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.’
Experimental
Reaching out into uncomfortable zones beyond what we normally hear.
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.
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.”
More Spirit Than Concrete — The Residents Revisit 'Eskimo'
The Residents' spokesman Homer Flynn traces the path from a commissioned 20-minute set to the first full staging of the group's Arctic concept album, now expanded with songs drawn from century-old folk tales.
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.
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe's Inner-Ear Illusions
Recorded with Randall Dunn, 'Manifestations in the Shadow of an Uncertain Land' turns several years of political fatigue into what Lowe calls a "multiphonic landscape of horror," and the conversation runs from Jodorowsky to low-pass gates by way of his nine years in Om.
Ben Richter, Gardening at the Edge of the Score
Richter wants "a little garden where things can grow" without being overdetermined, and 'Mymerian' — organ, accordion, contrabass, and cello, recorded live in one cold room — is that garden at its most exposed.
Yuka Honda's Impossible Dreams — On Celebrating Yoko Ono
For Honda, an artistic format is a language rather than an identity — a conviction she shares with Ono, and one that made curating a tribute feel less like a departure than a translation.
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.
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.
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.
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.