An archival interview with Yen Records’ engineer Yasuhiko Terada along with some words from Hosono himself on SFX. The following interviews were originally featured in the book Haruomi […]
Archival
A legendary archive returns with a massive new collection of rare texts, recordings, and technical resources for sonic explorers. Last week, about a year after it stopped uploading […]
Read an archival interview with The Roches shortly after they released Speak in 1989. The Roches’ cottage industry: making fun of pain. It reminds me of being a […]
In 2002, a broadsheet magazine called Arthur started appearing at various locations around Los Angeles. Rich with interviews, features, comic art, and reviews, the publication focused on music, […]
From Folkie to MIDI. Chris Maillard finds out how the hard bitten acoustic veteran has been bitten hard by the electronic bug. Chris Maillard finds John Martyn coming […]
Read an interview with Psychic TV’s Genesis and Paula P-Orridge featured in a rare tour zine from 1990. Best known as the cofounder of Throbbing Gristle (alongside Cosey […]
Steely Dan talk about their seventh album Gaucho in an extended interview with Musician Magazine in 1981. Those consummate troublemakers Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, are finally cornered, […]
Digitally archiving an excellent 1981 Brian Eno interview featured in Musician Magazine. The ambient Mr. Eno again confounds his audience with a new creative collaboration with David Byrne […]
Wild Life Archive traces the history of UK rave sound systems through text and ephemera. Foundation The history of PA systems is a loud one, dating as far back […]
For more than two decades, the US magazine Musician covered a broader range of music and genres than any other publication of the time. While Rolling Stone was […]
Despite being more than a half-century old, the information delivered in Introduction to Hi-Fi, a 1960 book on the basics of sound reproduction and high fidelity listening at […]
Listen to hundreds of hours of mixes (with tracklists) from “The Guv’nor” Andrew Weatherall. File under: Internet is Beautiful, DRVR is a new creation from The Flightpath Estate, “an […]
In Krautrocksampler, his great book about German cosmic music, the musician, collector and writer Julian Cope describes the sensation of being a fan of Can, Neu!, Cluster, Amon […]
A near hour-long showcase style documentary on Lloyd Barnes’ legendary Bronx-based reggae label. One of the most iconic reggae labels around, Wackies was founded in 1976 by Prince […]
Essential tips from Paul W. Klipsch featured in a vintage brochure. Klipsch loudspeakers are the next best thing to original sound. It’s like being there. Klipsch loudspeaker systems, […]
Each December in the 1970s, the monthly magazine High Fidelity delivered a holiday gift guide that offered suggestions for sound freaks — accessories, components, etc.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
An Afrofuturist film featuring George Clinton, Juan Atkins, Goldie, DJ Spooky, and A Guy Called Gerald. Directed by British artist, writer, theorist John Akomfrah, The Last Angel of History is […]
Learn the basics of setting up a dub session from lovers rock / reggae legend Dennis Bovell. Originally published in the December, 1977 issue of London-based Sounds magazine, […]
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 […]
Essential pre-iPhone era archival footage from dub soundsystem parties. If you’re like us and have yet to experience the legendary dub sound systems of Jah Shaka, Aba Shanti-I, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Watch an ’80s tourist promo for the legendary open-air Ibiza nightclub that rivaled Studio 54. Summer has officially arrived, and in light of all this heat and sunshine […]
Watch the seven-part surreal and transcendental TV opera by the American avant-garde giant. The complete seven acts of Robert Ashley’s celebrated visual work Perfect Lives have been uploaded […]
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 […]
Step into a world of North Carolina mountain singing with music archivist Derek Piotr. A series of recordings collected by Herbert Halpert for the Library of Congress in […]
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, […]
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 […]
A rare pre-Hats interview with The Blue Nile on Deirdre O’Donoghue’s SNAP! radio show. As avid Blue Nile fans, we’re constantly scouring the internet for anything (interview, documentary, […]
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 […]
72-minutes of Stereolab live in Danbury, Connecticut. In 1994, Stereolab was hitting a creative peak. They’d just released “Mars Audiac Quintet,” their heavy-duty Krautrock-inspired fourth album, and five […]
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 […]
“My Definition Of Techno House Is A Shrimp.” Earlier this year, German electronic label Transmigration released the much anticipated Space Teddy Collection, a 2xLP compilation of tracks from […]
ISC closes its first week of September programing with a deep dive into the music of Arther Russell. The In Sheep’s Clothing Residency at Neuehouse Hollywood is nearing […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Was Rahsaan Roland Kirk the coolest person who ever lived? Rahsaan Roland Kirk unapologetically rode the edge of absurdity his entire life and regularly left audiences gobsmacked in […]
Extensive interviews and performances with the new age icon explaining the origins of his inter-dimensional music. Here is Iasos, the legendary and peculiar new age figure from the […]
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, […]
Eno sits down with Israeli designer Ron Arad and waxes poetic about his connection to visual art and his entanglements with the art world at large. In this […]
Take a look inside Chokuritsu Enjin, a small, strictly jazz bar named after Mingus’ Pithecanthropus Erectus. Via Chasing the Sun Moments, a documentary travel series telling stories from […]
A wonderfully cheeky video from John Darko on how plants affect the sound of your listening room. If you’ve ever visited audiophile message boards, you’ll notice they’re filled […]
A rare look into the music and life of the Lovely Music Ltd. composer, musician, and teacher. Just For the Record: Conversations with and about “Blue” Gene Tyranny […]
Filmmaker Robert Mugge profiles Sun Ra, jazz musician, bandleader and self-styled poet and philosopher. “They say that history repeats itself. But history is only his story. You haven’t […]
In typical BBC4 fashion, here is Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany: A full panoramic breakdown of the rise of one of the most influential sounds from Europe. “From […]
Here’s a rare 2.5 hour recording of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandishi band live at the Strata Concert Gallery in Detroit. The performance opens with an incredible rendition of “Hidden […]
Making Waves is a 2019 documentary examining how visionary directors work with sound designers to create the most exciting cinematic experiences. The film follows discoveries and advances in […]
Sharing an article from the Vanity Fair archives for our favorite Star Man’s birthday today. In Vanity Fair’s November 2003 issue, David Bowie reveals, in no particular order, the […]
Essential lockdown viewing and the perfect gateway into “cool jazz” legend Chet Baker. Let’s Get Lost, Bruce Weber’s monochromatic masterpiece on “cool jazz” great Chet Baker, is a […]
Like many people around the world, we’ve been heavily listening to and remembering Daniel “MF DOOM” Dumile through his music over the last few days… One of the […]
Revisiting one of our all-time favorite music pieces today from our good friend Randall Roberts. The Lost Art of Deep Listening encapsulates the essence of the In Sheep’s […]
“The word ‘ambient’ doesn’t ring a bell with me. It’s meant to mean something but is, in fact, meaningless. It’s not relevant for me. My style is the […]
“The synthesizer the way I play it doesn’t need any manual skill. You don’t have to be clever to turn a knob. So what I’m saying is that […]