Art of Immersive Soundscapes Edited by Pauline Minevich and Ellen Waterman Published by University of Regina Press Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $39.95 ISBN 9-780889-772588 Music, laughter, the rustling wind: sound enriches our lives. Of course it can also work the other way, as anyone with belligerent neighbours can attest. Sound is an interesting field of study for scientists and artists. I’d never heard of “immersive soundscapes,” and was curious to learn what they are, why they matter, and who’s creating them. Enter editors Pauline Minevich (associate professor in the Department of Music, University of Regina) and Ellen Waterman (dean of the School of Music and professor of musicologies at Memorial University of Newfoundland), who collected the disparate papers presented at the 2007 international conference “Intersections: Music and Sound, Music and Identity,” held in Regina, and published them and a DVD of the presenters’ audio and video explorations with sound in the book Art of Immersive Soundscapes. Combining science and art, rural and urban, nature and technology, macro and micro, the featured composers in this book show us a fresh and interesting way to experience and understand our social and physical worlds. The interdisciplinary “soundscape movement” began in the 1960s…