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The Tonearm

Lawrence Peryer

The Tonearm connects you with the people and ideas moving culture forward. Every episode is one conversation, free of format, going where it needs to go. Hosted by long-time music business executive, journalist and fan, Lawrence Peryer.

The Tonearm is for the listener who wants the work explained by the person who made it, not by someone interpreting it from the outside. If you're interested in inspiration, technique, process, and emotion, The Tonearm's for you.

Across hundreds of episodes since February 2020, the thing we do that's different is clear: We're a team of music listeners, readers, moviegoers, museum visitors, and cultural omnivores who understand art and artists and know what questions lead to meaningful conversations.

New episodes every week. Thanks for listening.

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31 episodes
weekly
Avg 46 min
English

Episodes 31

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S2026 · E329
Sunday · 44 min
Koen Holtkamp: Modular Plucks, Drums, and Horns After Dark
Koen Holtkamp set aside the loops of his work with Mountains, spent a year and a half coaxing plucked strings from his modular synth, and gave every player on ‘Nightlife’ a space of their own.
S2026 · E328
October 25 · 43 min
Wadada Leo Smith: A Trumpeter Composing in Light
The AACM veteran joins us to discuss 'Constellations and Hemispheres,' a record he built like a dub producer from four ensembles, and the color research he asks of every player, kept secret from the rest of the band.
S2026 · E327
October 18 · 34 min
Midori Hirano: Piano and Synth That Know When to Stop
The Berlin composer and pianist joins us to discuss ‘The Juniper Tree,’ her new score for Nietzchka Keene’s 1990 film starring Björk, written without the original soundtrack in her ears and pared back by the Japanese idea of ma.
S2026 · E326
October 11 · 42 min
Charlotte Greve: Everything She Loves, Under Her Own Name
The Brooklyn saxophonist, composer, and singer joins us to discuss 'Waterbodies,' her tenth album, which brings '80s power ballads, an orchestra, and a choir back to the one long saxophone tone where all her music starts.
S2026 · E325
October 4 · 46 min
David Perlis: Everything You Love Is from Marin
The Marin-born author and former WFMU host joins us to discuss 'Morning in Marin,' his history of how Alan Watts, the Grateful Dead, George Lucas, and Philip K. Dick turned one county north of the Golden Gate into a center of postwar American culture.
S2026 · E324
September 27 · 49 min
Mark Isham: Analog Machines and a Jazzman's Breath
The Grammy-winning trumpeter and film composer joins us to discuss 'At the Carousel Club,' his first solo album in 15 years, built from a wall of vintage analog synthesizers and a band featuring Nels Cline and Vinnie Colaiuta.
S2026 · E323
September 20 · 38 min
Bob Ezrin: Holding Artists to Their Own Best Work
From Alice Cooper to the Jayhawks, Bob Ezrin explains why artists keep coming back to him and why he asks permission to hold them to the best work they have ever done.
S2026 · E322
September 13 · 52 min
David Katz: Chasing Dub Beyond the Soundsystem
The reggae historian joins us to discuss 'Dub Revolution,' his account of how King Tubby, Prince Jammy, and Scientist pulled reggae records apart at the mixing desk and sent the pieces back out.
S2026 · E321
September 6 · 46 min
Fling ii: Modular Synths, Pedal Steel, and Michigan Motorik
Seven players, four cities, and no rehearsals: Fling ii's Brad Gowland and Richard Murphy describe a recording method that turns a weekend of continuous tape into a six-track album.
S2026 · E320
August 30 · 46 min
Martin Bisi: Forty-Five Years of Sonic Murder
The acclaimed music producer joins Lawrence Peryer to explain why he has worked out of one Gowanus building since 1979, what the rezoning is displacing, and why he thinks genres behave like social movements, with their own looks, uniforms, and language.
S2026 · E319
August 23 · 31 min
Azar Lawrence: Spiritual Jazz With the Funk Left In
The saxophonist joins us to discuss 'Turn the Music Up,' the friendship with Pharoah Sanders behind its central tribute, and why he refuses to think of the jazz lineage as something outside himself.
S2026 · E318
August 16 · 39 min
Josh Mason: Punk and Circuitry, Zippered Together
The Florida sound artist joins us to discuss 'Kicking A Dark Horse,' a modular album bound into a hardcover book, with each half composed to fill the silences left by the other.
S2026 · E317
August 9 · 40 min
Terri Lyne Carrington: A Dance Record for Dark Times
The NEA Jazz Master and four-time Grammy winner joins us to discuss 'Trip the Night Fantastic,' the second album from Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science, which sets deportation, prison abolition, and climate collapse to music for the dance floor.
S2026 · E316
August 2 · 48 min
Chris Molanphy: One Chart to Rule Them All
The pop-chart analyst and 'Hit Parade' host joins us to discuss what better data revealed about hit songs, the slow end of the monoculture, and the cultural rules that keep outsiders off country radio.
S2026 · E315
July 26 · 48 min
Danalogue: Telling the Future Through Old Machines
On his debut solo album, 'Teleportations,' the synthesist, producer, and founding member of The Comet Is Coming turns grief and upheaval into a science-fictional voyage built entirely from analog machines.
S2026 · E314
July 19 · 39 min
Suzanne Ciani: The Buchla's Orchestral Homecoming
The electronic music pioneer joins the podcast to discuss 'CIANI/ORKEST,' her live album pairing the Buchla synthesizer with the 50-piece Metropole Orkest, and why she has always heard the instrument as orchestral.
S2026 · E313
July 12 · 46 min
Steven Bernstein: The Trumpet's Blank Slate
The veteran trumpeter and arranger joins the podcast to discuss the twin albums 'ResoNation Trio' and 'Ultra Resonance,' Laurie Anderson's lesson that you never need permission to make art, and why this music dies if it stays in a museum.
S2026 · E312
July 5 · 44 min
Alden Hellmuth: Saxophone Tethered to a Galaxy of Bass
Trained in the Jackie McLean tradition and later mentored by Herbie Hancock, Hellmuth explains how 'Tether' turns trust between bandmates into the record's actual structure.
S2026 · E311
June 28 · 48 min
Dave Douglas: Transcend Is Not the End
Trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas discusses his album Transcend, the Jack Whitten retrospective that reshaped his thinking about raw material, and why Booker Little gave an entire generation of players permission to keep scrambling.
S2026 · E310
June 21 · 47 min
Ora Cogan: Hard Hearted Is How You Survive
Ora Cogan on the politics of 'Hard Hearted Woman,' the hollowing-out of folk tradition, and why her forties have been the best time of her life to be playing music.

Showing 1–20 of 31 episodes