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Sounds

A collection of 74 issues

The Architecture of Imperfection

Constraint, Precision, and Presence in Musical Performance Preface This essay examines musical performance through the lens of constraint theory—not as aesthetic criticism but as systems analysis. Drawing on examples from funk, rock, folk traditions, and contemporary production practice, it asks how boundaries (technological, formal, social, environmental) shape what becomes

Shrödinger's Rockers: AC/DC and the Heisenberg Principle

Sometimes the Gimmick Sneaks in a Heavy Payload Abstract: This paper examines AC/DC through the lens of quantum mechanics, arguing that their cultural position exists in permanent superposition between 'dumb' and 'genius,' and that critical observation inevitably collapses this wave function into reductive binaries that

Kendra Smith and the Sixth Way of Disappearing

In 1995, Kendra Smith released Five Ways of Disappearing on 4AD and then did something that seemed quaint even then: she vanished. Not into rehab or a comeback tour postponed indefinitely, but into a Northern California cabin with chickens, a donkey, and no phone line. When Rolling Stone's

The Flooded Bowling Alley, Namespace Scarcity, and Everyone's Golden Age

An Elegy for Lost Names and the Scenes That Made Them Sing I misread the marquee. Driving past the local vegan pub (only in Portland?), I could have sworn the sign advertised an upcoming show by "Onion Flavored Onion Rings." The actual band name—"Onion Flavored Rings&

The Architecture of the Hollow Square

How Volunteers Make Sacred Harp Singing Possible When hundreds of singers gathered at the Laurelhurst Club in Southeast Portland for the 34th Pacific Northwest Sacred Harp Singing Convention in mid-October, what visitors saw was striking: a massive hollow square of voices, no conductor, no audience, just people facing each other

Oh! You Petty Thing

Everyone's a Thief When Everything's Stolen There's a bassline that tells you everything about how culture gets stolen and resold: D to F, bouncing on that minor third, then leaping to G♯—the tritone, the devil's interval—before snapping back to D.

Drunk in the Ditch, Looking Upwards

A Meditation on Belief, Craft, and the Reactor Core I was thinking about Oasis's debut LP. It was an unapologetically extroverted rock record, a 180-degree flip from the illegible shoegaze that Creation had been known for. A slouching electric rock LP that didn't strut or groove,

The Calamine Chat

A Three-Part Meditation on Not Buying a New Bass Guitar Part I: The Conversation The itch begins a few weeks before my birthday. Nancy's been playing her Fender Player Mustang bass for about a year now — short scale, flatwound strings, P/J pickup array. It's the

Constellations

Liner Notes to a Life as a Musician with a Lowercase 'M' Constellations are mysterious products of someone deciding that a pattern of stars represent something wholly unrelated, and the difference between the connection of dots that represent the Big Dipper versus the imagined Ursa Major is like

The Signal Architecture

Community Radio Beyond the Algorithm As in all things, there is a hierarchy in the rarified and esoteric world of experimental radio. Tier One—the visible international layer—includes NTS, Resonance FM, WFMU: institutions with foundational infrastructure, sponsors, and mythologies. Tier Two—the invisible local stratum—is made of college