A love letter to curated collections and the people who make them. Seventy-five years ago, Folkways Records began issuing a series of themed albums that corralled recordings made […]
Randall Roberts
Each December in the 1970s, the monthly magazine High Fidelity delivered a holiday gift guide that offered suggestions for sound freaks — accessories, components, etc.
Randall takes us to one of his favorite local spots in Columbia, Missouri. College town record shops rule, and for a pretty specific reason: a polyglot clientele with […]
Full service retipping, diamond-only replacement, coil rewinds, suspension repairs from Joseph Long aka Groovetickler. You likely know this, but the mechanical thing at the tip of your tonearm […]
It’s sweater season in much of the country. The leaves have turned. The mice are coming in from the cold. Fire in the fireplace. Coffee steaming. Melancholia. Blankets. […]
Last week she released Exit Simulation, her debut album for Chicago-based Kranky Records. The South Carolina-based artist Niecy Blues grew up in a religious household, where she absorbed […]
Join us today at In Sheep’s Clothing NYC for a listening session dedicated to Arthur Russell. For those who believe in the notion of hallowed ground, of land […]
This year marks Luluc’s 15th anniversary, and in that time singer Zoe Randell and multi-instrumentalist Steve Hassett have produced five LPs worth of precisely crafted, sublimely streamlined songs. […]
One of the scariest film scores ever was the product of a gift placed under a Christmas tree. “My father bought me a pair of bongos for Christmas […]
A lost gem from NPR classical critic Tom Manoff and master vocalist Jill Talvé. Jill Talvé was in her late teens when, in the early 1980s, she moved […]
Daniel Villarreal’s Lados B is out now on International Anthem. Panama-born, Chicago-based percussionist Daniel Villarreal’s new album, Lados B, is powered by a mere three players — him, […]
The late composer co-founded “a kind of musical version of the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, with every entry registering like a report from some farflung orbital station.“ […]
Il Sesso della Strega (‘Sex of the Witch’) is available on vinyl for the first time via CAM Sugar. Launched in 1959 Rome to capitalize on the ascent of […]
For Monday’s dedicated listening session, we’re going deep on the trumpeter’s expansive creative output. “Repetitious boredom.” “An insult to the intellect of the people.” “Nameless, faceless go-go music.” […]
Featuring The Velvet Underground, Patti Smith Group, Talking Heads, Cool Herc, John Cale, Afrika Bambaata, Fab 5, and more. “If it doesn’t work in New York, we’re in […]
So much Zorn! The Tzadik Records catalog is now available on streaming… Last week, more than 25 years after it launched, the crucial New York label Tzadik released […]
Our friend Sam Wilkes shares some favorites w/ personal write-ups on each pick… You could be forgiven for scratching your head at news that the Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist […]
If you’ve never done so or it’s been a while, you should cue up “Metronomic Underground,” the opening track on Stereolab’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup. Released in March, 1996, […]
There are records that are as potent as psychedelics. Records that whoosh you into another realm the moment the stylus locks into the groove, embrace you in their […]
This week, while much of the music world has been discussing the blowback from Rolling Stone cofounder Jann Wenner’s confounding interview with David Marchese at The New York […]
In advance of her mesmerizing new album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, the LA-based harpist recommends some gems. You’ll want to carve big chunks of time out of your busy […]
Join us for a listening session dedicated today to Richard D. James’ aka Aphex Twin from 2-5pm at In Sheep’s Clothing NYC. Although many consider Aphex Twin’s two […]
Inside the Harvest Time Project, an ambitious archival initiative created for Pharoah Sanders’ website, is a simple story about the birth of ‘Love Will Find a Way,’ the […]
Join us for a listening session dedicated to Japanese ambient classics today 2-5pm at In Sheep’s Clothing NYC. Let’s talk about the sonics of water and the way […]
Remembering a musician and thinker whose work created a singular kind of bliss. When Stars of the Lid started releasing music in the mid-1990s, critics and tastemakers had […]
The birds aren’t an affectation on the first record by Flaer. Their chirps score Preludes because the artist behind the project, the visual and musical artist Realf Heygate, […]
When it tore through London before taking over the world in the early 1990s, the jungle/drum ‘n bass scene was unlike any other in the world. Harnessing samplers, […]
