This collection of essays studies how music of the twenty-first century resonates with sentiments of despondency and loss in the context of the multiple existential crises of the time: climate change, political violence, financial crises, racial inequities and technological acceleration.Investigating musical expressions of absence across a wide variety of genres and philosophical approaches, the collection aims to stimulate an interdisciplinary conversation about music as an alternative mode of thinking at a time when established frames of reasoning are called into question.Themed sections engage with the multiplicity of emergent meanings that absence alludes to, opening new lines of inquiry into how music enacts new forms of being in the world and creates pathways to better futures.