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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.

Over 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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22 episodes
weekly
Avg 46 min
English

Episodes 22

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S2026 · E320
Today · 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.
S2026 · E309
June 14 · 52 min
Billy Polo: Audio Engineer as Archaeologist
From the Black Ark tapes buried in Lee Perry's yard to unreleased Dennis Brown sessions, Billy Polo on the forensic pleasures and urgent stakes of reggae's analog archive.
S2026 · E308
June 7 · 46 min
Stephen Emmer: Composing at the Edge of Silence
The Dutch composer joins Lawrence Peryer to discuss 'Asymmetrical Dot,' the album shaped by his mother's death, a grandson's birth, and four decades of learning which clichés to reject.
S2026 · E307
May 31 · 52 min
George Grella: The Time-Bending Art of Minimalist Music
George Grella joins the podcast to discuss his book Minimalist Music and argue that the genre has nothing to do with sparse materials and everything to do with time.
S2026 · E306
May 24 · 47 min
Meredith Bates: The Quiet Science of Sound Worlds
On ‘The Observer Effect’, Canadian composer Meredith Bates builds long-form sound worlds from violin, electronics, and the recordings of the natural world—and finds that art, love, and politics are harder to separate than they appear.
S2026 · E305
May 17 · 39 min
Nick Fraser: Still Screaming Into the Snare Drum
Toronto drummer Nick Fraser discusses 'Areas,' his long creative partnership with Kris Davis and Tony Malaby, and what committing to acoustic music costs when electronics define the contemporary sound.
S2026 · E304
May 10 · 55 min
Maria Schneider: Composing in the Age of Curated Rage
Composer, bandleader, birder, and unapologetic alarm-sounder, Maria Schneider brings 'American Crow' to The Tonearm for a conversation about listening as both artistic practice and civic obligation.
S2026 · E303
May 3 · 49 min
Caroline Davis: The Saxophone Reimagined in the Fallows
Armed with a saxophone, an Organelle, and an aluminum can, Caroline Davis spent a month in Wyoming making her debut solo record—and thinking about freedom in all its forms.
S2026 · E302
April 26 · 50 min
Miho Hazama: The Conductor Who Leads with Love
The Grammy-nominated composer and chief conductor of the Danish Radio Big Band discusses her new album Frames, the death of her mentor Jim McNeely, and why love is the only honest reason to make music.
S2026 · E301
April 19 · 53 min
Tomeka Reid: The Low Seat, the Long Haul, and 'dance! skip! hop!'
Cellist and composer Tomeka Reid joins the podcast to discuss dance! skip! hop!, the fourth Tomeka Reid Quartet album, and why photographs of her grandmother's Wyoming life keep finding their way onto her record covers.

Showing 1–20 of 22 episodes