TWiS Listening Posts (0014, 0015, 0016)
Most Wednesdays I send a special thank you to paid subscribers to the This Week in Sound email newsletter, and I usually do a short summary here. I fell behind on those summaries, so here are the three most recent:
TWiS Listening Post (0016)
November 15, 2023
This issue is an experiment. Technically every issue of This Week in Sound is an experiment, because I’m always fiddling with structure, and also a lot of the concepts and subjects are themselves still at a stage more about experimentation and theory than about certainty and canon. This issue is an experiment because it’s unlike the first 15 weeks of the TWiS Listening Post, which consisted of three (or more) tracks (or albums or videos) I happened to recommend, most of them fairly fresh. There wasn’t a theme, per se. This week, however, the intent is to share three tracks to help a listener new to Scott Tuma triangulate, as it were, what makes him special.
I should note that Tuma was one of the first musicians I ever interviewed professionally. I moved to New York City after graduating from college, and the first articles I wrote for Tower Records’ Pulse! magazine, in 1989 — before moving to Sacramento, California, and joining the magazine full time — included an interview with the band Souled American, of which Tuma was a member (they were in town to perform). As I recall, he was the quietest of the group’s line-up when we met in person (the other two interviews I did at that phase were cellist Hank Roberts, whose excellent Black Pastels had just come out, and the hip-hop/rock band 24-7 Spyz, who had just released an excellent cover of Kool & the Gan’s “Jungle Boogie”).
Tuma is a master of quiet music, often mixing simple recording techniques, rough hewn guitar, and an ear for minimalism. These three tracks exemplify his work, both solo and in collaboration. If I were to have added a fourth, it would have been from his tenure as part of the ever-changing Boxhead Ensemble.
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TWiS Listening Post (0015)
November 8, 2023
This issue included (1) my top 10 of 2023 (I’ll post a more detailed top 20 soon), (2) the fantastic collaboration, LP2, between electronic musician and producer Joseph Branciforte and vocalist Theo Bleckmann, and (3) Jeannine Schulz’s recent album Elements, Cycles.
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TWiS Listening Post (0014)
October 25, 2023
This issue included reflections on (1) a lengthy soundscape recording from midtown Manhattan by the prolific Nomadic Ambience, (2) the electronics/cello album Wave Cycles by Mikael Lind and Johanna Sjunnesson, and (3) a drone I recorded in an apartment.