On Monday in New York, we’ll be spinning Brazilian classics as part of a weekly listening session. Unless you’re looking for a collection of toe-tapping ditties designed for […]
Astro-Nubian Electronic Jaglara Dance Sounds from the Fashaga Underground. In a disputed territory called Fashaga near the border of Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea lives a man whose name, […]
Many deep listeners and hi-fi heads have been inculcated into the Church of Spiritual Jazz through prominent disciples including Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra, all travelers […]
Dive into a favorite from our collection at In Sheep’s Clothing NYC and join us for a listening party Thursday 4-8pm. The story goes that Hydroplane, the self-titled […]
The Birmingham, England band led by Trish Keenan left an indelible mark on the post-shoegaze sound of the ’90s and ’00s. It’s a Tuesday and we woke up […]
“They were from the left, these kids, but the traditional left didn’t agree with their ideas, and the right neither.“ During an interview with the director Marcelo Machado, […]
Ever the explorer, the British folk guitarist and songwriter carved a singular path, mixing jazz, dub and Echoplex textures. Few testimonials carry more weight than that of the […]
Contort yourself !! Let’s talk about logo hunting, one of the many strategies for finding jewels amid the junk when you’re out looking for unknown sure-shots. It shouldn’t […]
Join our ECM Dedicated Listening at In Sheep’s Clothing NYC today from 3-7pm! On Monday at our new location in Lower Manhattan, we’ll officially resume our regular programming […]
The go-to book on the Lower Manhattan post-disco scene is required reading – and a great resource. One of the first tasks after moving into a new neighborhood […]
His sublime score for Burden of Proof, the HBO limited true crime series, is as haunting as it is beautiful. The haunting Chuck Johnson score for HBO’s limited […]
One of our all-time favorite records is finally getting a proper reissue… By 1977, Pharoah Sanders was moving through a particularly notable transition. Three years prior, his eight-year […]
There’s a new collection of previously unreleased Arthur Russell music out now… Last year marked the 30th anniversary of Arthur Russell’s passing, a melancholy milestone that served as […]
A breathtaking new vinyl version of John Coltrane’s ‘Coltrane’s Sound’ comes to the market. Over the past five years, a growing number of specialized labels or sublabels have […]
Epic concerts and excerpts that illustrate why the Boredoms’ mesmerizing tribal explorations are unlike anything else on the planet. We’ve celebrated the Boredoms before, and recently added DJ […]
It’s not a coincidence that the birth of electronic dance music coincided with the rise of animated computer graphics. Scene: It’s 1993 and you just called the rave […]
Incredible 16mm footage featuring Keith Hudson, Big Youth, John Lydon (Sex Pistols), Ari Up (The Slits), Tapper Zukie, and more! Few have experienced more than Don Letts when […]
Don’t miss Eli Winter this Sunday, June 25th at the Lodge Room in Highland Park. Over the past half-decade, the Houston-born, Chicago-based instrumental guitarist and writer Eli Winter […]
First-ever vinyl release of the artist’s Eno-mixed 1989 concert near the World Trade Center. We’ve previously written about Jon Hassell’s legendary 1989 performances at the Financial Center in […]
Affordable vintage CD players from Marantz, Harman Kardon, Sony, Nakamichi, Rega, and more! For decades, the main format-facing argument between analog freaks and their CD-loving counterparts revolved around […]
Remembering a Detroit legend… To hear the late Ron Murphy discuss cutting records is like getting the lowdown on designing lamps from Charles Lewis Tiffany. The Detroit audio […]
A subtle, cool masterpiece that upended popular music. Astrud Gilberto recorded “The Girl from Ipanema” because no other singer in the studio could do so in English. It […]
Words, tracks, and guest playlists from Ghostly International’s founder Sam Valenti IV. Dig in the crates all you want, but if you don’t have a clue what you’re […]
And: How a multimillion-dollar audio company was born after a series of listening sessions. In the early 1950s, a 32-year-old audio afficiando named Hideo Matsushita landed a job […]
Celebrating the eye candy that sold ear candy. This is a post without many words. Mostly the aim is to offer drool-worthy, curious, or otherwise engaging advertisements from […]
Essential albums from Chicago-based from singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist Gia Margaret. “Instrumental music it can be kind of endless. Sometimes you wonder if what you made is music at […]
This morning’s post is devoted to the Japanese graffiti artist turned occasional music video animator Katsura Moshino. Though hardly a household name, and despite the minimal output available […]
