UNDERPLANET

What happens when sound is no longer merely heard, but is understood as a material force—as a vehicle for memory, resistance, and planetary change?

With *UNDERPLANET*, Xenia Benivolski presents one of the most original books at the intersection of sound art, philosophy, and decolonial thought. In dense, poetic language, she traces the hidden vibrations of our present and maps out a speculative cartography of the Earth in which colonial history, the ecological crisis, and experimental music intertwine in surprising ways.

Using three materials—glass, metal, and worms—Benivolski develops a completely new perspective on the relationship between sound and matter. Glass becomes a resonating chamber for feminist critique; metal makes the geological conditions of digital technologies and global resource exploitation audible; while worms and processes of decomposition open up an alternative to the destructive logics of fossil capitalism. In this context, sound appears not merely as an aesthetic phenomenon, but as a medium in which political struggles, ecological processes, and hidden forms of knowledge are inscribed.

The focus is on artists and thinkers such as Annea Lockwood, Suzanne Kite, Raven Chacon, Eddie Ekete, Camille Norment, Maria Chavez, and JJJJJerome Ellis. Their works engage in a dialogue with decolonial and materialist perspectives by Donna Haraway, Fred Moten, Édouard Glissant, Sylvia Wynter, and many others. The result is a book that brings together current debates on ecology, colonial history, sound studies, and contemporary art in a way that is as surprising as it is compelling.

UNDERPLANET is aimed at anyone who doesn’t just want to listen to music, but also wants to rethink it as a political, material, and philosophical practice. An extraordinary book for readers interested in contemporary art, sound, philosophy, and the future of our planetary coexistence.

UNDERPLANET will be releasedon October 16 as part of our new SYNKOPEN series and is now available for pre-order!