Trimpin is a sound sculptor, composer, engineer, and inventor. A specialist in interfacing computers with traditional instruments, he has developed ways of playing instruments ranging from giant marimbas to stacks of electric guitars via computer. His work integrates sculpture, sound, and live performance. Born in Germany, Trimpin spent several years living and studying in Berlin, working as a set designer and collaborating with artists from both Germany and the United States. He relocated to the United States in 1979. This year’s Other Minds Festival features the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Trimpin, The Cello Quartet. It features autonomous cellos, circus artists, percussive lamp shades, and more. In the interview, Joseph Bohigian talks with Trimpin about his custom-built cellos, collaborating with choreographer Margaret Fisher, and the influence of spatial music composer Henry Brant.

Music: Contraption No. 1 by Conlon Nancarrow performed by Trimpin, computer-controlled piano (Other Minds Festival 1)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

IMA is the electro-percussion project of electronic sound artist Amma Ateria and percussionist Nava Dunkelman. The duo has been presented in residency at The Stone, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, San Francisco Art Institute, and Stanford University and collaborated with Ikue Mori, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Matmos, and many others. IMA will perform The Flowers Die in Burning Fire on the final night of this year’s Other Minds Festival on September 28, 2024. In the interview, we talk about the duo’s early collaborations, perception of time in music, and the influence of Japanese poetry.

Music: “Meshes of the Afternoon” from The Flowers Die in Burning Fire by IMA (Buh Records); “Notion of Time” from The Flowers Die in Burning Fire by IMA (Buh Records); “Ende” from The Flowers Die in Burning Fire by IMA (Buh Records)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Jan Martin Smørdal is a Norwegian composer and performer of contemporary music. With a background in experimental bands and improvisation, he writes music often inspired by social phenomena: imitation and mimicry; swarms, flocks, and other collective behaviors; memory; and the unevenness inherent to being human. His music has been performed at festivals such as Ultima, ISCM, MATA, and Borealis and released on the labels LAWO, SOFA, and Aurora. Smørdal is also a co-founder and member of Ensemble neoN, an Oslo-based contemporary music collective. His piece Both sides. Now will be performed by Yarn/Wire at Other Minds Festival 28 on September 27, 2024, at the Brava Theater in San Francisco.

Music: My Favorite Thing 1 by Jan Martin Smørdal, performed by Pinquins (LAWO Classics); My Favorite Thing 3 “...something about a bird” by Jan Martin Smørdal, performed by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and conductor Kai Grinde Myrann (LAWO Classics); Kraftbalanse by Jan Martin Smørdal and Øystein Wyller Odden, performed by Vilde Sandve Alnæs, Miriam Bergset, Ragnhild Lien, Julija Morgan, Torunn Blåsmo-Falnes, Tove Bagge, Sverre Kyvik Bauge, and Inga Margrete Aas (Sofa Music); Both sides. Now by Jan Martin Smørdal, performed by Trond Schau, Helge Kjekshus, Andre Fjørtoft, and Åsmund Moen

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Marshall Trammell is an experimental archivist, percussionist, conductor, and composer. His aesthetics and activism are centered in social change interventions using political aesthetic theory, data creation, mapping, and collective music-and-artmaking in order to relocate the act of co-production from traditional cultural institutions into communities. Hafez Modirzadeh is a saxophonist, composer, and theorist whose music and research focuses on cross-cultural approaches. His research has been published in journals including Music in China, Black Music Research, Leonardo, and Critical Studies in Improvisation. Trammell and Modirzadeh will perform We Say NO To Genocide on the final night of Other Minds Festival 28, Saturday, September 28, 2024. In the interview, we discuss the pair’s history of collaboration, Trammell’s Music Research Strategies, and Modirzadeh’s cross-cultural approach to music.

Music: David Boyce, Hafez Modirzadeh, and Marshall Trammell live at Bird & Beckett Books & Records

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Brian Baumbusch is a composer, instrument designer, and musicologist whose works engage the use of new technologies while also drawing on deep cross-cultural histories. His Polytempo Music, performed by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, is being issued in three different formats simultaneously: as a compact disc on Other Minds Records, as a virtual reality application for the Meta Quest headset, and as a mobile app for both Apple and Android users. Today, we’re bringing you an interview with Baumbusch about Polytempo Music conducted by Other Minds board member Bari Scott live at the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California on June 28, 2024.

Music: “Hex Tree” and “Pas de deux” from Polytempo Music by Brian Baumbusch, performed by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players (Other Minds Records)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Annea Lockwood’s compositions range from sound art and environmental sound installations to concert music. Water has been a recurring focus of her work and her three installation sound maps of rivers: the Hudson River, the Danube, and the Housatonic River have been widely presented. She is a recipient of the SEAMUS Lifetime Achievement Award 2020 and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2022. In the interview, we discuss two of her recent works which will be performed at the Other Minds Festival: Becoming Air, co-composed with Nate Wooley and Into the Vanishing Point, co-composed with Yarn/Wire. Also covered are Lockwood’s practice of making sound maps and her upcoming project with Wooley sound mapping the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.

Music: Becoming Air by Annea Lockwood and Nate Wooley, performed by Nate Wooley (Black Truffle); On Fractured Ground by Annea Lockwood and Yarn/Wire, performed by Yarn/Wire (Black Truffle)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Karen Power is a composer from Cork, Ireland whose work spans orchestral music, sound installation, music for dance and experimental film, and free improvisation. Since 2012, much of her work has been concerned with the use of field recordings and ambient sounds. Power has a new album with Quiet Music Ensemble out now on Other Minds Records, …we return to ground…, which surveys her field recording compositions written between 2015 and 2022. In the interview, we talk about field recordings, dialogue between natural sounds and human performers, and Power’s “aural scores.”

Music: instruments of ice by Karen Power, performed by Quiet Music Ensemble (Other Minds Records); sonic pollinators by Karen Power, performed by Quiet Music Ensemble (Other Minds Records); …we return to ground… by Karen Power, performed by Quiet Music Ensemble (Other Minds Records)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

Adam Tendler is a New York-based pianist and author. A pioneer of DIY culture in concert music, in his early twenties Adam performed in all fifty states as part of a grassroots recital tour he called America 88x50, which became the subject of his memoir, 88x50. After his father’s unexpected death in 2019, he used his inheritance to commission a group of composers including Laurie Anderson, Timo Andres, and Pamela Z to create new piano works exploring the idea of 'inheritance.' On July 17, 2024, Other Minds will present the Bay Area premiere of Tendler’s Inheritances at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. In the interview, we talk about the origins of Inheritances, looking back at one’s own past, and the unexpected turns the project has taken.

Music: Morning Piece by Devonté Hynes, Outsider Song by Scott Wollschleger, Remember, I Created You by Laurie Anderson, Morning Piece by Devonté Hynes, Thank You So Much by Pamela Z; performed by Adam Tendler (New Amsterdam Records)

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The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).