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 […]
UbuWeb Is Growing Again — And Electronic Music Fans Should Take Note

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 new material to its remarkable archive, UbuWeb returned. The arts hub, which was launched by Kenneth Goldsmith in 1996, has been the longtime home for a remarkable array of documents, writings, sound recordings, short films and thousands of other artifacts. We’ve written about them before, but the killer additions to its database demand attention. Specifically, the collective has created a new drawer to their virtual file cabinet: Electronic Music Resources.
Here’s UbuWeb’s own description of their site:
Founded in 1996, UbuWeb is a pirate shadow library consisting of hundreds of thousands of freely downloadable avant-garde artifacts. By the letter of the law, the site is questionable; we openly violate copyright norms and almost never ask for permission. Most everything on the site is pilfered, ripped, and swiped from other places, then reposted. We’ve never been sued—never even come close.
The return of UbuWeb was unexpected, one necessitated by the political insanity occurring globally. They explain in a righteous note on the site’s landing page:
A year ago, we decided to shutter UbuWeb. Not really shutter it, per se, but instead to consider it complete. After nearly 30 years, it felt right. But now, with the political changes in America and elsewhere around the world, we have decided to restart our archiving and regrow Ubu. In a moment when our collective memory is being systematically eradicated, archiving reemerges as a strong form of resistance, a way of preserving crucial, subversive, and marginalized forms of expression. We encourage you to do the same. All rivers lead to the same ocean: find your form of resistance, no matter how small, and go hard. It’s now or never. Together we can prevent the annihilation of the memory of the world.

What does regrowing UbuWeb mean, exactly? For one, it means the creation of that Electronic Music Resources section, which consists of nearly 300 items “devoted to technical resources concerning the practice of electronic and experimental sound.” Editors/curators describe the section as being “about actual methods and techniques, with little writing on aesthetics alone … Regrettably, most previous treatments of electronic music have tended to shy away from the details of the medium itself.”
Divided into sections on books, periodicals, articles, interviews & media, and patents, the new archive features a stunning array of stuff. The articles section dives into experimental electronic music, psychoacoustics, and sound technology, pulling together key writings from pioneers like Maryanne Amacher, Gordon Mumma, Hugh Davies, and Max Neuhaus. The writings cover everything from how we perceive sound and build DIY instruments to the early days of video synthesis and live electronic performance. The NWDR papers, a collection of 12 papers on electronic music, offer a rare glimpse into Cologne’s groundbreaking electronic studios, featuring insights from Eimert, Stockhausen, and others shaping the future of sound. It’s packed with technical schematics, philosophical musings, and firsthand accounts of sonic experimentation.

Perhaps most important, the archive gathers all seven issues of the Electronic Music Review, a vital publication edited by Reynold Weidenaar and Robert Moog that provided a rare meeting ground for electronic music creators and inventors. It covered everything from synthesis techniques and tape recording to mixing and programmed control, with contributions from Stockhausen, Hugh Davies, Gordon Mumma, Wendy Carlos, and Alvin Lucier. A standout was the massive double issue (Nos. 2-3), featuring Davies’ International Electronic Music Catalog, an exhaustive global survey of studios and works. The journal documented a turning point when electronic music was shifting from niche avant-garde experiments to broader artistic and commercial possibilities.
Get lost in UbuWeb’s new Electronic Music Resources section.