Richard Cook on a compulsive jones for collecting records

Cathal Coughlan on the war songs of Slapp Happy and Art Bears

Jerry Dammers’s appreciation of Sun Ra and his cosmic music

Erik Davis on how Ligeti’s Requiem turned his body into a giant ear

Laina Dawes on black women who rock

Geeta Dayal on the drones that bridged a generation gap

Brian Dillon on the feelings unleashed by Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love

Michel Faber on a spontaneous music ensemble encountered in the back streets of Budapest

Paul Gilroy on two electrifying performances by the Voices of East Harlem

Michael Gira on the sounds of fear and loathing

Kenneth Goldsmith on the joy of acquiring music via file-sharing networks

Jonny Greenwood on the irreconcilable musical differences between live and recorded sound

David Grubbs on the seismic shock of short performances

Adam Harper on the infinite music contained within a Cornelius Cardew graphic score

Richard Henderson on the mind-expanding texture-sound of David Bowie’s Low

Ken Hollings on the alien beauty of Martin Denny’s exotica

Matthew Ingram on meeting his classic rock heroes

Vijay Iyer on a single mystical chord played by the pianist Cecil Taylor

David Keenan on how the Pastels messed up his hair for good

Stewart Lee on the common ability of great humour and great music to surprise

Alan Licht on Eddie Van Halen’s guitar pyrotechnics

Lydia Lunch on the industrial opera of a New York race riot and the music that soundtracked it

Ian McMillan on the education of his ears

Howard Mandel on a Soviet rock star who never was

Brian Marley on an unhealthy obsession with the composer Charles Ives

Barry Miles on experiencing The Beatles’ group mind and studio smarts firsthand

Momus on the sheer intensity of quiet music

Alex Neilson on the nocturnal solitude evoked by Frank Sinatra’s saddest songs

Anne Hilde Neset on the empowering swagger of Run DMC

Genesis Breyer P-Orridge on the psychedelic designs of Hapshash and the Coloured Coat

Ian Penman on the hieroglyphic beyond of Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Chile

Chris Petit on the fleeting pleasures of the single evocative songline

Edwin Pouncey on Todd Rundgren’s sweet soul music

Nina Power on the revolutionary dialectics of Fugazi’s Red Medicine

Simon Reynolds on the sound, image and idea of Scritti Politti

Sukhdev Sandhu on the eloquent passions of a long forgotten Bristol fanzine

Mike Shallcross on being scorched by the fire of the Gun Club’s atavistic Americana

Adrian Shaughnessy on being drummed out of school by the Tony Williams Lifetime

Philip Sherburne on the pleasure of parting with half of his record collection

Mark Wastell on finding himself overdressed and underprepared for a night of avant-garde jazz

Hugo Wilcken on Joy Division’s exotic existentialism

Luke Williams on how an anechoic chamber cured his writer’s block

Robert Wyatt on the genius of Ray Charles