The seventh issue of the Journal of Sonic Studies (http://www.sonicstudies.org) is online, which is a proceedings issue of the first international European Sound Studies Association Conference, which took in Berlin in October 2013. This issue contains high quality papers, offering many different perspectives on the topic of sound. Contents: • Editorial - Functional Sounds in Sound Art and Popular Culture: Proceedings of the First International ESSA Conference 2013, Part I - Julia Krause, Holger Schulze and Marcel Cobussen • An Exceptional Purity of Sound: Noise Reduction Technology and the Inevitable Noise of Sound Recording - Melle Kromhout • Affective Soundscape Composition for Evoking Sonic Immersion - Mark Nazemi • Sound and Narrative: Acousmatic Composition as Artistic Research - James Andean • MAXIMUM VOLUME YIELDS MAXIMUM RESULTS - Olivia Lucas • A Paleontology of Quiet - Neil Verma • Remaking Pittsburgh: Permaculture Soundscapes - Jeremy Woodruff • Music Dematerialized? - Francisco López |