honest words on honest music
In the studio with µ‑Ziq
… I used to lust after the gear I read about in magazines, but now bundled software seems more than enough…
The crucial flaw with Audio CDs
My journey into a rabbit hole of bit-perfect data transfer
Best of 2022
Headphone Commute’s 15th edition is now live, revealing one list per day!
How to fall in love with digital music…
All about appreciating the medium from a connoisseur’s point of view…
In the studio with Biosphere
“… I often start a composition by creating a theme with an acoustic-digital filtered sound. Over this, I often try to integrate pure synthetic sounds from a synthesizer…”
Interview with Max Richter
I finally catch up with one of my all-time favourite contemporary classical composers to talk about his latest record, VOICES and touch a little on SLEEP.
“… I take a lot of inspiration from solitude in nature […] the environment is crucial, much more so than being in a perfect recording studio…”
A Winged Victory For The Sullen
In this episode, Matt Emery chats with Adam Wiltzie of the one and only A Winged Victory For The Sullen
Bob Holroyd
Big Fields
“… although they think something different, all people actually want is football chants and nursery rhymes…”
… ambient music has become a pool of musical diversity […] and more about a basic feeling of freedom and an experimental environment…
Vargkvint
Headphone Commute Mix
A selection of pieces inspiring Sofia Nystrand while composing her new album
Josh Cohen
Tachypsychia
“… delicate pauses, which break free from the constraints of the predicted and the foreseen…”
“… it starts with sound… experimenting with sound… it truly gets me inspired… it’s what I react to…”
Markus Guentner
Prisa
“… a captivating progression […] with an endlessly interwoven carpet of sound that spreads out over six etudes…”
Tom Adams
Afterglow 1
“… weather-beaten and tired, yet content and grounded […] the calm after being in the storm…”
“… I like the idea of creating a sonic bed to lie down in, especially in the early stages of a track…”
OZMOTIC | Fennesz
Senzatempo
“… an expansive sonic architecture, balancing exquisite composition with space for improvisation…”
A new collaborative record of expansive pseudo-orchestral movements wrapped in electronic microsound and glitch.
Philip G Anderson
To Be Brave
“… how fear can influence an artist during a creative process, and how they can grow…”
“… I froze a bell strike and extended it for hours [and] noticed overtones, hidden sub-tones, and even entire harmonies within that single strike…”
Caterina Barbieri
Spirit Exit
… musical vortexes rewiring time and space […] standing alone in its ecstatic intensity and cataclysmic emotional impact…
The Italian electronic music composer showcases expert modular manipulations on her brand-new independent label. A retroactive addition to Best of 2022 selections.
Clark, Julia Kent, Aukai
Celebrating Headphone Commute’s many years of content, I am highlighting albums that I covered 15, 10, and 5 years ago.
April 10th, 2023
I vividly remember when I used to chase new music. Boomkat, in particular, was [and still …
“… we restricted ourselves to the grand piano as a source [and] the effects are opening up new prospects to transform the sound…”
Between
Low Flying Owls
“… as delicate as it is restless, the breadth of instrumentation and influences comes to life across the sonic space and printed page…”
One of the label’s most ambitious releases to date, featuring a collective of seven like-minded musicians distilling the sound into a single cohesive aesthetic.
The Album Leaf
Prologue
“… the musical journey [which] weaves us through chaos culminating in some sort of peace…”
Clarice Jensen
In this episode, Matt Emery chats with Clarice Jensen, an American cellist and the artistic director of ACME
“… [I like] introducing new elements to a sample, giving it a whole new character and making it sound old and tired or completely removed from what it originally was…”
Poltrock
Titanus Giganteus
“… a dynamic, intimate and soaring composition of lofi piano, strings, and tape… “
Martin Kohlstedt
DIA
“… a journey that resonates not only within the conscious mind but also within the soul…”
“… I like to work quickly and destructively […] yielding beautiful and unexpected results with a focus on these happy accidents…”
Brueder Selke
Q3Ambientfest 2023
A mix showcasing music from the lineup of artists at the upcoming Q3Ambientfest festival.
Focus on Arovane
“… curiosity, trying out new technology, and different forms of synthesis always bring me new ideas…”
Bruno Sanfilippo
Ver Sacrum
“… an emotional journey through the many notions of humanity…”
Don’t miss out on this magnum opus from this Barcelona-based Argentinian composer!
