The Low End of Carmen Villain’s Memory
Long past the verses and guitars of her 2013 debut, Villain fills ‘Memoria’ with flute breath, processed clarinet, and dub weight, its archive of sounds worn down on purpose.
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A Band Assembled Apart — Koen Holtkamp’s Electroacoustic Ensemble
The composer and Mountains co-founder discusses ‘Nightlife,’ its kora-inspired synthesized strings, his sense of sound as something sculptural, and the hard work of letting a record go.
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The Comfortable Discomfort of d_abdu
Irish bassist Dara Abdurahman discusses his solo debut as d_abdu, ‘we’re still down here, looking up,’ along with his years in Bricknasty, Mark Fisher’s hauntology, and the half hour before a gig he calls “painful.”
Chrome Chasm’s Slow Houston Drift
Its pedal steel rooted in country, its guitar in Texas psychedelia, and its saxophone in no hurry, ‘Interpreter’ leaves the listener to start “following the threads.”
From the Club to Kankyo Ongaku — Francis Harris and Gareth Quinn Redmond
Harris and Quinn Redmond talk through the making of ‘Eyes Bright and Low,’ Rachael Lavelle’s vocals, the Japanese idea of ma, and Harris’s case for melancholy as a tool of liberation.
The Sun Ra Arkestra Play to the Open Sky
A photo essay from two open-air Arkestra shows in Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley, where Knoel Scott stood in for Marshall Allen and dancers and fire shared the bill.
Andrew Minear and Phoon Yu Listen Past the Sanctuary Walls
A choir director who once went to raves and an organist who grew up on Game Boy soundtracks bring the whole of their listening to Sunday services.
Pat Blashill’s Texas Punk, Weird by Design
The Austin-born photographer shot the Big Boys, the Dicks, and the Butthole Surfers from the middle of the crowd, and in ‘Someday All the Adults Will Die! The Birth of Texas Punk,’ he lets the scene tell its story in its own Texan voices.
Sad13 in Sixty Seconds or So
On ‘1331,’ Sadie Dupuis wrote, performed, and mixed her own theme songs, and she would like the record to show she is not an easy hang.
The Long Afterlife of the Olivia Tremor Control
‘The Same Place’ arrives more than twenty-five years after ‘Black Foliage,’ finished by Derek Almstead and Jason NeSmith, determined this time not to let grief stall the work.
Calibro 35 Follow James Ellroy’s Cadence Through the Back Alleys
Scoring Francesco Zippel’s documentary ‘Ellroy vs L.A.,’ the Milanese band trace noir from Hammett and Chandler through the poliziotteschi of the 1970s, the films whose soundtracks Calibro 35 set out to revive in 2007.
Midori Hirano’s Hushed Score for an Icelandic Witch Tale
Writing ‘The Juniper Tree’ for Nietzchka Keene’s 1990 film, the Berlin composer set piano against modular synths, worked birdsong and water into the score, and made room for the Japanese idea of ma.
Allison de Groot and Rich Ruth Coax the Banjo into Orbit
On their self-titled debut, Allison de Groot and Rich Ruth talk through old-time music’s rigidity, influences from Joanna Newsom to Steve Reich, and two-second banjo loops as the pulse of the record.
Radiator Hospital’s Four-Track Homecoming
On ‘Distorting Time,’ a family legend from the Wild West and the news from Minnesota share space with Sam Cook-Parrott’s fear of being washed up.
Mary Lattimore Drops In on Plantasia
A dispatch from the 50th-anniversary celebration of Mort Garson’s ‘Mother Earth’s Plantasia’ at Seed Song Farm in Kingston, New York, with a conversation before soundcheck about improvising to the landscape, whether plants listen, and the dawn drive to Philadelphia for Making Time.
Ka Baird and Chris Ryan Williams, Through the Fractal Smog
On ‘Enthalpy,’ bass flute and amplified trumpet push against their own electronics until the lid starts to rattle.
