Interviews

Talks with musicians/artists/coders

Junto Profile: Darren Bourne (aka halF unusuaL)

From Nottingham, England: ignoring dead ends, composing for dance and theater

Junto Profile: Kel Smith (aka Suss Müsik)

From Pennsylvania: handmade electroacoustic instrumentation; reducing complexity

Junto Profile: Paul Beaudoin

From Tallinn, Estonia (previously Boston): studying with Morton Feldman and adding beats

Junto Profile: Ethan Hein

From New York City: teaching technology and theory, sampling Thelonious Monk

Junto Profile: Nick Sinnenberg, aka Sinny

From New York: drumming, collaborating, opting for blemishes

Junto Profile: Andreas Winterer, aka Krakenkraft

From Munich, Germany: breaking rules and making "boring" music

Junto Profile: Mark Rushton

From Des Moines, Iowa: streaming live, and leaving nothing on the shelf

Junto Profile: Michel Banabila

From the Netherlands: "Be open for anything that can happen."

Junto Profile: Joe McMahon, aka Equinox Deschanel

From West Virginia, now SF Bay Area: welcome imperfection, false dichotomies

Junto Profile: Klaus-Dieter Hilf, aka RabMusicLab

From Heidelberg, Germany: Mathematics, Munich, MIDI

Junto Profile: Jason Richardson, aka Bassling

From Leeton, New South Wales, Australia: drafting, redrafting, and collaborating

Junto Profile: Aethyr

From Sheffield, England: eschewing perfection, tweaking genres

Junto Profile: Kei Terauchi Sideboard

From San Francisco, California (and Japan): embracing contradictions, reading to compose

Junto Profile: xiiixxi

From York, England: growing up with Italian opera, working with Euclidean rhythms

Junto Profile: Ian Joyce

From the North Wales coast: soporific synths, having fun, the cat's meow

Junto Profile: Daniel Díaz

From Paris, France: working in film, making space, keeping a notebook

Aphex Twin on Nylon

Simon Farintosh talks about arranging classic tracks like “Avril 14th” and “Alberto Balsalm” for classical guitar.

How Instruō Went Virtual

The story of how the Glasgow-based hardware company ported its synthesizer modules to VCV Rack software

The Circuit Board Record Album

Tristan Perich on Loud Objects, machine art, and the aesthetics of code

Synth City, Part 2 of 2

Chris Randall of Audio Damage talks about the March 5, 2016, Sync 01 event at Codeword in San Francisco.

Synth City, Part 1 of 2

Suzanne Ciani on her March 5, 2016, Dial-Tones performance in San Francisco

The Bell Jar Filter

Talking with Christina Vantzou about graphic scores, structuring improvisation, and the compositional facets of post-production

Immediacy + Accessibility = Joy

The past and future of mobile music – a conversation with with PalmSounds.net founder Ashley Elsdon

The Eternal Life Aquatic with Laraaji

An interview with the ambient grandmaster in his 72nd year

In the Province of Real Time Electronica

MUTEK’s Patti Schmidt on how Jurassic Park helped birth – and how emphasis on scenography and human scale helps sustain – the music festival

The Virtuous Circle of Aphex Twin Fandom

An interview with Joyrex, whose WATMM forum rescued a lost Richard D. James album from 20 years ago

Composing Material Culture

Dan Trueman talks about metronomes, laptops, and game controllers – all tools in his music for the ensemble So Percussion.

“Dance Can’t Be Stored”

Peter Kirn talks about his music for choreography.

Sieve-Fisted Compositions

Chris Lawhorn edited the Fugazi discography down to a concentrated album-length study of rhythm and tension.

Listening to Ray Bradbury’s Mars

A conversation with sound artist Christof Migone

The Electronic Motive

Liza White talks about the manner in which computer music and hip-hop production inform her classical compositions.

In the Echo of No Towers

The artist Stephen Vitiello talks about sense memory, 9/11, and his landmark World Trade Center recordings

When Cells Collide

Istanbul-based 'Otomata' developer Batuhan Bozkurt on generative sound, app development, cross-browser incompatibilities, and unexpected outcomes.

Being Decimal: The Anticipatory Pleasures of the Thicket App

Morgan Packard, the sound half of the development duo that produced the 10-finger interactive audio-visual iOS app Thicket, on composing for interactivity

The ShapeSeq of Things to Come

Developer Paul Apfrod on how programming is like composing, the need for a "software art" iTunes subcategory, and how how octagons look nicer than squares

The Voice Electric

Lesley Flanigan on technological fluency, devices as sculpture, and moving beyond musical training

Young Communicator

The self-education of the adventurous, Philly-based hip-hop producer Y?Arcka

Buddha Machine, Reloaded

FM3 member Christiaan Virant talks about controlling pitches and recording new loops for the second-generation (version "2.0") sound-art gadget

End of a Netlabel

Brad Mitchell reflects on the decision to close his long-running netlabel, Kikapu.

