Sound Propositions

Sound Propositions the podcast has the same mission statement as the written Sound Propositions features: to share in depth discussions with artists whose work we love, to delve into the details of their creative practice. This episode features Joe McKay, profiling his label Dinzu Artefacts. We talk about his previous label, Spring Break Tapes!, his own artistic practice (as Monte Burrows), the importance of listening to the quotidian, and the persistence of physical media in an increasingly digitally mediated world. Read more, including a tracklist, at www.acloserlisten.com Cover image: still from Bill Fontana's "Arche Sonore" (1994)

Sound Propositions the podcast has the same mission  statement as the  written Sound Propositions features: to share in depth  discussions with  artists whose work we love, to delve into the details  of their  creative practice. This episode features John Daniel, a Chicago-based musician best known for his ambient solo project, Forest Management.  I caught up with him from his childhood home in Cleveland over the  holidays. We discuss his latest LP Passageways (inspired by his  childhood home), his influences, how his approach to music has changed,  his new imprint Afterhours, and the importance of place, space, and  community. Read more, including a tracklist, at www.acloserlisten.com [Cover image, Gordon Matta-Clark, "Splitting" (1974)]

Sound Propositions the podcast has the same mission  statement as the written Sound Propositions features: to share in depth  discussions with artists whose work we love, to delve into the details  of their creative practice. This episode features Efraín Rozas,  Peruvian-born, Brooklyn-based performer/composer and robotics/software  developer interested in new paradigms of cognitive technologies and  mythologies. He leads the psychedelic salsa group La Mecánica Popular,  fusing groove-based Latin music with electronic and experimental  explorations. Rozas' Myth and Prosthesis series utilizes software  programming and robotics to produce sound installations and music,  utilizing Latin American influences and modern technology to uproot  Western concepts and mind/body duality. We discuss all these  projects and more, including the role of NYC in the history of Salsa,  and the future of electronic Latinx music to come. Read more, including a trackl

Sound Propositions the podcast has the same mission  statement as the written Sound Propositions features: to share in depth  discussions with artists whose work we love, to delve into the details  of their creative practice. This episode features saxophonist and  composer Phillip Johnston, known for his work with genre-bending jazz  ensemble The Microscopic Septet, the Beefheart tribute Fast 'N Bulbous,  and as the composer of silent film scores. Johnston moved to Australia  over a decade ago, but NYC still feels like his home turf. We were both  back in town last November for Thanksgiving, and we met to discuss  memory, music, media, the (not-so-silent) history of silent film, and his  long-association with the various music scenes of NYC. Special thanks to Phillip, Joyce, Steve, and Smalls. Read more, including a tracklist, at www.acloserlisten.com

Sound Propositions the podcast has the same mission statement as the written Sound Propositions features: to share in depth discussions with artists whose work we love, to delve into the details of their creative practice. The inaugural episode of our new podcast, Sound Propositions, features interviews (with Resina and Lea Bertucci) and field-recordings recorded during the 2018 UNSOUND festival in Krakow, Poland. (You can read my review of the festival here.) The theme of this year's festival was "Presence," and so that became the point of departure for my interviews, particularly the ways in which absences can also be felt as a "presence." Special thanks to Resina, Lea Bertucci, Ryan Diduck, Corey Bracken, and the entire Unsound team. Keywords: Experimental Music, Sound Art, Sound Design, Electro-acoustic, field-recordings, electronic music, modern composition, Ambient, Drone, Post-Rock.

The introduction to Sound Propositions, which changes slightly with each episode.