Homesickness and loss in sound, from Detroit to Beirut: Layan Srour

What does it mean to grieve home — being away from home and actually losing home? What does it mean to express that grief in sound, and to create spaces and belong through music? Detroit-based, Beirut-raised Layan Srour asks these questions in her own work, the duo Taqsim, and in an event series called Jalasat.

Maggi Payne, photographing crystals, composing for Moog modular III, more

Texas-born composer Maggi Payne has just quietly been busy being a legend over decade after decade. Well known to Mills College (as its Center for Contemporary Music co-director until 2018), if you don’t know her, you should. And this is just the kind of Sunday to gaze at some crystals and listen to her ethereal textures on the then already-vintage Moog modular Series III, in a tip straight from The Bob Moog Foundation.

Peter Kirn - May 17, 2026

Whatever the Weather II: Loraine James talks about the alias and the album

Just as reality seems ready to blow off in a gale, Whatever the Weather II is here on Ghostly to pull you back to earth and the grace of the everyday. Loraine James – or I should say, the artist, Whatever the Weather – talks to CDM about how this full-length came to life.

Peter Kirn - March 14, 2025