Torn Light Records

Eliciting Sensory Deprivation: Universal Light w/ Night Owl, Pete Fosco – Northside Tavern, Cincinnati, OH, October 9, 2024

Sometimes you attend a show and everybody on the bill just fits together, as if they were meant to play with one another. That’s how it felt hearing Universal Light, […]

October 20, 2024

Arvo Pärt, Sarah Davachi, and the Spectrum of Spirituality in Minimalism, From Sacred to Secular and What Lies Between

In the past few weeks, I was struck by two recent releases, one brand new and the other a reissue of a legendary recording in modern composition. The former is […]

October 20, 2024

No Expiration Date: William Basinski, Background Music, and a World Without Decay

Ahead of William Basinski’s upcoming archival release, September 23rd, I started thinking in the opposite direction of what I wrote about a few weeks ago with John Cage, ultimately writing […]

October 4, 2024

John Cage’s ‘Organ2/ASLSP’, Slowing Down, and Artistic Longevity

Recently, I was trying to look up a specific topic related to John Cage in Google News and was having trouble getting results. I searched simply “john cage” to see […]

August 29, 2024

“Tens and Tens of Miles”: Atwater-Donnelly – Hope Pond, Scituate, RI – July 24, 2024

The first show I probably ever went to was the folk duo Atwater-Donnelly, who were based out of my hometown of Scituate, Rhode Island from 1989 to 1997. I would’ve […]

August 29, 2024

No One Was Decapitated: The Drin, The Sheaves, Nick Maurer & The Grocers – Feel It Records, Cincinnati, OH, July 16, 2024

Today’s show report will come full circle on a singular ceiling fan. More on that in a moment. Last Tuesday, I went to my first Feel It Records in-shop show […]

July 28, 2024

My Common Tones with Alan Licht: A Personal Essay

A few weeks ago, I read the announcement that the guitarist and writer Alan Licht is releasing a solo album on VDSQ this fall, titled Havens. My excitement nearly took […]

July 19, 2024

“A Couple of Reams of Paper”: Black Arts and The Revolutionary Written Words of ‘The Cricket’

I always find myself very fascinated by musicians that put pen to paper and discuss music and its cultural implications in prose (see: my post on Vivien Goldman from last […]

July 11, 2024

Private Press, Master Wilburn Burchette, and the Allure of the Enigmatic

For a while now, I’ve wanted to ruminate on why private press records have such an allure in this day and age. There are obvious charms to private press records […]

June 19, 2024