A look at the experimental musician and video artist’s work and influence (and featuring a Peter Brötzmann cameo) This week the renowned American Masters series on PBS premiered […]
The 33 track playlist features Alva Noto, Erik Satie, Ennio Morricone, J.S. Bach, Debussy, and Laurel Halo. When David Bowie passed, he gifted the world his final album, […]
A home for vinyl and analog culture in Tel Aviv. The Tel Aviv cultural hub Beit Romano (Romano House) is a stunning compound that houses restaurants, a jazz […]
Listen to one of the great jazz quartets from the CD era. The 1990s will never be known as a decade of great jazz. An era in which […]
Recent favorites from Chicago, Brooklyn, New Zealand, Basque, Amsterdam, Munich, Tokyo, and Sweden. Each week the global listening community gets bombarded with new releases, reissues and restocks. As […]
The jazz supergroup features Benji B, Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings, and more. The new double album London Brew was originally slated to be a 50th anniversary ode to […]
The LA-based ambient country-folk duo share recent favorites! Last month, the meditative Los Angeles instrumental outfit North Americans released Long Cool World, its fifth album overall and second […]
In 1964 as the Beatles were going viral among the kids and remaking youth culture along the way, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy were ferrying the adults to […]
The science of sound – how high-fidelity systems do what they do, and why – has been a subject of obsessive fascination since the rise of stereophonic systems […]
An essential album in any collection, ‘Erik Satie: Piano Music’ featured cover illustration by Pablo Picasso. One of the best additions to your record collection, and to your […]
The long out-of-print holy grail private press album is finally being reissued on vinyl. One of the best parts of being a music freak is having your brain chemistry forever […]
“It’s all business as usual, really. Chaos, but good chaos.” That description of Mark E. Smith and the Fall opens the BBC 4’s 2004 documentary of the Mancunian […]
Black Editions Group presents Shizuka’s sole studio album, 1994’s Heavenly Persona, for the first time on vinyl. Mind your volume control when dropping the needle on the opening […]
“One of Rota’s most eerie and enigmatic scores, as if the Maestro had finally poured into a soundtrack all of his love for esotericism.” Those who follow the […]
The beloved Ethiopian jazz pianist was 99 years old when she passed earlier this week… You likely know by now that Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guèbrou, the piano-playing, Jerusalem-based Ethiopian […]
39 minutes of futuristic electronic music and psychedelic visuals on MTV’s Amp program. As one of the earliest artists on the essential 1990s label Astralwerks, Future Sound of […]
The massive set features new music by Nick Cave, Blake Mills, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Seu Jorge, Sam Gendel, Sam Wilkes and dozens more Listen to the birds. That’s […]
Listen to one of Thurston Moore’s favorite guitar recordings. In 1967, a young electric guitarist named Sonny Sharrock joined flute player Herbie Mann’s jazz band. It was a […]
The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion […]
Two years ago, the Barcelona-based DJ, writer and electronic music expert Philip Sherburne teamed up with Albert Salinas to launch Balmat Records, a boutique label devoted to experimental […]
Past & present sounds from LA-based saxophone player Patrick Shiroishi. The Los Angeles saxophone player, improvisor, composer and inexhaustible creator-collaborator Patrick Shiroishi doesn’t seem to stay in the […]
“An exploration of the production, transmission, and mutation of affective tonality—when sound helps produce a bad vibe.” Next year will mark the singular British label Hyperdub’s 20th anniversary, […]
One listener’s experience having his sonic mind blown… Getting lost in music is an act of vanishing, and if the ultimate goal of high-fidelity sound, vinyl culture and […]
Going deep inside a hypnotic recording derived from a Serbian brass band. It’s up to you to choose which of the below pieces you want to listen to […]
“Visions of space and atmosphere – the absence of busy, human life – populate a lot of what I do. It’s regenerative, an existential thing.” Nearly 30 years […]
Abstract, ambient and classical music from the legendary Cologne-based electronic label. In 2001, electronic music was at a crossroads, one that felt more like a massive highway interchange […]
Want to get inspired about dance music? About the exuberant, profound joy of dancing itself? About the importance of physical spaces for stretching out and-or letting loose? And […]
