Object Of Sound

What is the sound of where you come from? Is it a particular song you remember from your childhood? Maybe it’s a collection of remembered sounds from your first home—a train that passed nearby, or the wildlife that would sing at night. Maybe it’s the first song that you ever really connected to, the one that first made you feel like you belonged. In this special episode, we�

Imagine walking inside a room that was made for fans of this show. We've teamed up with the first-ever immersive podcast experience happening Feb 23-26 at Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg Brooklyn to make it happen. Flip through original vinyl and artifacts from the show, add your selects to a living playlist, and if you're lucky, run into Hanif in the room! All the details are availabl

Welcome to our first ever year end special, ‘This Year In Music with Hanif Abdurraqib.’ December is the perfect time to look back on all the incredible music that has been released over the past year: the songs that moved us to dance, and the songs that helped us endure. In this hour-long deep dive, we'll review the musical highlights of 2022 and make predictions about the futu

In Mali, where Fatoumata Diawara was raised, it is common for women to sing, but much rarer for women to play an instrument. As a result, Fatoumata—who is one of the first, if not the first woman guitarist in all of Mali—has developed a self-taught, intuitive guitar playing style that is entirely her own. “This way of playing, it's me,” says Fatoumata. “It represents my f

The night before Thanksgiving, Hanif has a special invented tradition: every year, he makes a batch of cupcakes and watches The Last Waltz—and every year, he finds new things to love about the film. Directed by Martin Scorsese, The Last Waltz is a 1978 concert film documenting the final performance of The Band. To Hanif, the movie is not just a collection of great performances, b

“Music is a time machine,” says Ben Gibbard, singer and guitarist of Death Cab for Cutie. Just a few bars of a beloved song can be transportative, an instant reminder of another time and place. “And if you've been that in someone's life, you have a responsibility to keep that material alive.” For Ben, that means continuing to honor and perform work from Death Cab for Cutie�

“While I’m alive, I’ll make tiny changes to Earth.” Written by Scott Hutchison, the late frontman of the band Frightened Rabbit, this line has provided comfort, consolation, and inspiration to those who loved Scott’s music. A talented and witty lyricist, Scott’s songs could be devastatingly crushing or funny, visceral or resonant—sometimes all in the same track. But a

Before Tegan and Sara sat down to make Crybaby, they had to navigate a series of breakups—with their label, their management, and (almost) with each other. “This is our breakup record,” says Sara Quin, “but we're not going to break up. We’re siblings. We can’t.” In the turmoil that followed, Tegan and Sara rebuilt their professional team, repaired their relationship,

Carly Rae Jepsen is a writer’s writer. “I am very excited about the idea of writing it in all directions,” Carly says — and for the making of her latest album, The Loneliest Time, that meant writing literally hundreds of songs. On this episode of Object of Sound, Hanif and Carly Rae Jepsen talk about the unique collaborative process that went into narrowing that collection

“One of the most meditative things about writing is that you kind of forget where you are,” says Nick Hakim. “If you're tapped into it, you're not really thinking about anything else.” On this episode of Object of Sound, Nick recalls the spontaneous 5:00am recordings and free writing that went into the making of his new album COMETA, out October 21. Plus, Nick treats us to