The Mediterranean Light of Sons of Sevilla
Recorded in London with Skinshape, 'It Could Be Today' holds the same summery, major-key sound the brothers were already writing into demos at home in 2020.
Charlotte Greve’s Power Ballads, Choirs, and Saxophone Drones
Her tenth album as a leader and the first under her own name, ‘Waterbodies’ was tracked while she was pregnant, with Shahzad Ismaily pulling together its many parts.
The Siren’s Shore — Jolanda Moletta’s Visual Music
The Italian composer discusses ‘Oceanine’ and its companion short film, and the witches, snake-women, and Pasolini films behind both.
Whitney George’s Telephone Noir
A look at ‘Eavesdropping,’ an ongoing phone-line drama of two characters, a piano score, and hints of a third listener, and at the telephone’s long career as a storyteller, from ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’ to the party line.
The Gentle Game Design of Tiiva’s Pop Universe
The musician, sound designer, and game maker talks through ‘This Could Be a Start,’ an AI character’s search for a soul, and writing about gender through invented characters.
The Accidental Bandmates of deep glens
Brett Bullion on recording ‘carver’ from loops cut out of his own Max/MSP jams, grieving in widening circles, and touring with Autechre.
Zen, Beats, and Ewoks in David Perlis’s Marin County
The author of ‘Morning in Marin’ discusses the postwar movement he calls the Marinaissance, the letters in Gary Snyder’s archive, the MKUltra safe house and Gumby studio that didn’t make the cut, and the case for riskier American art.
Ed Motta Between Rio and the American Radio Dial
Cameo, the S.O.S. Band, and Gap Band are the coordinates of 'Toc-Toc', an album of drum machines and bass synthesizers that sends Motta back to what the radio was playing when he was a teenager.
The Animal Songs of Nina Winder-Lind
The New Eves’ cellist straps on an electric guitar for ‘Wild Love,’ a debut solo album of bruises, breath, and a closing salute to her foremothers.
Close to the Edit With Crying Laughing
Christian Best and Jen Kirby of Crying Laughing talk through the making of ‘Talking,’ from Moondog’s melodic percussion to the Baltimore scene that delivered the rest of the band.
Life and Death in Jon Hassell’s Fourth World
A longtime devotee goes back through more than four decades of Hassell’s music and talks with co-producer Jeff Rona about the ‘City’ sessions, the self-sampling, and the posthumous ‘Music Is Invisible.’
The Cursed Poets of Siavash Amini and Eugene Thacker
Thacker's verses handed to synthetic voices and processed past recognition, 'Songs for Sad Poets, Vol. III' buries its words inside Amini's electronics.
Mark Isham’s Harnessed Noise
On ‘At the Carousel Club,’ Mark Isham turns a wall of vintage synthesizers, Nels Cline, and a string quartet loose, all while keeping the editor in his head at bay.
Olaf Rupp Slaughters the Sound for the Greater Good
On ‘Fuzzy Logic,’ Olaf Rupp pushes a small amplifier past its limit and captures the wreckage at what he calls “the volume of a kitchen radio.”
The Warm, Cosmic Company of megiapa
On megiapa’s ‘Intentions,’ voice notes from her grandmother, her mother, and her closest friends drift through the synth haze, a family album cut to beats.
Deniz Cuylan Scores a Life With Luca
The Istanbul-born film and television composer discusses 'For Luca' — his earlier songs recast in his friends' voices, the dog it mourns, the freedom of being one crew member among many, and the melancholy he prefers to share.
Grief, Glitch, and the Harp of Lara Somogyi
Harpist Lara Somogyi talks through 'a [time] patterned,' from delay pedals and disrupted loops to Steve Reich and 'A Pattern Language,' the architecture handbook that gave the album many of its titles.
Elanor Moss's English Solitude
Good and evil sit in the same character, the same song, and — Moss suspects — the same person, a Catholic inheritance she hears throughout 'The Knife, The Needle.'