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.
The Long Silence Behind Ayman Fanous’s Guitar
The guitarist and bouzouki player discusses 'Brooklyn Stories 1–5', his five-CD set of duos and small groups for Infrequent Seams, the years of wordless playing alongside Bern Nix that shaped his ear, and what harmolodics can mean on a nylon-string classical guitar.
Wild Up Conjures the Holy Presence of Julius Eastman
On the occasion of 'Julius Eastman Vol. 5: Gay Guerrilla', Wild Up conductor Chris Rountree discusses the hybrid written-and-oral tradition of Eastman's scores, the ensemble's rehearsal practice of triangulating meaning, and the Black, gay minimalist's enduring claim on the present.
The Voyage Down — Fausto Romitelli Descends Into Repertoire
Romitelli embraced psychedelic rock for its destabilizing potential rather than its commercial appeal, and a new recording of 'An Index of Metals' marks his passage from avant-garde specialist to repertoire composer two decades after cancer took him at forty-one in 2004.
Don't Fear the Reverb — A Conversation with Kramer
From producing Galaxie 500 and Low to his new ambient masterwork '...and the crimson moon whispers goodbye,' the musician and Shimmy-Disc founder reflects on spontaneous composition, the spiritual dimensions of reverb, and finally achieving his personal 'Rothko Chapel.'
Achieving Sonic Sympathy — Horse Lords Meet Arnold Dreyblatt
Just intonation brought together two generations of experimental musicians for 'Extended Field,' an album that nimbly negotiates Horse Lords' mathematical expansiveness and Arnold Dreyblatt's tightly controlled harmonic universe.
From Signal to Noise — Loop Music and the Physics of Entropy
Examining Tim Harrison's 'A Strange Loop' alongside William Basinski's 'The Disintegration Loops,' George Grella finds complementary visions of how loop music engages the universe's inexorable movement from order to chaos.
Plowed Under by History — Ted Hearne's 'FARMING'
Composer Ted Hearne and the choral group The Crossing turn colonial documents and corporate tweets into techno-pop oratorio, drawing a line from William Penn's land grabs to Jeff Bezos's gig economy.