Though criminally underrated as a player, jazz pianist Marian McPartland served a crucial role in facilitating conversations with geniuses. As the host of Piano Jazz, an hour-long interview […]
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Listen to highlights from the selections. A master at comprehensive musical overviews and the thoughtful unpacking of brilliant sounds, writer Sasha Frere-Jones recently focused his attention on German […]
No one interpreted classics like her. Here are five great ones. When it comes to adapting other writers’ songs, there’s Nina Simone, and everyone else. Raised as a […]
This illuminating hour-long 1993 documentary will rewire your brain. Sometimes you come across a documentary, article, essay or DJ mix that explodes your world. Something you didn’t realize […]
The genius keyboardist’s jazz-funk band was on fire – and a pro film crew captured the moment. In 1973, a restless Herbie Hancock, fresh from his cosmically free […]
Two legends of German music deliver nearly two hours of improvised bliss. In 1999, two towering figures of electronic music, Michael Rother and Dieter Moebius, stood onstage in […]
The founder of the famed loudspeaker company guides visitors through his lab and headquarters. For a while the Klipsch Speaker company in Hope, Arkansas not only built and […]
Watch the Throbbing Gristle cofounder’s innovative visual work of the ‘80s and ‘90s. “Evolution requires mutation,” wrote the late British musician, visual artist and “pandrogyny” advocate Genesis Breyer […]
Watch a documentary on a pair of landmark product releases and the ways they upended global culture. In the relative scheme of things, it wasn’t too long ago […]
A short documentary filmed in 1974 captures the Scottish folk guitarist in the studio. In the spring of 1974, Scottish guitarist Bert Jansch commenced recording sessions at label […]
Starting in 1963, the guitarist-oudist recorded three versions of his extended work. They will calm you down (and blow you away). Sometimes we all need to call a […]
Ubiquitous on vintage audio marketplaces, the company’s flagship speaker outperforms fancier brands. Once upon a time at an estate sale in the middle of Missouri, two lucky gear […]
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of their founding, an ode to Sade’s fifth album. Some artists transcend taste, are so naturally skilled at conveying universal emotion that their creations […]
Before he died at 44 in 1998, the brilliant experimental player was a central figure in ‘80s and ‘90s New York avant-jazz scene. Next year will mark the […]
Step into the world of chillout pioneer Morris Gould aka Mixmaster Morris aka Irresistible Force. “The sampler changed my life,” the British DJ and producer Mixmaster Morris told […]
Though only a 7-inch single, the 1991 record offers a primal primer on the New Zealand experimental scene. Nearly 35 years ago, experimental guitarist Bruce Russell founded a […]
How a 4-hour drive between Midwestern cities transformed electronic beat music. It’s no coincidence that two of electronic beat music’s most important subgenres, house and techno, were born […]
Richard Thompson’s gorgeous score for Herzog’s Grizzly Man will be reissued this Friday on No Quarter. In the early aughts, film auteur Werner Herzog traveled to Alaska to […]
A 1986 story by Barry Walters shined a spotlight on a new dance-floor sound. In 1986, the great music writer Barry Walters, who made his name covering underground […]
The extended composition’s best known version is 75 minutes long and features harmonizing by Tom Waits. In the early 1970s, the British minimalist composer Gavin Bryars had begun […]
Exploring the wild world of YouTube channel Are Sounds Electrik? It’s been about 50 years since the synthesizer began easing its way into the mainstream, and man were […]
The Mermaid’s Purse captures a brilliant group of uncategorizable musical explorers. Core member Wall Matthews recalls their work. To best introduce the work of the Entourage Music and […]
First aired on Channel 4, Deep Roots features footage of Dennis Brown, the Mighty Diamonds, Mikey Dread and others. In November 1982, a just-launched British TV station called […]
Hear a pair of revelatory versions featuring Brian Eno on “splintered” Minimoog. Last week two David Bowie tracks recorded during the Low sessions in 1976 showed up on […]
Buying tip: Aldo Ciccolini’s essential recordings are easily found, exquisitely pressed and helped define a musical movement. In 1956 at the dawn of the hi-fi age, the Italian […]
The epic performance still rips 52 years later. Maybe it’s because this post is being written from Southeast Iowa, where classic rock permeates the landscape as if being […]
A new collection by U.K. label Matsuli Music explores the jazz-funk sounds of Club Pelican, a renegade spot in South Africa during the height of Apartheid. The liner […]
A book that “travels from the rainforests of the Amazonas to virtual Las Vegas, high in the Hollywood Hills to the megalopolis of Tokyo.” Earlier this week we […]
The best book on the rise of electronic dance music turns 25 next year. The introduction to Simon Reynolds’ essential book Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno […]
Check out a video explainer on an instrument used by Eno, Bowie, Mark Mothersbaugh and more. The ad copy says it all: “Sound like a pro—make music instantly, […]
