• A composer discusses the beauty of English choral music. “English choral music was originally meant for worship and would be heard in a state of quiet meditation. Indeed, this music would have been performed (and often still is) by a choir divided in half — facing one another, rather than the congregation. In my… Continue reading

• An article about Angelo Badalamenti’s music for Twin Peaks. “There’s almost nothing going on but you’re taken to this fantastical, emotional, dramatic place. It’s like a Rothko painting: three colors arranged in the perfect way.” • An article on Japanese composer and percussionist Midori Takada. “Midori Takada, a composer and percussionist in Japan who… Continue reading

• An article on Emmanuel Carrère. “Carrère has managed to renovate the idea of what nonfiction writing can be. Profoundly intimate, historically and philosophically serious but able to cast compulsive narrative spells, Carrère’s books are hybrids, marrying deep reporting to scholarly explorations of theology, philosophy, psychology, personal history and historiography.” • An interview with Yuval Noah… Continue reading

• An article on the neuroscience of rhythm. “A team of neuroscientists has found that people are biased toward hearing and producing rhythms composed of simple integer ratios — for example, a series of four beats separated by equal time intervals (forming a 1:1:1 ratio). This holds true for musicians and nonmusicians living in the… Continue reading

  • An article about sound meditation. “There are sound meditation practitioners who are innovating, using synthesizers to help create a sound bath.” • An article about Steve Reich’s “Come Out.” “Made in an era of mind-altering music and electronic effects, Come Out stands as psychedelic in its purest sense, finding something hallucinatory in the most basic… Continue reading