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Stephen Emmer: Composing At The Edge Of Silence
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Stephen Emmer came up in the late '70s post-punk underground in Amsterdam. His band Minny Pops was the first international act signed to Factory Records. Since then he's been a curious genre-explorer, working with Lou Reed, Chaka Khan, Tony Visconti, Trevor Horn, Flood, and many others.
His latest album, Asymmetrical Dot (Electric Fairytale Recordings, 2025), is a chamber work rooted in his Dutch-Indonesian heritage, built around sustained tones, wordless vocals, vibraphone, and strings. The record came out of a year when his mother died and his first grandson was born. The contrasting themes of grief and arrival appear throughout the work.
We cover the album, his hearing loss, and why he walked away from commercial work to make the most personal music of his career.
About Stephen Emmer
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