Interviews
DoYeon Kim may very well be the only contemporary improviser whose instrument is the traditional Korean zither, the gayageum. That alone grabbed my interest, but from the opening moments of Wellspring, her debut as bandleader (and oh what a band it is: Tyshawn Sorey, Henry Fraser, and Mat Maneri), it’s obvious this music is something […]
The Capsule Garden
April has been the longest year of the year. And it’s not quite over, but that’s okay. So much has happened – and so much of it seems like it happened ages ago, even though it was maybe only 10 days. Notably, Altar Eagle (the duo of my partner, Eden Hemming, and myself) made its […]
Interviews
Jolanda Moletta’s third album, Oceanine, is something bigger than the beautiful compositions and collection of sound that it uses as building blocks. These 11 collaborative songs are like spells and rituals. Moletta’s voice is the red thread running in the middle of it, but worlds become galaxies orbiting around each of her incantations. Throughout Oceanine, […]
Interviews
Morita Vargas makes music from the deepest reaches of imagination, and her latest, III, is proof: all dark matter, pure dark magic, with an internal logic so complete it feels less like an entire world with its own atmosphere and gravity. Buoyant rhythms ride midnight waves while childlike choirs surface and dissolve, and through it […]
Kira McSpice’s Saturnism began with a hypnosis session, a trance guided by her friend and breathwork facilitator Trina Merz, and what McSpice found inside that trance became the foundation for a four-album series. It’s a genuinely strange origin story, and the music matches it. Rich and fully realized, Saturnism is full of dusty laments, charred […]
There’s a moment near the start of Tusk where the concertina’s distinct, reedy voice grabs hold and doesn’t let go. It’s airy and sequential, as though the world is decaying just enough to reveal the codes underneath. Kristina Warren works in that gap between the familiar and the unplaceable. Messages drawn in distorted ether, imagery […]
On this episode of Songs of Our Lives, it’s Chaz Prymek! The main question here is how in the hell did it take me so long to have Chaz on the show? That’s all on me. Anyway, this is such a fun episode – we had a blast hanging out, talking about his new duo […]
Akira Kosemura’s Polaroid Piano may be 15 years old now, but its gentle, warming soundworld sounds as fresh and inviting as ever. Each of these 12 pieces captures a momentary glimpse, like a series of small, fleeting memories cast into sonic glass. Using field recordings from Lawrence English as jumping-off points, Kosemura’s pieces produce this […]
A lot is going on right now (in the world, in my life, etc), and all of this music has been soundtracking my days recently. The biggest thing in my corner of the world is that I officially launched a new project called Stupid Dreams. It’s about listening as a way to build the world […]
Spring is hitting hard already and I type with itchy eyes and a snotty nose, but with a keen sense of hope, the sun on my back and the warm breeze clearing the winter blues I bring you March. I have been transforming my record collection of late, trading records I haven’t listened to in […]
So much of Zosha Warpeha’s music feels like more than the sum of its parts. The palette may be minimalist – her voice and the Hardanger d’amore, a 10-string fiddle with five sympathetic strings – but these pieces carry the weight of stories accumulated across time. I grow accustomed to the dark, her newest album, […]
On this episode of Songs of Our Lives, it’s Walker Farrell! We’re celebrating the start of spring with Walker’s new album, “Crocus,” out now on Ceremony of Seasons, and after talking about that, living through Hurricane Helene and its aftermath, and more, we get into the weeds with D Train, Miles Davis, Gang Starr, Joanna […]
I recorded this conversation with Francesca in the context of our ongoing video art and music collaboration. Francesca has worked on videos for my collaborations with my brother Jordan Christoff through the Anarchist Mountains project and also with sound artist Joseph Sannicandro. I first met Francesca at a community art event in Montreal, I got […]
Interviews
DoYeon Kim may very well be the only contemporary improviser whose instrument is the traditional Korean zither, the gayageum. That alone grabbed my interest, but from the opening moments of Wellspring, her debut as bandleader (and oh what a band it is: Tyshawn Sorey, Henry Fraser, and Mat Maneri), it’s obvious this music is something […]
Interviews
Jolanda Moletta’s third album, Oceanine, is something bigger than the beautiful compositions and collection of sound that it uses as building blocks. These 11 collaborative songs are like spells and rituals. Moletta’s voice is the red thread running in the middle of it, but worlds become galaxies orbiting around each of her incantations. Throughout Oceanine, […]
Interviews
Morita Vargas makes music from the deepest reaches of imagination, and her latest, III, is proof: all dark matter, pure dark magic, with an internal logic so complete it feels less like an entire world with its own atmosphere and gravity. Buoyant rhythms ride midnight waves while childlike choirs surface and dissolve, and through it […]
Interviews
Turner Williams creates ageless worlds of drifting sonic memory, building them slowly, through restraint and textured resonance rather than accumulation. The shahi baaja suits this perfectly. Its tone sits in an interesting place, sometimes familiar and warm, often strange and beguiling, and Williams has developed an intimate feel for what the instrument can express. Vipérine, […]
Interviews
Twenty years is a long time to carry something. Meadowsweet (redux) is Yann Novak’s return to an album made in the immediate wake of his mother’s death. Coming back to it now, near the anniversary of her passing, asks what it means to listen back to grief from a distance. The original Meadowsweet was built […]
