Ways of Hearing

Episode One - Time

Contemplate the way digital audio – in music recording, and in radio and television broadcast – employs a different sense of time than we use in our offline life, a time that is more regular and yet less communal. Guests include: Ali Shaheed Muhammed of A Tribe Called Quest; and Joe Castiglione, the radio voice of the Boston Red Sox.

Episode Two - Space

In Tokyo, people on crowded trains pretend they’re asleep, to avoid eye contact. But in modern-day New York – richer, neater, just as noisy – count the headphones: it’s like we’re avoiding ear contact. In this episode, Damon examines how digital technology is privatizing public space. Guests include writer/activist Jeremiah Moss and historian Emily Thompson.

Episode Three - Love

You don’t have to be the son of a jazz singer to recognize the voice of a loved one as music, made up of sounds so basic to our understanding that they precede language. And yet our digital devices strip much of that away, trading intimacy for efficiency. But what is the essential part of our voices, and what isn’t? Guests include: jazz singer (and Damon’s mom) Nancy Harrow, Roman Mars of 99% Invisible, and musicologist Gary Tomlinson.

Bonus Episode 3.5 - Ways of Song Exploding

On the hit podcast Song Exploder, we learn the digital secrets behind some of today’s best songs. But we hardly ever hear the voice of the show’s creator, Hrishikesh Hirway. In a special bonus episode to Ways of Hearing, Damon Krukowski interviews Hrishikesh — and explodes Song Exploder.

Episode Four - Money

In the 20th century, music seemed like an object — bought and sold like any other product. But digital technology has dematerialized music, separating it from money and revealing its real terms of exchange. Guests include: Artist and writer Jace Clayton, also known as DJ /rupture; Victoria Ruiz and Joey DeFrancesco of the Providence punk band Downtown Boys.

Episode Five - Power

When you go into a bookstore, or record store, or library, you enter another world that you have to learn to navigate. You adapt to it. But today’s digital corporations have created a musical universe that adapts, predictably, to you. Guests include: Jimmy Johnson, owner/founder of music distributor Forced Exposure; Paul Lamere, director of developer platform for Spotify; and Elaine Katzenberger, executive director of City Lights Books.

Episode Six - Noise

Ways Of Hearing has looked at how digital technology has changed our world: our sense of time, of space, of intimacy and exchange. In the final episode, Damon lays out an essential choice: between a world enriched by noise, and a world that strives toward signal only. Guests include: Dr. Alicia Quesnel of Harvard Medical School and Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary; audio engineers/musicians Steve Albini and Bob Weston (Electrical Audio, Shellac)