72nd World SF Convention, London in August 2014. The keynote academic speaker is Isabella van Elferen (author of the book Gothic Music: The Sounds of the Uncanny), on “In Space, No One Can Hear David Bowie: A Brief History of Unheard Music”…

Few authors have described the terrifying silence of space more grippingly than H. P. Lovecraft, whose stories narrate the “black seas of infinity” surrounding human life. But the vacuum of space, Lovecraft asserts, listens. Through the “audient void” of his universe voiceless sounds resonate. Detestable, gigantic, absurd … What could this arch-alien possibly sound like?