Stories

The first song I ever committed to a hard drive was recorded on a borrowed dynamic mic, a cracked copy of GarageBand, and a borrowed electric guitar with a…

When the needle drops on "Dreams" or "Go Your Own Way" today, the records still feel closer to a live conversation than a polished artefact. The 1977 album…

Growing up in suburban Sydney, I biked to the local record store on Parramatta Road with whatever pocket money I could scrounge. Some weeks I came home with a…

I still remember the afternoon I decided enough was enough. I'd been humming melodies into a voice memo app for months, and every time I played back those…

I still remember the arvo I first put on Ambient 1: Music for Airports. I was on a Fitzroy verandah, the cicadas competing with a distant tram, and the record…

Few recordings carry the gravitational pull of So What from Kind of Blue. Since its release in 1959, the tune has become a kind of doorway into jazz for…

When most people think about salsa, the voice tends to lead the conversation. Singers like Cheo Feliciano, Celia Cruz, and Ismael Miranda sit at the front of…

Nick Cave has been part of my musical life for so long that his songs feel less like possessions than places I return to. I first encountered him through the…

A song is made from sound, yet some of its most expressive moments happen when sound briefly disappears. The pause after a snare hit, the breath before a…

For years, I treated country music as a box I had already opened and closed. I knew the broad outlines: polished Nashville ballads, radio-friendly choruses,…