Heavy Circuits

The lo-fi electronic musician Jamie Allen talks about hand-crafted circuitry, digital academe, and the beauty of the square wave.

Patchwork

Kristin Miltner on nurturing software and programming for video games -- plus visual art as preparation for sound-work.

Western Figments

The musician William Fowler Collins talks about his guitar-fueled solo album, Western Violence & Brief Sensuality.

Lique-Fiction

Science fiction writers Richard Kadrey, Pat Murphy and Rudy Rucker discuss remixing reality.

The Drifter

Christopher Willits viscerally inhabits the space between what he plays and what we hear.

The Unessentialist

Christopher Bissonnette talks about music on the periphery.

Free as in Netlabel

The proprietors of three established netlabels (Andras Hargitai of Complementary Distribution, Nathan Larson of Dark Winter, Pedro Leitao of Test Tube) discuss the cost of free downloads, the online community of uploaders and the transition from physical distribution to virtual

After the Sampler

Dub figure Raz Mesinai talks about looping Sumerian myths and electrifying downtown musicians

Crashing by Design

One of electronic music's great live performers, Thomas Dimuzio talks about improvisation, music education and his longtime collaborator: feedback.

Buddha in the Machine

The duo FM3 packed nine ambient loops into a device the size of a cigarette pack; member Christiaan Virant discusses sound art in the age of mass production

After ‘Thursday Afternoon’

An electronic musician (Monolake), an English professor (Michael Jarrett), and a science fiction writer (Richard Kadrey), all Brian Eno fans, walk into a chat room …

Music for Shuffling

Composer Kenneth Kirschner talks about how his music, which he likens to a certain popular MP3 player, changes every time you play it.

United Stasis

John Kannenberg, founder of the Stasisfield netlabel, discusses the limits of microsound, the future of online music, and the compositional intersection of sound art and visual art.

Sacto Instruments

Chachi Jones turns childhood musical toys, like Speak & Spell and Touch & Tell, into 21st-century folk instruments.

Shawnee for ‘Laptop’

When Brad Mitchell isn't homebrewing electronic music as Pocka and studying sound design, he somehow finds time to run the Kikapu netlabel.

The Public Record

An archival interview from back in 1999, when composer Steve Reich talked about Reich Remixed, an album on which electronica acts rework his formidable, minimalist contributions to classical music

The Organization Musician

Monolake, aka Robert Henke, talks about the parallel processes of (1) composing a new full-length album while (2) helping develop the new edition of Ableton's audio production software, Live.

The Maestro of Belleville

Benoît Charest, who scored the animated film Les Triplettes de Belleville, talks about turning a vacuum cleaner into a Theremin, and other jazzy feats of everyday electronica.

Season of the Remix

Composer Elise Kermani talks about revisiting "retro" multimedia performance art; getting young, desk-bound technophiles to move; and remixing Vivaldi by accident.

Behind the 8bit

When Thorsten Sideboard founded 8bitrecs.com, an online label consisting entirely of free MP3 files, his role model wasn't Matador Records or Def Jam – it was a computer database.

The Bomb

Touring in support of his seventh full-length album, The Message at the Depth, DJ Krush talks about musical abstraction and geopolitical anxiety.

Shock the Bear

Moscow-based composer Artemiy Artemiev, head of Electroshock Records, talks about coming of age underneath a piano and the watchful ear of the Soviet secret service.

Psych Out

On his 2002 album, Out from Out Where, Amon Tobin leaves his native Brazil behind for the silver screens of India.

What Is Is

Future Sound of London talks about revisiting Britpop's past for the psychedelic follow-up to Dead Cities.

Woodshedding

Innovative American composer/performer Greg Davis on pastoral technology and the education of an electronic musician

Click It

Andreas Tilliander, who appears on the Mille Plateaux label's third Clicks & Cuts collection, talks about the hip-hop heart of experimental electronic music.

Splices That Bind

One half of the abstract electronic duo Twine, Chad Mossholder talks about long-distance collaboration and the hectic life of a sound designer.

The Multitrack Master and the Four String King

When Les Paul Met Ukulele Ike

Sonic Anomaly

The ubiquitous turntablist named DJ Logic is the Moby of the musicians' union.

