Now Playing on The Tonearm:
Zeena Parkins, Under Constant Revision
The experimental harpist discusses the hand-built electric instrument at the center of her practice, the spatial approach to composition she developed through decades of work with choreographers, and the grief behind 'Lament for the Maker,' her first solo record since Mills College closed. Interview by Lawrence Peryer.
The Grit in the Machine — Kodomo's Slow Craft
Named for the Finnish concept of resilience, 'sisu' documents Kodomo's Chris Child working with vocalists for the first time, chasing analog serendipity, and making a deliberate case for the album as a form still worth defending. Interview by Bill Cooper.
The Lush Detours of Momoko Gill
A fixture in London's jazz and electronic scenes, Momoko Gill discusses her debut album 'Momoko', her years of collaborative work alongside Matthew Herbert and others, and the music she makes as the only home she's found. Interview by Mariam Abdel-Razek.
Imaginary Space, Real Feeling — Bayeté's Electric Gospel
Reissued more than fifty years after its creation, Bayeté's 'Seeking Other Beauty' finds the Bay Area composer tracing the line between his grandmother's church organ and the electric possibilities that pulled him away from the jazz masters. Interview by Bill Kopp.
Beyond the Bedroom with Special Friend
Erica Ashleson and Guillaume Siracusa discuss 'Clipping', the indie duo's third album, their move from DIY bedroom sessions to a French countryside studio, and why they'd happily redo a vocal take twenty times. Interview by Damien Joyce.
This Week's Episode of The Tonearm Podcast:
Sam Wenc: The Experimental Language of the Pedal Steel Guitar
The Philadelphia-based pedal steel player discusses ‘Language at an Angle’, his debut under his own name, and what Susan Alcorn taught him about tradition, freedom, and the instrument she loved.
The Hit Parade:
"According to his family, Martin Gore was a shy, introverted child. But that was then. By his mid-twenties, he had taken to wearing rubber fetish gear and singing ‘A Question Of Lust’ to hundreds of thousands of people . . .” ❋ "Since their formation in 1979, Tuareg guitar band Tinariwen have been constantly moving. Based variously in Mali, Libya and Algeria, the Grammy-winning group have used their desert blues music as a lament for a wandering refugee status that continues to this day." ❋ At a party, knowledge matters less; it’s a space governed by impulses, not thoughts. And yet the club can also be a site of discovery, where you step onto the electric wires of epiphany." ❋ Willie Colón's funeral ❋ “. . . the brilliant, and frequently young, artists of today’s generation [are] actively seeking out music they’ve never heard before—and pioneering new frontiers in instrumental virtuosity and extended techniques in the process . . . the Ictus Ensemble has been one of the most vital of these groups." ❋ “Eno actually achieved something that I really was pleased with on a song called ‘Electric Guitar' . . . He put an effect on my bass so that it really sounded like a tuba, and I was real pleased with that." ❋ "Alice Coltrane was now Swamini Turiyasangitananda. A grand proclamation, she left a note on the fridge announcing her new name to her kids, who fell out laughing when they saw their mom’s new name." ❋ Laurie Spiegel remembers Éliane Radigue ❋ "In Southwest Louisiana, [the one-row button accordion] is king. It lights up dancehalls and trail rides, melding as effortlessly into traditional fiddle and accordion duets as it does into Auto-Tuned, filtered accordion solos over heavy beats." ❋ Hardcore Architecture
New Music Recommendations: Adam O'Farrill - ELEPHANT (RIYL: Contemporary jazz blending post-bop, electronic music, and minimalism; Radiohead in instrumental piano mode) ❋ Hz of Gold - Hz of Gold (RIYL: Avant-garde jazz with electro-acoustic processing and abstract noise textures; projects from friend of The Tonearm Devin Gray) ❋ Leila Bordreuil + Kali Malone - Music For Intersecting Planes (RIYL: Austere ritual music for cello and organ; acoustic phenomena rendered sculptural) ❋ Mativetsky Amiri Pagé - Metamorphose (RIYL: Indian and Persian classical music meeting processed electronics)
The Deepest Cut:
Jack Whitescarver started Amiture in Brooklyn in 2018 as a dark, synth-heavy solo project, releasing The Beach in 2021 and the experimental trip-hop of Mother Engine in 2024, before drummer Justin Fossella, bassist Max Beirne Shafer, and multi-instrumentalist Allie Wrubel joined later that year and expanded the project into a full band. The new album, Amiture Music (out now on Dots Per Inch), is the first to fully register what that transformation means. The music finds four distinct perspectives pulling in the same direction on songs that carry the abrasion and precision of the avant-garde while remaining, stubbornly, melodic.
Amiture cites Glenn Branca and This Heat as influences, alongside The Jesus Lizard, Unwound, and Blonde Redhead, and the combination comes through in music that pushes the traditional bass-drums-guitar-voice setup, with each instrument following its own logic. The strands resolve, discord giving way to something that sounds, against all reasonable odds, like beauty.
I reached out to the members and Amiture, and they kindly agreed to elaborate on what the band is all about, what inspires their music-making, and, of course, something they love that more people should know about.
Amiture is a rock band from New York City. We’ve been around for a while and have developed a lot since the first album. Jack started out making music on his laptop, and over the years, it has grown into something more physical and collaborative. Now, Amiture is about what happens when the four of us make music. This new album is our way of documenting our experience working together and showcasing what we think is an interesting, unified voice. Amiture Music is a presentation of this shared voice.
Amiture has historically had a promiscuous relationship to genre. Jack has been the throughline, particularly via his voice. Certainly, the evolution of our sound has had to do with the eventual arrival of the four of us together. Amiture is always going to revel in intensity, and we’re always going to push ourselves to make something honest regardless of whether it cleanly relates to what came before.
This Heat and Glenn Branca are both examples of a kind of beauty we really respond to. They’re obviously juggernauts in a certain world of experimental guitar music. No Wave and post punk music has always been important to us as a New York City band because that history is still such a part of the landscape and psychology of this place. Certainly, those names come up, sometimes with people who knew them very well. Charles Hayward, the drummer from This Heat, who has since worked on many other projects, is especially inspiring to us. Although the sounds are sometimes harsh, dissonant, and aggressive, there is always a distinctly transcendental position that we align with. We aim to be uncompromising in our choices musically, but more than that, we aim to reach beauty. Both Glenn Branca and This Heat are simply legends; everyone should listen to them.
What's something you love that more people should know about?
La Captive by Chantal Akerman. There’s usually a movie or two that really feeds some of the thinking around each album. With Amiture Music, it was Last Summer by Catherine Breillat, an amazing film about a bourgeois, middle-aged woman who falls in love with her teenage stepson. La Captive is similarly French and perverse, but it’s an adaptation of Marcel Proust’s The Prisoner, in which the strange and lonely protagonist jealously obsesses over his girlfriend, Albertine. In the film, that premise is elongated and made into a vivid study of the many ways human beings imprison themselves in relationships. This movie has been on our mind a lot as we’re writing new material.
Run-Out Groove:
Next week: Green-House, Isabel Pine, Juanma Trujillo, The Tonearm's guide to Big Ears, and more.
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