Music

To Sleep, Perchance to Hear

An Inquiry Concerning the Possibilities and Vagaries of Listening to Music while Sleeping — with Testimonial Consideration by Composers and Practitioners in the Field

Max Richter and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) performing Sleep at Spring Studios, New York, 2018. Photos Mike Terry.

Kurt Gottschalk attended a New York performance of Max Richter's SLEEP, in which audience members are invited to stay overnight at a concert, slowing down to share a collective, somatic experience of music. Gottschalk reported on the experience for White Fungus. Speaking to other composers on the topic, and revisiting historic works, he extended his inquiry to consider at length this different process of listening.

A Conversation with David Harrington

Kronos Quartet performance with Wu Man, Terry Riley and Laurie Anderson at Big Ears Festival 2015 (photo by author)

Nick Yeck-Stauffer talks to lead violinist and founder of the Kronos Quartet, David Harrington.

Uncanny Processes

Emptyset Embrace Alien Logic in the Making of Blossoms

Cover art by Clayton Welham from Emptyset LP Bossoms, 2019

Fast-advancing AI technologies are throwing our notions of authorship and creativity again into flux. In creating their seventh album, Blossoms, the electronic music duo Emptyset created a machine-learning system to interpret their back catalog and recordings of improvisations. The musicians sought to identify results beyond mimicry and which constituted unique sonic expressions in and of themselves. What emerged was a bizarre, alien logic. Tobias Fischer interviewed the duo about the process.