Madame Gioconda is an opera singer who lives in a noisy future. The daytimes are full of traffic noise and nighttime brings “the mysterious clapping of her phantoms”. She calls Mangon, who tries to tidy up the psychoacoustic mess with his “sonovac”. But the story is by J. G. Ballard, whose rectangular concrete head was furnished entirely with messes, so peace and quiet are not on the menu for Madame Gioconda.
Sometimes I like to think ‘The Sound Sweep’ is an elaborate cautionary tale about the kind of miracle cures for tinnitus that occasionally appear in the little advertising zones of my laptop screen. Sometimes I like to think it’s an energetic plunge into the idea that sounds exist as objects, or a berserk exploration of the relationship between noise and waste. It’s a big philosophical hoover, and it’s heading directly for your house.
First published in Science Fantasy, February 1960. Collected in The Voices of Time, Orion, 1992
A Personal Anthology 