A Patient Art Form — Windy & Carl and Optigan Conservatory
Nobody rehearsed, nobody planned, and nobody can say with any confidence where half the sounds on 'Windy & Carl Meet Optigan Conservatory' came from.
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Martin Bisi, Recording Engineer Without a Uniform
Forty-five years into BC Studio, Bisi talks through hardcore and hip hop as underclass music, the trouble with the post-genre label, the taboo of anger, and the collaborators who shaped 'Dancing On The Power Lines.'
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Speculative Babies — The Inner Children of Guest Bartender Deborah Toyota
Recorded fast and almost entirely improvised, 'Music for Babies' sets Julia Shapiro's melodic instincts against Samur Khouja's appetite for dissonance, and the conversation takes in sad clowns, nose flutes, hearing music as a child, and why they never went to meet Maria Nissan.
The Sound of Friendship — Riviera Gaz Across Two Continents
Steve Shelley, Gustavo Riviera, and Paulo Kishimoto discuss 'Catacroma,' the overlooked Brazilian rock and roller Erasmo Carlos, and the weekly radio playlist that keeps three musicians in two hemispheres listening to the same records.
GB Sings Above the Fuzz
The Danish songwriter sang his first album quietly into a microphone at home, and on 'Herzsprung' he had to fill a room.
Lambchop's Choir Answers Back
Kurt Wagner discusses Lambchop's 17th album, 'Punching the Clown,' in a conversation running from untrained singers and lined-out gospel to the difference between spiritualism and religion.
From the Dimension Next Door — Ethan Miller and The Odyssey Cult
The Odyssey Cult is less a band than a secret society of people whose obsession with art has gotten out of hand, and 'Vol. 3' is its communiqué.
Josh Mason, Better Punk Through Circuitry
The Florida sound artist walks through his greyfade debut 'Kicking A Dark Horse,' the punk shows that taught him to build things himself, and the modular practice that, 15 years in, no longer surprises him.
Amateur Hour — Takashi Murakami and the Uses of Failure
Bad filmmaking and Superflat theory turn out to be remarkably difficult to tell apart.
The Tape Remembers — Concepción Huerta's Very Small Gestures
The Guanajuato-born photographer and sound artist on the Buchla 200's own memory, the imagined celestial space she built for her signals to travel through, and a composition that took an afternoon to patch and several months to finish.
A Word for Melody, Mood, and Land — Wild Gods on 'The Glorious Abysmal'
Recorded in five days and sung in Gàidhlig and English, 'The Glorious Abysmal' draws on the waulking songs of the Hebrides, Georg Cantor's set theory, and the year Livingstone spent learning production alongside people leaving prison.
All Shall Be Well — Jason Calhoun's 'revelations of divine love'
The Philadelphia sound artist talks about the windowless clean room where he prepares chemotherapy for patients he never meets, the Trappist retreats that showed him what silence is for, and his growing conviction that irony is a poor use of anyone's energy.
The Whole of Me — Terri Lyne Carrington Beyond the Drum Kit
The NEA Jazz Master and four-time Grammy winner talks through a dance album about deportation and prison abolition, the Buddhist line she lives by, and the years she has gone without proper time to practice drums.
sachi's mirror and the Slow Shedding of Layers
On her debut full-length, 'Talking in a Different Way,' the Oakland violinist trades the perfectionism of the conservatory for voice memos, out-of-tune pianos, and a tolerance for the unplanned.
Jolly Mare Among the Maestro's Machines
Working with Umiliani's daughters and the analog machines their father left behind, Fabrizio Martina describes 'La luce dell'alba' as "less a tribute than a conversation across time."
Ancient Sounds, Forward Motion — David Norland's Religion of One
Back in London after years of scoring films and documentaries in Los Angeles, David Norland discusses 'La Source,' the free hand he was given on the wordless black-and-white 'Carousel,' the monastery basement he intends to record in next, and the composer's right to a full night's sleep.
The Whole Greater Than Its Parts — Bondo on 'Bondo'
Years of playing in the same converted room have left Bondo convinced the band is a thing separate from the four people in it.