U.S. Robotics, Part 3/3

The owner-operators of small American electronic-music labels talk shop. Up third (and last, but not least), Michael Bentley of Foundry Records, home to Seofon and Jonathan Hughes, as well as Bentley himself.

U.S. Robotics, Part 2/3

The owner-operators of small American electronic-music labels talk shop. Up second, Sam Rosenthal of Projekt Records, home to Steve Roach, among others.

U.S. Robotics, Part 1/3

The owner-operators of small American electronic-music labels talk shop. First up, Todd Hyman of Carpark Records, home to Jake Mandell and Marumari.

Silent Running

Koji Asano, a prolific Japanese electro-acoustician at home in Barcelona, talks about the life of an itinerant self-publisher.

Plastic Man

Before embarking on a 2001 tour of the United States, Squarepusher talked about the personal challenges of making challenging music.

Army of One

Hrvatski (aka Keith Fullerton Whitman) got his allies Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke and Kid606 to remix his music. Now he talks about split identities and a favorite laptop accessory: his guitar.

Rocket Man

Console's Martin Gretschmann talks about bringing fun to German electronic pop and composing on the run.

Sounding Floor

Prolific sound artist Zbigniew Karkowski talks about personal technology, collaboration, and live performance.

That Creeping Feeling

Rob Zombie is White Zombie's resident workaholic, pumping up the volume and fighting for the right to access his own memory bank

Turning Japanese

Bogdan Raczynski traces his journey from Poland to America to Japan to England, where he's furiously processing garbled beats for Aphex Twin's record label, Rephlex.

Play Boy

Moby talks about the technology behind — and the racial politics beside the point of — his landmark pop album, Play.

Straight Outta Chapel Hill

A brief chat with Dub Assassin, the New South's own "Tekkno Boy."

Smile for the Camera

Photek, born Rupert Parkes, proves to be the most ambivalent of DJs.

Evolution & Permutation

For his second full-length album under his own name, in 1998, Amon Tobin put the breaks on his unique Brazilian brand of drum'n'bass, if only for a moment.

Bric House

In 1997, Amon Tobin spoke about the sampling philosophy behind his Latin-tinged full-length album, Bricolage.

Anatomy of a Remix

Patrick Carpenter of Ninja Tune's DJ Food talks about re-tuning a David Byrne song.

Pump Up the HTML

Coldcut's Matt Black on electronica, life as an indie mogul, and wired fatherhood

More Songs About Buildings

Sean Booth of the British duo Autechre talks about just about everything but how he and partner, Rob Brown, make music.

Popp Music

Oval, Microstoria, and the man behind their curtains: Markus Popp

Electronic Flora

Erik Gilbert, label manager of Asphodel Records, talks about identity, electronica's forefathers, and DJ Spooky's move to the majors.

Extreme Measures

Roger Richards celebrates 10 years of CDs with Extreme Records.

Digital Libations

Moonshine Records label head Steven Levy on why independent companies own electronica – for at least the near future

Luke Vibert’s Bedroom Is a Jungle

The Throbbing Pouch full-length album is making his Wagon Christ pseudonym a household name. Next comes Plug.

Cornish for Jungle

Full transcript of the interview with Luke Vibert, aka Wagon Christ, aka Plug

Eponymous Rex

Aphex Twin (aka AFX, born Richard D. James), the British electronic-music prodigy, grants techno a human face.

Black Label

Electronic-music connoisseurs depend on small independent record companies for the hard stuff.

Dark Ambient, Down Under

Interview with Darrin Verhagen, aka Shinjuku Thief, founder of the Dorobo Records label.

Super Nova

The album Vita Nova proves British composer Gavin Bryars still never failed yet

Low Sparks

Spring Heel Jack's DJs, John Coxon and Ashley Wales, walk the digital walk.

Dub, American Style

There's more to West Coast instrumental pop than surf music – just ask Dub Narcotic Sound System, Grassy Knoll, President's Breakfast, or Money Mark.

Deep Listening

Composer, accordionist, educator, Pauline Oliveros talks about landscapes, soundscapes, the history of ambient music and the future of the recital hall.

Krush Groove

DJ Krush spins the international language of hip-hop.

Ground Control

Introducing Skylab, the band that fell to Earth.

Fashion Victims

After a decade of near-faceless (and guitar-less) superstardom, Depeche Mode strives to get personal with the new Songs of Faith and Devotion.

The Mad Sampler

Randy Greif goes where no Alice has gone before.

Reconcilable Differences

Talking with Brian Eno and John Cale about working together on Wrong Way Up