In the introduction Mark Fisher opens with a disclaimer that the book contains writings from when he was horribly depressed but with the hopeful footnote that from these essays he manage to untangle himself from the despair. Obviously he necked himself so it wasn’t ultimately successful. Certainly I didn’t feel a sense of hope upon finishing this book.

It’s hard for me to properly critique this book since it relies so heavily on music history and culture which I am mostly ignorant about. I spoke about this book to one of my friends and after hearing my brief summary, about how Fisher claims modern culture has halted in a mire of nostalgia, he said Mister Fisher was a retard because breakcore was based and new. Anyhow I’m sceptical of both sides.

There is absolutely truth to what Fisher claims in this book. If the radio was enough to kill him back then, I think the advent of AI recycling culture would have surely finished him off.

Regardless of the overarching thesis the individual essays (particularly on Burial and Joy Division) I thought were very interesting and thoughtful. As I said before I’ve never read any serious criticism on music before so this was new to me.