A Beat of His Own Making — Chris Molanphy, Chart Analyst and Pop Critic
The host of Slate's 'Hit Parade' joins The Tonearm Podcast to discuss the two pools of data that keep the Billboard Hot 100 honest, the bundling schemes that turned the album chart into a promotional shell game, and the cultural rules that decide who country radio will play.
hackedepicciotto Find Their Clearing in Lichtenrade
Settled in the Berlin district of Lichtenrade after more than a decade of constant movement, hackedepicciotto discuss the making of 'Lichtung' — the German lyrics, the piano de Picciotto avoided, Hacke's return to teenage experiments, and "Draussen," a storm song with a home at its center.
Half Chance, Half Sculpture—arc rae on 'Bow and Arrow'
The Berlin-based French producer discusses 'Bow and Arrow,' a record assembled from improvised cello and randomized sample slices, and the working life behind it, in which every day at the computer is a straw pulled blind and most of them come up short.
The Tune Isn't Fragile — Sophie Wellington on a Living Tradition
Raised in the Shenandoah Valley and jazz-trained at Berklee, Wellington discusses old-time repertoire, the constant calibration between dancing and playing, and the making of the solo album 'Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still.'
The Company of Others — M. Geddes Gengras and 'Guest List'
On his fourth album for Hausu Mountain, and his first on vinyl, the restless synthesist talks improvisation, the burden of the solo record, and the surprises that arrived in the mail.
Danalogue Leaves Gravity Behind
Best known for his work in The Comet Is Coming and Soccer96, Danalogue steps out on his own with 'Teleportations,' a record built on vintage synthesizers that turns grief and upheaval into a voyage through deep space.
Listening to the Land — The Mystical Turn of St. Silva
The Vermont musician behind 'Forager' talks foraged field recordings, a boyhood spent in Indiana megachurches, and why he wants no part of the wellness playlist.
Illegal Art, Myth Math, and the End of Anonymity
Nearly three decades after 'Deconstructing Beck', Matthew S sheds the pseudonyms to release the 'Tongues' EP as Myth Math, discussing his return to sampling, a collaboration with a former student, and the ethical quandaries AI poses to a career built on borrowed sound.
Curió Curió Turns Distance into a Collage of Voices
Luiza Monteiro sings in Portuguese to find her way back to Brazil, slipping between the characters a theatre stage taught her to inhabit.
Manifesting Mixol
Beijing-based artist Mixol discusses manifestation and tarot, the self-doubt that once made her quit songwriting, and the eight-bit narrative game she built to play alongside her debut EP, 'The Fool.'
Speaking the Word of the Buchla — Suzanne Ciani's Orchestral Wave
On the occasion of CIANI/ORKEST, Suzanne Ciani discusses handing her solitary Buchla music to a 50-piece orchestra, the ocean and the wave beneath her compositions, and the young players bringing analog modular synthesis back.
Shana Falana, the Goddess Party, and a Cult Worth Joining
The Hudson Valley musician and Goddess Party founder on self-marriage, Bulgarian choral music, and running a benevolent hierarchy, ahead of 'The Wedding,' a two-night rite of borrowed gowns and mirror-held vows.
The Euphoric and Exuberant Noise of Nolan Hildebrand
After the release of 'Noise Trip Explosion,' the Toronto composer and Black Galaxie noise artist talks doctoral research, acoustic startle experiments, and why it's worth keeping his wildest studio accidents.
I Still Miss Someone — The Boys of Nirosta Steel
Guitar in hand and Arthur Russell forever at his shoulder, Steven Hall turns half a century of desire into harmony he mostly sings to himself.
Katsumasa Kusunose Photographs the Vanishing World of Japan's Jazz Kissa
The Japanese writer and photographer has visited roughly four hundred jazz kissa over fifty years; his book 'Jazz Kissa' is a record of what remains, assembled from dim rooms, Altec A7 speakers, and the silences between tracks.
Steven Bernstein, No Permission Required
The New York trumpeter, composer, and bandleader behind Sexmob and the Millennial Territory Orchestra returns with a pair of linked albums, 'ResoNation Trio' and 'Ultra Resonance,' and talks trumpet trios, dub reinvention, Levon Helm's Rambles, and the downtown scene that formed him.
Cento Threeo — Always Halfway There
Don Cento of the Austin trio Cento Threeo discusses the band's debut album 'Halfway to Mellowtown' and its jazz and Americana roots, the Ahmad Jamal influence, and a creative process built on long friendships rather than deliberate genre strategy.