Music

MARCH 1998   Minor-key single-finger piano arpeggios are all the backstory you need, and there’s what’s screened and what isn’t, television makes confusion that much more accessible, and why does…

Illustration Credit: Zachary Schomburg Excerpt from The Man on High—Essays on skateboarding, hip-hop, poetry and The Notorious B.I.G.   “Since his first album, Jay-Z has simplified his intricate rhyme style: his…

File this under epic sonic memories: the moment I heard “Black Steel” from Tricky’s Maxinquaye album. I was living as a nomad in the states after starting a modeling career…

There is no place in popular music for commentary, politics, and opinions—essentially sounding “preachy”. Hey, come on now, really? We’ve all been there in our own lives, when someone may…

Jlin recently said, “I can make time and space disappear.”   But as I listen to Jlin’s new album, Black Origami, time and space emerge more saliently than ever. Time…

For nearly 30 years, powerhouse band Green Day have been creating music. The Californian institution and rock and roll hall of famers, have also influenced many acts to bridge the…

Radiohead’s music embodies a kind of distortion that synchronizes with the psychic distortion of modern life. They manipulate a seeming chaos of sounds into modulations that amount to a mystification…

In 2005, a band of young upstarts walked under the pop punk umbrella, gunning for love and spreading their music like wildfire. That band, was Paramore, an act lead by…

It would be wise, I think, to keep these introductory comments brief. Steve Erickson’s innovative, eloquent, and downright visionary fiction has been inspiring other storytellers* for over 30 years. His…

It is interesting that we try to create and preserve media that is, technically, “perfect”, or lossless, and does not fade with time. Perhaps a more honest approach would be…

Sometimes you can travel to the past, music your pilot. December 1975—Patti Smith releases Horses. I’m a not so sweet 16. March 2017—I am in a sea of fans at…

Yes, I am a few weeks late. Technically a lot of companies give out their dividends after they have taken a chance to reflect, look back on the last quarter,…

Being an astronaut is cool. The profession regularly makes the list of most desired jobs for boys graduating kindergarten. While 5-year-olds aspiring to Pro Athlete or Fire Fighter seek a…

Notes on orchestration 1. Repeat the bass at the base of the stairs, Daddy stares and composes his chaconne in the shotgun house (one two three, one two three), one…