essay
Longform: The New Industrial
Or why Dean Blunt might be the truest spiritual successor to Throbbing Gristle.
Latest
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interviewWords With: Simon Popp & Polygonia
Collaboration, musical backgrounds, Ableton vs. hardware, alternative percussion instruments, spontaneity, techno-jazz intersections, Munich and the midsize-city advantage.
recordsNow Listening: Black Decelerant, Lara Sarkissian, Darlynn, Geier aus Stahl, Hotspring
Meditative jazz textures, filmic soundscapes, sunny vocal-led house music, funky machine music, ambient-ish songwriting with dub sensibility.
recordsLook Back: CS + Kreme – "Snoopy"
Déjà vu, haunted-romance R&B, lysergic downtempo, occult sensibility, "The Wicker Man," Coil.
essayLongform: Exiting the Vampire Algorithm
A defense of human-led music discovery in the digital age—with apologies to Mark Fisher.
interviewWords With: Cone Shape Top
Bay Area-Philly-NYC rave history, hiddenness vis-à-vis intentionality, artistic collaboration, community building, alternative commerce.
recordsNow Listening: Innode, Swiftumz, Ali Berger, Cola Ren, Bézier
Percussive alien electronics, fuzzy power pop, jazzy house music, crystalline Eastern-Western downtempo, analog-future techno with live drums.
Endtroducing...
Welcome to Thoughts of a Certain Sound, a new publication—part newsletter, part zine, part journal—examining contemporary culture through a musical lens. My name is Chris Zaldua, and I'm a Bay Area-based writer, music obsessive, and event organizer (or "culture producer," if I'