I’ve been pondering the nature of sound and its artistic uses quite a bit lately. In today’s digital landscape, it never ceases to amaze (or please) me that audio-only projects are still of great interest in spite of YouTube, Netflix, cable television, etc. Like books, audio-only media isn’t going away, it’s just mutating, evolving, moving to more specialized audiences.

Print isn’t dead by a long shot, and neither is the audio-only format. Not all interesting media is visually oriented.

I started professionally in radio but transitioned into television and video. I spent a lot of time there but still love the audio-only format. I enjoy DJing, talk radio, podcasts, NPR, audio collages, mashups, musique concrete, found sound, audio surrealism, much more…but how to combine, collide, mash up, repurpose and reapproach audio in interesting ways using these formats not as the ends themselves, but as techniques? Sound is the canvas, but it’s also the paint.

I plan on exploring this problem with a series of productions in the near future. Something all at once old, timeworn and done before, but at the same time new and interesting. Collisions of the old and new. Part audio blog, part podcast, part mashup, part DJ, remix, etc.

The first steps will likely be a bit tentative–I’ve got some old material along these lines I only broadcast once or twice, but new material is being worked and coming soon. Over the weekend I plan on posting the first of a series of sonic experiments as a first step towards a regular series that will likely define itself and take on a life of its own as the concept develops.

This is all a bit murky–and not just to you, the poor reader stumbling upon this rambling for the first time. But as the journey unfolds, it will become clearer what the destination is to be. Here’s to the experiments!