Name: Thomas Meluch aka Benoît Pioulard
Occupation: Multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, composer, writer, photographer
Nationality: American
Current release: Benoît Pioulard's new album Stanza IV, featuring alternate versions of select pieces by Markus Guentner, arovane, Clarice Jensen, MJ Guider, James Devane, and Viul, is out July 11th 2025 via Disques d'Honore.
Recommendations on the topic of sound: Most recently I really enjoyed Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act, which is a little obvious, but it takes a beautiful, humanist, open view of what it means to make things and I pretty deeply identified with a lot of his ideas and advice.
On a very different side, I devoured Rob Harvilla’s book, 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, and am making my way through all the episodes of his corresponding podcast with great delight.

[Read our Clarice Jensen interview]
[Read our arovane interview]
[Read our Markus Guentner interview]

If you enjoyed these thoghts by Benoît Pioulard and would like to know more about his music, visit him on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and bandcamp.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier Benoît Pioulard interview.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I don’t often listen to music with closed eyes, except maybe on an airplane or other inert-by-default situations.

But synaesthetically, I most often imagine unpopulated landscapes as part of the ambient music experience; some are wide open and windy spaces, others are deep in the forest.

Especially when I’m writing or in a focused mode I find that certain music can really wrap me in phantom cotton.

How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?

Listening on the stereo will often guide my mood and movement when I’m at home, and provide a nice movie-scene feel to things, but it’s only on headphones that I have a kind of transportive experience.

It becomes personal, private, and quite precious as a lonesome moment, especially living in such a densely populated place like New York.

Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

These days, the best combinations of texture and atmosphere are coming from Ulla Straus (who also goes by Ulla and U.e.) – her last few albums, Limitless Frame, Foam, and Hometown Girl, are absolute masterpieces of delicacy.



I really don’t know how she achieves such varied consistency, but each of her records is a revelation.

I’ve also been listening to a lot of Pallette lately, and since I’m doing a ton of writing for the masters program I’m in, their longer form pieces (especially the Awake Always trilogy) really hit the mark for that headspace.



There can be sounds which feel highly irritating to us and then there are others we could gladly listen to for hours. Do you have examples for either one or both of these?

The main reason we had to move out of our last apartment was because there was a concrete factory across the street, and they had a very inconsistent schedule that meant we’d wake up to abrasive grinding and other industrial noises very early on in the day. The worst, for me, was the sub-bass of the idling trucks, which could be felt more than heard, and started to become a psychological liability after a while.

By contrast, we now live on a very quiet block and have a peaceful backyard where the primary sounds are wind in the leaves and birds hopping around.

The improvement in the quality of life after that move, four years ago, has been incredible.

Are there everyday places, spaces, or devices which intrigue you by the way they sound? Which are these?

This probably won’t surprise anyone, but I tend to spend an extra few moments and linger near the humming produce coolers when I’m getting groceries, and enjoy the experience of folding my clothes in the laundromat while all the machines are running.

Those kinds of functional spaces that involve the comfort of a necessary drone, are very welcoming to me.

Have you ever been in spaces with extreme sonic characteristics, such as anechoic chambers or caves? What was the experience like?

The first experience that comes to mind when you ask this is one that happened at the Grand Canyon back in 2017, when I was traveling and taking most of the Polaroid photos for the Sylva photo book.



We arrived late in the day, and my friend Jim and I walked through our campground to the rim of the canyon under a full moon.

We found an isolated spot and were talking for a bit when I realized there was a really remarkable quality to the echo that was happening; I don’t know how else to describe it than to say it was circular, like if I clapped, I could hear the sound roll along the side of the cliffs, glide across the opposite rim, and return from the other side.

Not the kind of thing you could record, but pretty special in that way.

What are among your favourite spaces to record and play your music?

Over the last fifteen years I’ve played a lot of spaces, from front porches, to dive bars, to cathedrals and theaters.

Part of what’s nice about being solo and having a setup that allows for so much improvisation is that I can adapt to the space on the fly, and make big, long, harmonic loops if it’s a space with good reverb, or focus on gentle vocal songs if it’s something more intimate like a living room.

I don’t know if there’s a favorite kind of space for what I do, really, since so much of my work is about meeting reality where it is.

Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you're sculpting or shaping something?

My mom says I “paint with sound”, which I always find really sweet of her. I think maybe she has stronger synaesthesia than I do.

When I’m building tracks, though, I do focus a lot on how textures and tones are interacting with each other, and there is an aspect of density that suggests something material, you know, the clouds versus the canopy, or something.

How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

I think a lot of my demeanor and my efforts toward a philosophy of radical acceptance are supported by listening to so much calm music. I’ve never been too attracted to aggressive art, horror films, that kind of thing, even though I see their place in the conversation for other people.

Catharsis is very important, and there’s a ton of ways to approach it – whatever helps you find a center, you know, even if you’re into Gaspar Noe or GG Allin.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds?

When I was visiting a friend in Hawaii a while back, I remember waking up the first morning with the windows open, and the volume of the dawn chorus was just crazy – like, unsettling for a moment, until I realized there weren’t actually any birds in the room with me.

It sounded like a million different calls happening at once, and it was way too early in the day, but once I sank into it I tried to savor every bit.

Many animals communicate through sound. Based either on experience or intuition, do you feel as though interspecies communication is possible and important?

I don’t know for sure, but I do believe strongly in the emotional complexity of all animals, and I can say that I feel very connected with the three cats roaming around my apartment.

Other than that, I relish the moments when I can, say, have a long moment of eye contact with a deer in the woods, that kind of thing.

Tinnitus and developing hyperacusis are very real risks for anyone working with sound. Do you take precautions in this regard and if you're suffering from these or similar issues – how do you cope with them?

Thanks to my wife’s insistence, I’ve begun using custom-made earplugs at concerts (shout out to Brooklyn’s own Crystal Guardian) for this very reason – my best friend Raf is also a big advocate for taking care of your hearing, so I feel indebted to the idea.

I can say with certainty that a good set of ear plugs, ones that are more like sound dampeners than mufflers, is worth the small investment.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

I try to pay attention to my internal voice when it comes to sound vs. silence – it’s great that there are so many options for engagement out there, podcast- and music service-wise, but then sometimes I’m going to walk to the post office and I just want to hear the sounds of my neighborhood.

There’s room for all of it.