An interview with Alex (aka Fields We Found), the founder of this new label
Fields We Found
chroma
An introduction to a brand new label, quiet details, kicking off with the founder’s single piece
The Future Sound of London
A Space of Partial Illumination
“… luscious dreamscapes, delicately melodic compositions, highly programmed electronics sculptures…”
The second instalment in the 7th volume of the Environments series by FSOL
Christian Balvig
Where All Is
“… an ode to and from the night […] a rebellion against constant stimuli…”
50 tracks from 50 releases of 2022
Henrik Lindstrand
Leva
“… between melancholy a joy… a totality of all past experiences and inspirations…”
Contemporary Noise Ensemble
Easy Time
“… a powerful shot in the arm of funky jazz through the fusion of instruments and genres…”
“… a good instrument gives you such deep inspiration and can make you tremble with just one note…”
SYML
In this episode, Matt Emery chats with Brian Fennel, also known as SYML
Ole-Bjørn Talstad
Utsikt
“… doses of nordic melancholy [with a] hopeful and optimistic outlook…”
“… when I start working on an album, I don’t stop until it is ready… it is the only thing I think about…”
ILUITEQ
It Happened In July
“… interrupting the ordinary movements of life in a new, unpredictable, and often dangerous way…”
A showcase of music that will appear on future PITP releases in 2023 curated by Zach Frizzell
Simeon Walker
Crave
“… forever retaining those short precious moments that seem to be held in the memories of our past…”
Eluvium
Phantasia Telephonics
“… a narrative of our dynamic invention; technological advancement; loneliness and isolationism…”
Loscil / Lawrence English
Colours of Air
“… sifting the swells and drones for every shade of radiance…”
The union of composers Lawrence English and Scott Morgan is seamless, sublime, and long overdue.
February 12th, 2023
I suppose it would be nearly impossible for me to stay quiet and not mention the …
Autechre, Atom™, and Constantine
To celebrate HC’s 15th birthday, I am highlighting albums I covered 15, 10, and 5 years ago!
“… an episodic journey that is a composite of what resonated with me on a personal level… “
Cedric Vermue
Aether
“… fragile, nostalgic, and serene […] and simply gorgeous music…”
Purple Decades
Journey Test
“… a wordless dialectic between contentment and nostalgia…”
William Ryan Fritch
Polarity
“… a dark, cataclysmic, and post-apocalyptic music, in all the right ways…”
The first in a three-album series reflecting on the many calamitous water crises affecting life on this planet.
“… sounds, images, and movements are all sources of inspiration […] I work like a sculptor, but with sounds, lights and objects…”
“Keep creating and make sure that the majority of your time spent making content is something you love doing.”
Pan Sonic, Brian Eno, and Otto A Totland
To celebrate HC’s 15th birthday, I am highlighting albums I covered 15, 10, and 5 years ago!
Mike Jedlicka returns for his annual vinyl-only mix of favourite records of 2022!
Heinali
Kyiv Eternal
“… a tribute to the city we love and which refuses to fall […] awaiting for this horrible war to finally end…”
Twin Color
Fight Part I
“… melodic lines eddy and whorl together while moon rays of Blade Runner synthesis shine brightly across the shadows…”
Haythem Mahbouli
The Great Flood
“… the future of a hostile Earth wherein humanity itself faces extinction…”
Tomáš Šenkyřík
Advent
“… subtle weaving together of acoustic elements, soft synthetic manoeuvres and evocative field recordings to spellbinding effect…”
“… picking up the sounds of the wind and the creaking building which is moving, together with music, in a slow, intimate, and wafty dance…”
Franck Vigroux
Paris NYC
“… a kind of melodic euphoria is paired with machine-funk elements to create a kaleidoscope of sounds from the future of the past…”
Snowdrops
Mémoires Élementaires
“… following an invisible force, a sort of tropism that sometimes unites us and sometimes distances us from each other…”
“… I really enjoy working with organic sources of audio, finding or recording sounds, which I then start heavily processing in unusual ways…”
Jameson Nathan Jones
Kept
“… a collection of sonic experiments created with no intended end-game or expectations…”
Dobrawa Czocher
Forgive
“… capturing the power of forgiveness in a moving and mesmerising meditation of cello conjured sound…”
Pêtr Aleksänder
Dawn Reverie
“… the melody shifts, giving the piece a gradual turning effect, hypnotic and soothing, emotionally charged…”
“Will we live on? Will the technology that we embed ourselves in outlive us?”
Jason van Wyk
Undoing
“… a tentative descent into introspection, tunnelling into a subterranean wilderness…”
Kasper Bjørke Quartet
Requiem
“Requiem represents an end but also a new beginning […] for mankind and for our planet…”
James Murray
Careful Now
“… a radiant, soft-focused work of wide-eyed romanticism and childlike innocence…”
London-based composer’s first solo release since 2019, back on Ian Hawgood’s celebrated Home Normal label
Simon Goff & Dobrawa Czocher
Appearing
“… what lies at the end of this journey, and what appears within…”
Jonas Colstrup
At The Crest
“… a sonic chrysalis of emotion, in which one wants to wait out all current angst…”
Yair Elazar Glotman
A Year
“… memories are elastic forms… [their] essence can shift when you look at it again…”
Halina Rice
Fracture
“… a fragmentation of reality through jittery and elastic elements, which seem to come in like waves, to unsettle and to heal…”
“… I’ve always been interested in what gives a piece of music emotional content, which for me derives from harmony as well as melody…”