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"Two Trains: Sonification of Income Inequality on the NYC Subway by Data-Driven DJ aka Brian Foo: The goal of this song is to emulate a ride on the New York City Subway's 2 Train through three boroughs: Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx. At any given time, the quantity and dynamics of the song's instruments correspond to the median household income of that area. For example, as you pass through a wealthier area such as the Financial District, the instruments you hear in the song will increase in quantity, volume, and force. Stylistically, I want the song to exhibit the energy and orderly chaos of the NYC subway system itself. "

"For over a year now, London has been a simmering site of dormant musical gatherings and suspended physical proximities, prompting me to wonder what's happened to the visceral, tactile energies through which collective musical formations gain so much of their social and emotional force. As Ben Assiter points out, the migration of electronic dance music online during the pandemic accelerated currents that were already underway with the ubiquity of livestream platforms like Boiler Room. With physical assembly prohibited, the dematerialization of collective musical experience gave rise to a whole new level of face-to-screen "participation," as solitary DJs began broadcasting live from empty clubs to bedroom audiences, who in turn performed "ironic dance floor interaction[s]" in the chat boxes."

As you're tuning your speakers in preparation for Live in Concert, listen to "RAGE (After Tokyo 2020)," DJ Mars89's new mix in response to the Tokyo Olympics-and in opposition to hollow celebrations of national identity and false displays of unity. Moving between speeches, industrial noise, deconstructions of traditional Japanese instruments, and protest music, Mars89 channels the widespread anger at the Olympics: a self-aggrandizing indulgence pushed through by the country's elites during a pandemic, at incredible cost to the people. The mix is published as part of Unknown States, an issue devoted to the fictions that give rise to nations and nationalities.

"Henrik Håkansson (b. 1968 Sweden) devotes his work to studying the complex connections between humans and nature. He carefully constructs environmental experiments that ask participants to explore their impact on the environment that surrounds them, such as in the installation Frog For e.s.t. (eternal sonic trance) (1995). This piece consisted of a room filled with inflatable pools, humidifiers, insects, frogs, strobe lights, and a DJ mixing techno music on site. Projects like Frog For e.s.t. examine the intrusion of human artifice on the environment: what happens when we attempt to recreate delicate ecological systems? What are the effects of human-made sounds replacing the natural soundscape?"