EXCERPT ‘Audio Essay’ is a term which, precisely on account of its indeterminate intension and extension, served as the theme of two Urbanomic events hosted by Iklectik in London (14 July 2022) and at KARST Contemporary Arts in Plymouth (4–11 February 2023). At both venues, the Sonic Faction programme included a collective listening session featuring playback of three pieces — Mark Fisher and Justin Barton’s On Vanishing Land (2006), Steve Goodman’s (Kode9) Astro-Darien (2021), and Robin Mackay’s By the North Sea (2022)—along with a public discussion with the artists. At KARST, during the week following the event the three works were installed in the exhibition space along with background materials relating to each of them (see colour plate section). We could provisionally define the audio essay as an extended recorded piece that combines discursive and/or narrative speech with both musical and nonmusical sound elements. However, several of the works discussed by the contributors to this volume — many themselves artists who have laid claim to the form — fall on the margins of even this loose definition. The exact nature of the audio essay remains an open question. In the context of the Sonic Faction events, which required audiences to exercise an extraordinary level of auditory attention to three pieces that differ significantly in terms of theme, approach, and execution, it made sense to fold this question into the proceedings, using the public discussions as an opportunity to reflect upon what it was that each of the artists had been seeking to achieve, why the medium of sound was most appropriate to it, and what advantages there might be in retaining ‘audio essay’ as a category.…