The mysterious true story of mid-century New York City singer songwriter Connie Converse… What happened to Connie Converse? When she vanished in 1974 at age 50, never to […]
Watch Peter Greenaway’s ‘Four American Composers’ featuring John Cage, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, and Robert Ashley. Few people could discuss listening like John Cage. One of the great […]
From the 1950s through the 1980s, the home audio explosion was documented in real time. Online archives have digitized the bounty. It’s true. Those wanting to better understand […]
On Feb. 2, 1973, the famed production premiered after The Tonight Show. For much of the 1970s and some of the ’80s, a weekly syndicated rock show called […]
By now you’ve likely learned that Tom Verlaine, the brilliant New York guitarist, singer and lyricist best known for his work with Television, has passed. Though a foundational […]
Hear the late Talk Talk founder’s early attempt at landing a record deal. Before forming Talk Talk in 1981, Mark Hollis was a singer and songwriter attempting, as […]
In the third issue of Synapse, a mid-1970s magazine devoted to news and features on the burgeoning field of electronic music, editors Douglas Lynner and Angela Schill offer […]
By the year 2000, various forms of electronic dance music had begun consuming global music culture, part of an evolution that began with the rise of home computers, […]
With his passing, celebrating the great drummer, singer and composer through video footage With his metronomic timing, calm vocal delivery, and movie-star good looks, musician Yukihiro Takahashi left […]
The 5+ hour, 79-track mix moves from Coil to the Scientist to Eno, YMO, Model 500, 808 State, and beyond. Got plans this weekend? Autechre’s got the dance-all-night […]
Richard D. James has never released a sanctioned DJ mix. Fans have stepped in to meet the demand. More than three decades into his career, Richard D. James […]
Improvisational Turntablism, Meta-Concert, Hypermobility, and more key performances from artist Christian Marclay. The visual and sound artist Christian Marclay is best known for The Clock, his 24-hour film […]
A primer on the birth and evolution of recorded sound and the rise of high-fidelity stereo systems… Cheesy 1990s graphics? Check. Dated approach to documentary TV? Obviously. Woefully […]
If you notice some of your older music-head friends seeming a little out of sorts over the holidays, know that it’s because we lost Terry Hall, the co-founder […]
Record totes, weights, portable turntable, books for your beloved vinyl and hi-fi friends. Here’s a challenge for you: The holiday season is in full effect. Those who celebrate […]
“When I found out E2-E4 was played in clubs, I couldn’t imagine people dancing to it…” When the great German musician and thinker Manuel Göttsching passed on Monday […]
Private press folk compiled by Perfect Lives’ Bruno Halper and Samuel Strang for the great NTS Radio. It’s no secret that the holidays can be hard. All these […]
Makers across the country have expanded their shelving options. Another tactic? Buy your woodworking friend a bottle of Scotch. Let’s not belabor the point: Ikea’s KALLAX shelving unit, […]
Don’t miss Ulla performing live this Thursday at In Sheep’s Clothing HQ. The term glitch was coined sometime in the 1990s to describe an emergent movement of artists […]
Featuring hurdy-gurdy, harp, voice, and Bruno Menny’s arrangements. In 1977, when much of Western music culture was being upended by both the distorted aggression of the global punk […]
As the remarkable series approaches its 10th anniversary, a look at the musician-producer’s online project. In 2013, the musician and producer Jim O’Rourke started releasing a series of […]
Absolutely essential Detroit ambient from the legend Neil Olivierra a.k.a. the Detroit Escalator Co. By the mid-1990s, synthesizers had fully integrated with computing software, resulting in a kind […]
Essential new music from the great Jeff Parker… Starting in 2018, LA-based guitarist Jeff Parker set up camp at the Enfield Tennis Academy in Highland Park for an […]
A new reissue of Horace Andy’s Wackie’s classic ‘Dance Hall Style’ has arrived and is available now in the shop. In 1982, Horace Andy carried his sweet, sweet […]
Though many of us have spent hours (days? weeks?) on end consumed in Can live performances over the years – really, is there any better reason for YouTube? […]
“I don’t think we’ve ever feared how people would react to our music,” Mimi Parker told the Quietus last year. The musically fearless Parker, who with husband-collaborator Alan […]
A deep dive into Albert Ayler’s classic free jazz composition “Ghosts.” Three years before the great free jazz tenor saxophonist Albert Ayler was found dead in the East […]
