Unsound Supplies draws attention to the problematic, elusive provenance of “raw materials” that underpin the rich musical cultures of modernity. The volume comprises ten chapters, each devoted to a specific material—from African ivory to transatlantic-traded rubber, manila paper, Brazilian Pernambuco wood, tropical mahogany, Indian jackfruit trees, and steel, aluminum, wax, and shellac from various regions worldwide—used in musical instrument making and the audio-communications industry from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The introduction synthesizes the chapters, illustrating how they collectively trace the geographically diverse, often colonial provenance and extraction processes of these materials, while also revealing the working conditions along the supply chains and critically examining the logistics, large-scale infrastructures, and political and economic forces that facilitated this material diversity. Furthermore, the introduction reflects on the narratives, terminologies, and historiographical pitfalls that must be carefully considered when writing about the material foundations of modern soundscapes, particularly since modern musical and sound aesthetics have a tendency to obscure and morally sanitize their material condition. Employing diverse methods and approaches, the volume encounters a noisy materiality with myriad contradictions, global connections, seemingly isolated localities, and uncertainties. The introduction underscores how various contributions develop new approaches for reconstructing the historical embeddedness of materials within their environments, and for addressing the different values, powers, and meanings that have been ascribed to them over time.