With her recent signing to Nonesuch, the MacArthur-winning musician flexes her creative muscles. At this point the electric guitar has been around long enough that, stylistically, it sometimes […]
An overview of one of the greatest drummers you’ve (likely) never heard. Let’s talk about Susie Ibarra, perhaps the greatest percussionist you’ve never heard. Across three-plus decades, the […]
Listen to highlights from an unsung legend’s early career. To get a sense of the ways in which Timmy Thomas’ music has seeped into contemporary culture, take a […]
Saigon rock & soul, Bollywood steel guitar, Khmer Folk and beyond… For the past 19 years the Seattle label Sublime Frequencies has been traveling the globe in search […]
Brilliant footage of the Miles Davis Quintet at peak power. Between Feb. 1969 and Feb. 1970, Miles Davis released eight albums. Near the tail end of that amazing […]
The prolific head of Tzadik’s sublime work mixes jazz, Hebrew melodies and genre-bending beauty. In 1995, the New York composer, saxophonist and visionary John Zorn embarked on a […]
A selection of restrained, melodic IDM from 1997. Twenty-five years ago, a barrage of wild, speedy albums came onto the market that propelled the subgenres drum ‘n bass […]
Five mesmerizing tracks by the Austrian experimental electronic producer and instrumentalist. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Hotel Paral.lel, the first solo album by Austrian experimental guitarist […]
A tipsheet on the trailblazing British duo, who formed after Throbbing Gristle’s early ‘80s breakup. Let’s talk about industrial music. Wait – come back! Not the relentless aggro […]
The producer born James Yancey changed the way hip hop could sound. Last week something wonderfully weird happened: A definitive biography of the great beat producer J Dilla […]
Post-Can selections from one of our favorite drummers – Jaki Liebezeit. There’s no mistaking the sound of Can drummer Jaki Liebewitz’s pound. Both sparse and complex, the late […]
It’s a composition that “scared the bejabbers” out of David Bowie the first time he heard it. Sometime this week when you’re feeling particularly sane, stable and able […]
The brilliant Brazilian singer, songwriter and political activist Caetano Veloso will turn 80 in August, and given his stature, influence and shimmering output over the past 60-plus years, […]
Touch Music celebrates 40 years with a three day festival at 2220 Arts produced in collaboration with dublab. Touch Music, notes the company on its website, is “not […]
Lovely footage of “American primitive” guitar master and Takoma records boss John Fahey. By 1969, guitarist John Fahey had released ten solo albums, founded the brilliant folk-blues label […]
Instrumental magic from the Chicago underground. Though it’s always been a crucial music center, in the past half-decade a bunch of Chicago avant-jazz players have been commanding the […]
Matt Marble’s podcast is a fascinating dive into the esoteric history of musical spiritualism. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you don’t need to be convinced […]
Key moments and tracks from On-U Sound’s premier dub group. You could spend the rest of the winter researching producer, musician and On-U Sound founder Adrian Sherwood – […]
Early live versions of Souvlaki and Just for a Day. “It doesn’t seem like the crowd is aware that they’re in the presence of greatness,” notes one commenter […]
Moog synthesizers, Roots Radics, vocoders, Arthur Lyman and other lesser-known Christmas sounds. There are Christmas songs they have not told you about. Songs that celebrate the season not […]
KLF, The Orb, Plastikman and more ambient classics from the 1990’s. At the beginning of the year, the essential Music from Memory label issued Virtual Dreams: Ambient Explorations […]
A few selections from our favorite online archive of art, music, film, and all things esoteric. Though you’ve likely stumbled across a post or two from UbuWeb during […]
Seven vintage but affordable amplifiers to upgrade your listening setup. Here’s a scenario that virtually anyone who has entered the home listening game by investing in a vintage […]
Austin Brown shares his journey into sound system culture and deep listening with 5 recent favorites. Several years ago Parquet Courts cofounder Austin Brown started going to the […]
McIntosh announces an updated version of their classic power amp. More than 50 years ago, the hi-fi magazine Stereo Review opened its assessment of the then-new McIntosh MC-3500 […]
Essential tracks, collaborations, and productions from The Velvet Underground’s electric viola player, John Cale. A few weeks ago, “The Velvet Underground,” director Todd Haynes’ documentary on the influential […]
For our next Art & Design: In Focus feature, we take a look at iconic New York free jazz label, Impulse! When Creed Taylor launched Impulse! Records in […]
Next-gen audiophile designer Devon Turnbull talks shop with the Audiophiliac. To hear the speaker-maker Devon Turnbull, whose DJ and graffiti name is OJAS, discuss the intentions in creating […]
The British shoegaze movement wouldn’t have existed without Alan McGee’s aesthetic in the years before the ‘90s explosion. Before bands including My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, Swervedriver and […]
Legendary Klipsch, McIntosh, Altec, Sansui equipment from the Grateful Dead go up for auction this Thursday. On Thursday, Sotheby’s will open bidding on a breathtakingly deep auction of […]
