Name: David Grubbs
Occupation: Guitarist, composer
Nationality: American
Recent release: David Grubbs's new full-length album Whistle from Above, featuring Rhodri Davies, Andrea Belfi, Nikos Veliotis, Nate Wooley, and Cleek Schrey, is out via Drag City.
Recommendations on the topic of sound:
Amacher, Maryanne. Selected Writings and Interviews. Edited by Amy Cimini and Bill Dietz. Brooklyn, NY: Blank Forms Editions, 2020.
Ferrari, Luc. Complete Works. Edited by Brunhild Ferrari, translated by Catherine Marcangeli. London: Ecstatic Peace Library, 2019.
Lewis, George E. A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008.

[Read our Nate Wooley interview]
[Read our Nikos Veliotis conversation as part of our MMMΔ interview]

If you enjoyed this David Grubbs interview and would like to know more about his music, visit him on Instagram, Soundcloud, bandcamp, and Facebook.



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’m kind of an eye-closer myself, when possible. I think I used to feel self-conscious at concerts about closing my eyes, but if it helps you to concentrate, why not?

The only drawback for me is that I also fall asleep easily. When I close my eyes while listening, it’s to shut off the visual input; I don’t see shapes, colors, and so forth when my eyes are closed. The goal is to reduce the sensory input.

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

Timely question. I’m listening to Sarah Hennies’ new album, SOVT, on headphones while answering these questions.



I keep trying to swear off listening to music on devices like AirPods, especially on the street or the train in New York, where it’s already ridiculously loud and you’re just competing with the ambient noise. I think the pandemic got me more used to listening to music on studio-quality headphones, when three people were stuck in a relatively small apartment.

There are all kinds of recordings I can’t imagine listening to on headphones, ones that fill a space and activate it in unpredictable ways; three recent examples of this, of music that I very much appreciate but can’t imagine listening to on headphones: Catherine Christer Hennix, Madison Greenstone, Jessie Marino.



I find the construction of a stereo image endlessly interesting and appealing—more so than, for example, most multi-channel sound environments. Just put me at the tip of that isosceles triangle of speakers and listener and I’m happy.

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

Ooh, the shorter list would be of artists that I love without especial regard for their sound. The sound is almost all-important, but that’s not to say that “sound” equates to conventional norms of high-end audio. I care deeply about sounds but have never had a particularly rarefied home stereo set-up.

A cherished memory: at the Table of the Elements Yttrium festival in Chicago in 1996 I was there when the UPS guy showed up with an advance box of the LPs of Tony Conrad’s Four Violins.



We threw it on the turntable and blasted it through the PA of the Empty Bottle, and if that wasn’t a supreme sound experience—as was any opportunity to hear Tony perform—then I don’t know what was.

Do you experience strong emotional responses towards certain sounds? If so, what kind of sounds are these and do you have an explanation about the reasons for these responses?

A little more than two years ago I had the incredible experience of finding a relatively good violin on the street a block from where I live. That’s something that happens in New York—finding instruments on the street. (I’ve also found a Laotian khaen, a bagpipe practice chanter, and a destroyed Gibson Grabber bass on the street in my neighborhood.)

Since then I’ve played it almost every day and as a result become very focused on the world of sound that is the violin since then, understanding the instrument much better now that I play it.  

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?

For me, continuous sound production, whether it’s a bow, or feedback or some other kind of electronic sound—that’s the trick, particularly after growing up playing piano and guitar, both of which are often primarily about the attack, the onset of the tone.

What’s most irritating to me? Schmaltzy singing, definitely.

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

Since David Lynch died, I’ve been revisiting his films and am so beholden to the range of electronic hums that permeate his films and provide a model for listening to the built environment.

I was in Berlin for four months this fall and the S-Bahn and intercity rail never ceased to sound pleasantly futuristic.   

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

I’ve been in quasi-anechoic spaces for art exhibitions by Anri Sala and Otomo Yoshihide and Sachiko M. My impulse was to get out of them as soon as I could.

[Read our Otomo Yoshihide interview]

I grew up near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and that kind of naturally reverberant space is much more to my liking.

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

I’m always so torn about playing or attending concerts in churches! Wooden pews are uncomfortable and you have to look at crosses and crucifixes—but they can sound, uh, divine.

I loved playing in the funeral chapel at Brooklyn’s Greenwood Cemetery with Loren Connors. That was one for the ages.

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

Without a doubt.

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 suppose like all kinds of health more generally, I should be more focused on acoustic health—particuarly my own hearing. I’m really not looking forward to that declining. I have some high-end hearing loss in my left ear that I’ve had since I was in my twenties—nothing dramatic, but sometimes naggingly noticeable.

I’m answering these questions the day after Tr*mp was inaugurated as president of our sick country, so acoustic health is kind of far from my thinking at present.

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?

The crashing of waves is a definite favorite, although I feel that they become that much more profound when you have been around the seashore long enough to tune them out, and then there’s the possibility of their unexpectedly coming back into focus.

I was on Madeira for six days last month, staying on a cliff overlooking the beach, and the sound of the ocean far below us—coming into one’s consciousness without warning—was one of the most satisfying parts of being there.

Many animals communicate through sound. Based either on experience or intuition, do you feel as though interspecies communication is possible and important? Is there a creative element to it, would you say?

We have two dogs, one of whom is blind, and interspecies communication through sound is something I experience on a daily basis.

The everyday quality of it is no less creative for just being a mundane part of life.

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?

As I mentioned above, I have some slight hearing loss in one ear, and I worry about it getting worse. I wear earplugs often, but that’s just to block out sounds on airplanes, etc.

It’s a trade-off—and I don’t always feel like I’m making wise decisions.

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?

Silence provides us with the gift of sound returning, as well as fewer distractions.

I never listen to music while undertaking focused writing—the three books of poetry that I’ve written were written in as quiet an environment (often writing with earplugs) as possible.

Seth S. Horowitz called hearing the “universal sense” and emphasised that it was more precise and faster than any of our other senses, including vision. How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead?

Richer and more surprising?

That said, I find that we rarely experience one or the other in isolation; maybe the more rewarding thing would be to think the two simultaneously ever fuller.