Tag Archive: Thrill Jockey


This is the soundtrack for the acclaimed Netflix documentary Cover-Up, co-directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus centered on Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh.
The film’s subject Hersh is best known for breaking controversial stories about the US Military, particularly its actions in the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.
Rooted in analogue sound, the score for Cover-Up weaves Eurorack modular recordings, guitar feedback, typewriter samples, organ, brass, and live strings processed through tape into an evolving sonic landscape. The analogue textures converse with the film’s archival language, while the interplay between analogue and digital mediums mirrors the temporal reach of the story,…

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Manslaughter 777 are powerhouses of forward-thinking rhythmic music and production. The duo, composed of drummers/programmers Lee Buford (The Body, Sightless Pit, Dead Times, Everyone Asked About You) and Zac Jones (MSC, Nothing, Braveyoung), combine their prowess as percussionists and producers into beat-centric music that delights in turning unexpected sounds into razor sharp rhythms. Buford and Jones, along with engineer/producer Seth Manchester of Machines with Magnets (The Body, Model/Actriz, Liturgy), have collaborated for nearly two decades, consistently shattering genre boundaries and redefining the role of the studio in the process. God’s World uses innovative sound sampling to create expansive sonics driven…

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Peals — the Baltimore-based ambient duo comprising William Cashion (Future Islands) and Bruce Willen (Double Dagger) — released the digital reissue of Seltzer, a rarity previously available only as a 2015 limited-edition cassette. Far removed from the high-energy bombast of their primary rock outfits, Peals focuses on intimacy, loops, and texture. Seltzer serves as a time capsule of the duo’s prolific 2013–2014 period, capturing the “fermentation of improvisation” that would eventually lead to their sophomore LP, Honey.
The release is structurally fascinating. While Side B, “Before and After,” acts as a seamless mixtape of home experiments, Side A documents a unique site-specific collaboration with multimedia artist Zoe Friedman inside Baltimore’s…

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Shortly following the noisy ambient Americana of no floor, claire rousay‘s 2025 collaboration with more eaze, rousay remained on Thrill Jockey with the solo effort a little death. On this album, the composer mixes numerous found sounds and field recordings with droning strings, rustic guitars, stirring pianos, and electroacoustic processing. It feels very autumnal, like crunchy leaves underfoot, but also like a warm jacket in the crisp night air. When spoken samples are clearly audible, such as on the brief opener “i couldn’t find the light” or the comforting drone of “somehow,” they directly relate to topics of disassociation and mental illness. On “just,” M. Sage’s delicate, considered piano notes give way to swelling, gliding strings and curdled tape distortion, packed with…

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On “Radio Seance,” Puritan Themes‘ strangest and most surreal song, Emil Amos intones “They always leave me on the shelf/ I live my life all by myself” like some starry-eyed sunshine popper broadcasting from some alternate dimension; the jaunty, optimistic vocals washing up like so much driftwood on a sea of guitar feedback, insomniac field recordings, epic Pink Floyd synths and dyslexic beats. It’s like the lost masters of some would-be ’70s pop star slowly going mad on black mold, cobwebs and isolation, the earthy folksiness growing soft and haunted around the edges.
On Puritan Themes, Amos found himself inspired by late-night broadcasts of “this bizarre, ’70s AM radio station that plays these sleazy, obscure/lost hits,” as he put it in an interview…

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Modular synth-based music, once the domain of acid-fried German hippies, and, later, burnt-out basement noise freaks, has morphed into something unrecognizable.
In a context in which background music for studying and sleeping holds the most streaming capital, and yuppies are increasingly seeking new-agey balms to protect themselves from the ravages of internet culture, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that synth music has become yet another cog in the content mill, a test run for artists to shill gear or soundtrack Stranger Things rip-offs. In other words, it’s a peculiar time for Sam Prekop to transition into the modular synth world.
Prekop, best known as the vocalist and guitarist for Chicago indie rock stalwarts…

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The material heard on Emptyset‘s album Dissever was first presented at London’s Tate Modern gallery, where it was performed as part of an exhibition about the global history of art and technology titled Electric Dreams.
Like other Emptyset releases, the pieces were recorded in single takes, capturing the spontaneity and raw energy of the duo’s unique creative processes. Emptyset are often known for improvising on self-created instruments, and on Dissever, they returned to early hardware as well as spatial and multitrack recording techniques. Their music focuses on timbre rather than melody, often establishing a vibrating pulse and dousing it in distortion. Opener “Gloam” stares straight forward, rocking back and forth while…

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Sally Anne Morgan is an artist and naturalist in the purest senses. Raised on old time and Appalachian folk traditions, Morgan’s artistry embodies the rich life of the communities and natural world she surrounds herself with. Based in Alexander, NC in the thick of Appalachia, and edge of the Pisgah National Forest, Morgan’s blend of traditional technique and distinctly modern compositional approach are infused with the sounds of her garden, surrounding pastures, forests and mountains. The rhythms of nature, its flora and fauna, are inseparable from her work which is in constant conversation with the people and places around her. Second Circle the Horizon is a meditation on returning, uncovering the new within the familiar and recognizing…

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Those of us who are musically inclined find it hard to resist tapping on an empty pipe or an exposed bell, just to hear the sound. Matmos (Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt) have been doing such things for years and recording the results, from the pots and pans of their childhood to “the metallic gates around a tomb in an underground crypt.” Over time, these artists have amassed a vast library of sounds; including one set comprised of washing machine sounds (Ultimate Care II) and one of plastic (Plastic Anniversary). The new set is metal-based, and looks back on their lives while acknowledging their mortality. To our delight, their initial pot and pan joy has survived intact.
Metallic Life Review is also an album of distinct sides: the first was meticulously created,…

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Thalia Zedek has been a voice of resilience and strength for most of the 21st century, in a solo career that has now stretched to seven full-length albums. Her rough, keening alto carries the hardest of sentiments; her band storms and surges, billowing up under the verses and crashing in release at the choruses. She sounds always real, always besieged, but always sure of getting through. This time in cathartic “Tsunami,” she confides, “You were so certain/that it’s curtains/but I’m not so sure.”
For all her post-punk credentials — Come, Live Skull among the highlights — Zedek has always leaned into sounds more common in Americana. David Michael Curry’s violin was a defining feature of the first iteration of her band,…

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BIG|BRAVE’s preternatural instincts and depth of skill as musicians are on full display on their most naked and austere record to date, OST. The trio entered the studio with broader concepts and themes in mind, but no preconceived music.
The overarching concept was to make a film score for a film that had yet to be created, to use minimal instrumentation, or more specifically not their standard band instruments, and to improvise within these parameters.
“Although this record could stand on its own, we envisioned it being paired with moving images, which introduced a fresh and exciting way of working,” notes guitarist Mathieu Ball. In addition to forgoing their usual instrumentation, they notably built their own. Ball created a stringed…

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