Our friends at Numero Group deliver a definitive tribute to gospel legend Pastor T.L. Barrett. In late 1960s Chicago, not long after bands like the Rolling Stones and […]
Dive into a singular artist whose beautifully chaotic energy inspired us during the pandemic. Last year as the pandemic forced us all inside to isolate, the fantastic speaker […]
Remastered footage “Lonesome Tonight” and “Blue Monday” performed live at the Haçienda. About three years after their singer Ian Curtis killed himself on the eve of Joy Division’s […]
Highly recommended vintage hi-fi reading from audiophile writer Hans Fantel. Though his name is nearly lost to time, starting in the 1950s the writer Hans Fantel was a […]
Amaro Freitas’ spiritual quest into the forgotten stories, philosophies and figures of Black Brazil. The Brazilian pianist Amaro Freitas drew the title of his exquisite new jazz trio […]
Building a system from the ground up? Start with the speakers. Some sage advice from a 1975 essay in High Fidelity magazine. The whole thing can be overwhelming, […]
Retro hi-fi and vinyl salesmanship salvaged from the vaults. Though it might now seem hard to fathom, there was a time when record retailers and hi-fi shops earned […]
A quick dive into Brian Long’s influential ‘Excursions in Ambience’ compilation CD series. In 1993, Brian Long, a New York-based music freak who’d recently left Los Angeles and […]
An adventure of textures and patterns in a visual form. You’re at a rave in an English field. It’s 1992. Sorted for e’s, your pill just kicked in […]
Visit Alice Coltrane’s spiritual home in this gorgeous documentary by Luaka Bop, Boiler Room and Petite Planetes. “In 1983 Alice Coltrane Turiysanagitananda founded the Sai Anantam Ashram, in […]
When, in 1970, the free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler was found dead in the East River, a rumor started swirling that the Mafia had murdered him and disposed […]
Maximalist experimental jazz from four heroes of the genre. For eight years starting in 1986, the searing free jazz quartet of Sonny Sharrock (electric guitar), Peter Brötzmann (sax), […]
Revisit one of the all-time great late night music programs produced by Hal Willner. For two years starting at the end of the 1980s, the producer and musical […]
A timeless synth played by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Alessandro Cortini, and Wendy Carlos. Introduced by Bay Area synthesizer innovator Don Buchla’s company in 1973, the Buchla Music Easel […]
In 1994, MTV ran a documentary on the British label Too Pure, which had been founded four years earlier with early releases from Stereolab, PJ Harvey and Seefeel. […]
Ambient selections from the deep discography of influential Japanese electronic producer Susumu Yokota. Where to start with Susumu Yokota. When asked about his mission in making music, the […]
Classic advertisements and illustrations from the cassette age. When Lou Ottens, who invented the cassette tape, died in March, a host of stories celebrated the life of a […]
Capturing the 70’s hi-fidelity craze in illustrations. If you were lucky enough to be a music freak who could also illustrate, in the 1960s and ‘70s you could […]
Classic Marantz, Klipsch, JBL, and Garrard advertisements from the peak Hi-Fi era. Fifty years ago when magazines were the dominant source of information on listening and hi-fi culture, […]
Introducing Deep Listening Tips, a new series inspired by Pauline Oliveros’ deep listening guide. Shhh, listen. You hear that phrase a lot in life. Shut up, too. Be […]
Sublime deep listening works from the founder of seminal electronic label Kompakt. In the early 1990s, Germany was a country undergoing a profound transition. The wall that separated […]
Punk, disco, hip hop and experimental. A look into the seminal New York City ‘No Wave’ label. New York City in 1980 was at a musical crossroads: the […]
A primer on Japanese experimental masters EYE, Yoshimi, Seiichi Yamamoto and the hypnotic mess they’ve made. The Boredoms aren’t an easy group to nail down. One of the strangest-ever […]
Post-punk and dub selections from the originator of lovers rock. The British reggae and dub producer Dennis Bovell is best known for his work producing sweet, swinging post-roots-reggae […]
Jazz’s evolution over the decades has begat a series of subgenres: be-bop, post-bop, free-jazz, spiritual jazz and fusion, to name a few. But by the end of the […]
It would behoove every listener-collector — vinyl freaks and Hi-Fi heads included — to consider subscribing to a streaming service, politics be damned. Yes, royalty payments to your […]
One common language issue among serious listeners and the writers who pander to them has to do with the adjective heavy and the ways in which it is […]
It’s no secret that In Sheep’s Clothing focuses on active listening and the depths to be explored within the grooves of great records. We sell and recommend physical […]
In 1958, RCA Victor introduced to the world a new technology under the banner “Living Stereo.” Focused at first on standard repertoire classical music, the vinyl imprint went […]
Earlier in October the New York-based concern Oda unveiled a first-generation speaker and performance system that was years in the making. Though envisioned and prototyped long before the […]
Why “Silver Apples” is a deep listening classic Nestled in the back-cover liner notes of Silver Apples’ 1968 self-titled debut album is a simple instructive that will resonate […]