Five killer vintage cassette decks to start you on your path. Forty-five years ago, the respected home audio magazine Hi-Fi Stereo Review published an overview of new-model cassette […]
Sun Ra improvising on a Prophet VS synthesizer in 1986? Pump it straight into our veins. In the summer of that year while in Boston with his band, […]
And then read Dave Tompkins’ book about the “machine that tears speech to pieces,” How to Wreck a Nice Beach. Before you watch the below 10-minute documentary on […]
The lives and recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe & Cosey Fanni Tutti. Earlier this month Cosey Fanni Tutti, cofounder of Throbbing Gristle and one half of Chris […]
Going deep with cult Detroit electro-techno outfit Drexciya. Sometimes submergence is the only way to explore and understand the mission of a particular artist: dive in, ignore everything […]
The experimental guitarist’s latest album Shebang! has arrived on Chicago-based independent label Drag City. To discover Oren Ambarchi’s discography is like coming upon a shimmering labyrinth in the […]
On June 1, 1973, a drunken Robert Wyatt fell out of a fourth-floor window and broke his spine. A founding member of British band Soft Machine, in a […]
John Oswald’s deconstructionist ‘Plunderphonics’ collage approach meets the Grateful Dead. In the early 1990s, the Canadian sound artist John Oswald was granted full access to the Grateful Dead’s […]
Hallucinogenic journeys with the soon-to-be-disbanding Japanese psychedelic rock band. Earlier this year the great Japanese psych-prog-folk-jam-band Kikagaku Moyo released what they say will be their swan song. Called […]
A collection of interviews with the late great “Astral Traveler,” Pharoah Sanders. This weekend the world lost a giant. Pharoah Sanders, whose singular approach to composition and performance […]
Explore some of Impulse! Records’ latest releases ahead of our in-store listening party 5-7pm tonight. Some logos hold a special kind of power. Even design elements – color […]
tl;dr: It’s not fun. Do it very carefully. It’s going to be expensive. Your back will ache and your legs will throb – even if you use a […]
Considered one of the great albums of the 1970s, it’s a mystic Rastafarian ode to Jah. The refrain arrives as if the singing narrators are announcing a new […]
A potent alchemy of texture and rhythm akin to ‘My Life in the Bush of Ghosts’ or early Material albums. During the spring of 1984 in a semi-rural […]
Extreme Animals is a long-running project by artist Jacob Ciocci. A crucial member of the ’00s Providence, RI music and art scene that helped birth Lightning Bolt, he […]
Fly or Die. Rest in peace jaimie branch. Like the rest of the world, Tuesday afternoon turned dark for us as news broke that trumpeter, bandleader, and composer […]
Remembering an iconic ’90s track that bridged Northwest indie-pop and sample-based electronic music. In mid-1990s America, the independent underground music world was frustratingly balkanized. Detroit was producing sturdy […]
Mid-80’s digital new age meets the voices of Lyra Pramuk, Holly Herndon, and Mindar the Buddhist Robot on the Seahawks’ latest album. Let’s talk about headphone music – […]
“This film is the ultimate reference about reggae. A pure gem.” One great thing about a crucial music documentary is its ability to crack open a portal to […]
Sights, sounds, and mathematics from Japan’s leading audiovisual artist Ryoji Ikeda. Since his arrival on the international stage in the mid-1990s via his early releases for Touch, +/-, sonic […]
All hail the Sims 2: Nightlife soundtrack. In the late 1990s a trio of 10-inch records by a little known London beat-based duo called Lemon Jelly hit the […]
In the late 1980s, rap labels Jive and Profile issued a series of killer house and techno comps featuring remixes by Marshall Jefferson, Kevin Saunderson and dozens more. […]
McIntosh, Technics, GLI, Acoustic Research, and more legendary gear and memorabilia from the godfather of rap, DJ Kool Herc. Later this month the esteemed auction house Christie’s will […]
Recently one of the great mix CDs of the so-called electronica age, Kruder & Dorfmeister’s The K&D Sessions from 1998, finally landed on streaming services a quarter-century after […]
Phonographs, shellac discs, dusty 45’s, and archival videos curated and presented by Lance and April Ledbetter. For the past 20-plus years, the Georgia-based archival imprint Dust-to-Digital has been […]
A suite of raga-inspired compositions and improvisations centered around just tuning, deep listening, and resonant spaces. To better appreciate the sublime forthcoming collaboration by Christina Vantzou, Michael Harrison […]
30-minutes of pure cosmic joy and wonder from Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Arkestra. By 1972, Sun Ra had firmly established his Arkestra as a formidable presence on […]
