Names: Jacob Rudin aka NTHNL
Nationality: American
Occupation: Composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist, instrument builder
Current release: NTHNL and Sphente's new album Awareness of the Wind Within is out via Protomaterial.

If you enjoyed this NTHNL interview and would like to know more about his music, visit the official NTHNL homepage. He is also on Instagram, Soundcloud, Facebook, and bandcamp.

For a deeper dive, read our earlier NTHNL interview.



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

I love all the early Pharaoh Sanders albums (Karma, "The Creator Has a Master Plan," Thembi, etc..) I think they blend environmental sensibilities (via the spacing out of the instruments) with real ecstatic joy and experimental wind playing.



I have always had the desire to make my recorded music sound like a sounding environment, or like a musical field recording, and I feel like he was really tapped into that at a really early time.

Stepmother City by Sainkho Namtchylak blends a lot of elements from 90s DnB to mongolian throat singing in a way that feels really seamless, groovy, and not hokey.



It’s really listenable while also providing some amazing textures and sonic explorations.

[Read our Sainkho Namtchylak interview]

Sold out by DJ Paypal is really amazing. As a person who loves the club as a social/listening environment but finds a lot of the music to be understimulating, this work really accomplished a lot for me.



Sold Out combines expert sample manipulation (and equally impressive sample curation) with masterful rhythm work and digital drums.

I relistened recently for the first time after it came out and it totally holds up.