Articles by Lawrence Peryer
Bob Ezrin: Holding Artists To Their Own Best Work
by Lawrence Peryer
This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on famed record producer Bob Ezrin. Bob has worked with artists including Pink Floyd, Kiss, Deep Purple, and countless others, though he is best known for his nearly 60-year relationship with Alice Cooper. He's back working with The Jayhawks on their latest, Sanctuary Park, twenty-six years after their first project together. We talk about how the reunion started with an offhand remark from Gary Louris, both men ...
Continue ReadingMinoru Muraoka, Alice Coltrane, Jazztobak And More
by Lawrence Peryer
This episode explores the theme of rediscovery: a 1970 Japanese shakuhachi record just reissued, and a Swedish duo closing things out on a stripped-down reading of an old socialist hymn. In between we present a run built entirely around one photography book, unpublished 1970s portraits by the late Warner Bros. photographer Ginny Winn. The Residents are out on tour presenting 1979's Eskimo in full and some of that's here, too. There's more, but you'll have to listen to find out...
Continue ReadingDavid Katz: Chasing Dub Beyond The Soundsystem
by Lawrence Peryer
The reggae historian joins the podcast 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. ...
Continue ReadingBill Laswell, Kronos Quartet, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, And More.
by Lawrence Peryer
The first half of our show is a deep dub run: an obscure mid-1990s compilation cut, Harry Mudie's 1976 session with King Tubby, Scientist's early-'80s Channel One sound, Prince Far I, and Bill Laswell, who shows up twice, once under his own name and once as the producer who reassembled Bob Marley's catalog into ambient dub on 1997's Dreams of Freedom. The second half slows all the way down: a new quartet session built around Christer Bothén's donso n'goni, Kronos ...
Continue ReadingThelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Barry Harris, Don Patterson, Sonny Stitt And Others
by Lawrence Peryer
The beating heart of this week's episode emanates from one man's camera expressed through three records:, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane's 1957 residency, Barry Harris' 1975 Xanadu debut, and a rediscovered Sonny Stitt & Don Patterson date, all appear in a new book of Don Schlitten's jazz photography, the producer and photographer who died earlier this year after decades behind the board and behind the lens. Around that center, the hour goes wide: Welsh harp meeting up with Senegalese kora, ...
Continue ReadingFling II: Modular Synths, Pedal Steel, And Michigan Motorik
by Lawrence Peryer
This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on Ann Arbor kosmische band Fling ii. I sat down with drummer and synthesist Brad Gowland, and guitarist Richard Murphy, to chat about their third album, 3, which is out now on We Are Busy Bodies. Its six tracks were cut down from hours of studio jamming. We talk about Richard's path from ambient guitar to doom metal, Brad finding four minutes inside a fifty-minute take, and how a ...
Continue ReadingYoko Ono, Martin Bisi, Fela Kuti, Sons Of Kemet And Others
by Lawrence Peryer
A wide-open hour: a new quartet session from Christer Bothén, Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling, and Andreas Werliin opens things, and from there we range through Cibo Matto's take on a Yoko Ono song, brand new records from Laura Veirs, Martin Bisi, Cassie Watson Francillon, and the French trio Namas, a Fela Kuti cut from 1973, and Sons of Kemet closing it out. Free improvisation, harp, Afrobeat, post-jazz. Playlist Christer Bothén, Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling & Andreas Werliin “Chrysotile" ...
Continue ReadingMartin Bisi: Forty-Five Years Of Sonic Murder
by Lawrence Peryer
This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on producer and engineer Martin Bisi.Bisi has run BC Studio out of the Gowanus section of Brooklyn since 1981, recording Sonic Youth, Swans, Herbie Hancock's “Rockit," and countless others.We discussed his new album, Dancing On The Power Lines, his ongoing community activism, the changing landscape of New York's music scene, and so much more. It's a good one. ...
Continue ReadingAzar Lawrence: Spiritual Jazz With The Funk Left In
by Lawrence Peryer
This week we're putting The Tonearm's needle on tenor saxophonist Azar Lawrence. Lawrence is a veteran of Elvin Jones' and McCoy Tyner's bands and a leader of his own group, The Azar Lawrence Experience, whose album, Turn the Music Up (Trazar Records, 2026), arrives September 25, 2026. We talk about his unique relationship with Pharoah Sanders, dodging Tyner's broken piano strings, and how the 50 years between the first and latest recordings of his own songs ...
Continue ReadingAzar Lawrence, Brad Mehldau, The Bad Plus, Joshua Redman And More
by Lawrence Peryer
I am endlessly interested in the intersection of music and ritual. Formal ritual, spiritual gatherings incorporating music, even liturgical music. Then there are the rituals of making music: the band silently setting up and breaking down, on-stage and in the studio. The order in which gear gets assembled and plugged in. The in-jokes or running gags. All of these things contribute to creating a space for magic to happen. This week, the conjuring comes from Koen Holtkamp, Guest Bartender Deborah ...
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