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Sounds

A collection of 90 issues

Päiväkahvit and the Patience of Time

The word "outtakes" poisons the well before we even begin listening. It suggests material that wasn't quite good enough, the songs that didn't make the cut—creative leftovers relegated to the margins. But Sontag Shogun and Lau Nau's Päiväkahvit demands we abandon

Mojo within the Limit

Five Modes of Constraint in the Age of Abundant Music I. Introduction: The Age of the Skip In the algorithmic present, music lives or dies in six seconds. On TikTok, that window is the difference between obscurity and virality. On Spotify, it’s the length of a skip-rate metric. Hooks

Constraint, Converged: One Night in Houston

It’s 2006 in Houston, and the evening air hums with the strange promise of resonance. Nameless Sound, the city’s quietly radical nonprofit for experimental music and improvisation, is hosting a concert at the Friends Meeting House—a Quaker space of radical stillness designed by James Turrell, where light

The Clientele: Songs for the Everautumn

We saw them play at the Notting Hill Arts Club in either 1999 or 2000, when their lo-fi aesthetic of the tape hiss almost being a 4th member fit the basement vibes of the venue to a tee. Their sonic palette evolved over the decades since, arguably thanks to the

Ultra Vivid Scene: The Bedroom Auteur as Inspirational Anchor

"It's so nice, I had to get it twice!" Pictured here are two editions of Ultra Vivid Scene's self-titled debut from 1988. The top copy is the original 4AD/Rough Trade issue, and the lower is the 1992 reissue on Columbia. As to why

Did She Jump or Was She Pushed?

After Linda and Richard Thompson The question hangs in the air like smoke from a snuffed candle—acrid, lingering, impossible to wave away. Did she jump or was she pushed? It's the riddle that haunts every exit, every ending, every moment when someone says "enough" and

Feed Me Weird Things: A Quarter Century Later

The First Time I Heard It Feed Me Weird Things, the debut long-player from Squarepusher, née Tom Jenkinson, recently celebrated its quarter century anniversary, marked by a remastered reissue on Warp Records. Pictured here is the original 1996 edition, courtesy of Richard D. James's Rephlex label. In addition

The Missing Link: Revolver and the Great Creative Leapfrog

It's hard NOT to have an opinion about the Beatles, although now that I think about it, I'd say that if one doesn't have an opinion about them, it's likely that they've never been a part of your life, which

Gentle Refusals: The Politics of the Shambolic

There’s a sound that’s always stayed with me. Not a specific song, but a vibe—the warble of a tape, the tremble in a voice, the feeling that the band might fall apart at any second but doesn’t. Or maybe they do, and that’s the point.

The Gear Fantasy Musical: A Satirical Journey Through Consumer Culture

A musical comedy with dramatic bite exploring the seduction of tools as totems in American consumer culture Overview The Gear Fantasy Musical is a sharp, satirical comedy that uses a premium gear store as a funhouse mirror reflecting our consumer obsessions. Through the journey of everyman Joe Lugnut, the musical