"The things I go through, most people go through, so I think it communicates."
"Sometimes I write in the voice of someone who I believe is trying to get through to me, sometimes. But I never really understood that Nick Cave style of 'I am a murderer on this album' kind of thing. It's just not me. I'd rather just cover someone else's song."
"The whole idea of playing in a band as a way of paying the bills is a new concept to Rob and me. We come from a basement show pass-the-hat-to-pay-for-gas mentality."
"It's strange to me that so many hands can have a part in someone's self-expression. It puzzles me that what I think is so bad can be considered to be so good by so many, and something that is so good can go undiscovered."
"I have this physical need for being around and making music, and I think I’ve had that inside of me from the very start."
"When you look back in history there are great musicians and great artists who've been screwed over, who stole others' material and passed it off as their own, who went unnoticed 'til they were dead..."
"In the past, it always took so much effort and [money] to get a band into record stores across the country. That was one of the main things you needed a record company for—so that you could be in every Tower Records. But, obviously, Tower Records is gone."
Seven years after its release, musician Erik Sanko reflects on the process of creating his single "The Perfect Flaw."
"Sometimes it all stretches out in front of you in an instant, and other times you really have to put the hours in. Each song has its own rules."
"I was exposed to lots of different kinds of music and culture living in London, and my parents traveled a lot and loved bringing stuff back from their travels. I suppose it's made me open to non-mainstream music."
"Many of my favorite trees in Los Angeles came from somewhere else. Also something about that city makes you feel like people aren't supposed to live there."
"I always thought once I had written something it had to stay that way. I don't know why."
Perhaps the most lasting impression of Susanna's music is its unyielding tastefulness. Where one would expect a drum loop, a soaring harmony, or a bed of violins or keyboards, one is left most often with Susanna's bare voice, a few notes on a piano, and a lingering melody. The effect is pure, haunting, and entirely successful.
Danielle Stech-Homsy's primary instruments are a ukulele and a sweet, fairy-tale voice, though she balances these with spooky samples and arrhythmic loops. She speaks with Identity Theory about The Little Prince, three-dimensional music, and recording blind.
Minotaur Shock is a one-man band made up of Dave Edwards, who has been prolifically composing and remixing in Britain for the last decade. His music is predominantly instrumental and could roughly be called electronic music, but it never lacks for warmth and never just settles into the pocket.
Matthias Grübel, a.k.a. Phon°noir, hails from Germany and crafts songs that sound at once intimate and cautious, whispered and clattering.
"It's hard to even say 'poverty' without coming off like Bono, but you'd have to have your head quite a long way up your ass not to acknowledge the majority of the world's population living in extreme poverty to be a serious issue."
Even though Canadian songwriter Barzin Hosseini has been writing sleepy, introspective music for over a decade, making another record of slow-tempoed, country-tinged rock remains a risky proposition simply because so many artists—Low, Ida, and Mazzy Star to name a few—have trod this ground before.
"I don't have much of an opinion on the music I make. I am more of a catch-and-release type creator."
L.A. hip-hop duo Brother Reade (Rap Music), answers seventeen quick questions from Ross Simonini.
Kirby Dominant is one of the major voices in Bay Area independent hip-hop, collaborating with Anticon folks and Living Legend folks and creating a personal, creative sound completely alien to Oakland's hyphy trend.
Interview with alto saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, a Guggenheim fellow who draws heavily from his Indian ancestry to compose highly acclaimed jazz compositions: "I'd like to learn more about hardcore economic theory, like the stuff people win Nobel Prizes for."
Guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Steve Parry, who performs with Hwyl Nofio and parry/søegaard, doesn't draw a line between music and non-music: "The need to define music by putting sound into allegorical little boxes is purely to contain and restrain to provide analysis."
Interview with one of the most popular and performed classical composers of his generation: "I'm a professional artist, and more and more I feel like I should keep my causes to myself and just try to create beautiful things."
"Experimental Pop" musician SJ Esau talks about umbrellas, fake nipples, Vonnegut, and more. (He completely fails to mention his latest album, Wrong Faced Cat Feed Collapse.)
Fear of Flying is an intense musical exploration of life's hardest questions. Daniels does not rely on catchy gimmicks to quickly gain our attention. The delicacy and emotional weight of these songs demand our time, our patience. They are more than worth it.
Two years ago, Justin Vernon spent the winter alone in his father's Wisconsin cabin, wrestling with the ghosts of past relationships and his former self.
"Music tends to trigger emotion on a very deep level for me, and that is what I want to access when I write... I want to give voice to the sorts of memories and sensations that music evokes."
More writers on music: Stephen Clarke
It's clear to me now that many of the pop songs of my youth will be turned into commercial jingles. Sometimes this is a shocking process, but oftentimes it's just disconcerting.
Dan Deacon