Sound Propositions

Maria Chavez is a pioneer of Abstract Turntablism, a self-described practice she developed under the guidance of Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening. Born in Lima, Peru and raised in Houston, she cut her teeth as a DJ spinning techno and drum & bass, but the male chauvinism of that scene roused her to experiment further with the materiality of vinyl, using broken needles and non-musical sounds. Oliveros inspired her to ditch dance parties for improvisation with a single turntable, an artistic practice which has evolved to include installations, workshops, visual art, and curation. A true sound artist (she adamantly eschews the label “musician”), until recently, Chavez had released only one recording, 2004's Those Eyes Of Hers, focusing instead on her career as longform performance. But after beginning a medical sabbatical in 2019, which forced her to cease touring (a year before the rest of the world shut down), Maria began slowly releasing new recordings into the world. In this episode, we discuss recent an