The following is a conversation between the multifaceted French musician Ariel Kalma and LA-based interdisciplinary artist Lani Trock. Followers of IARC are likely familiar with Kalma via his 2024 album with Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer The Closest Thing To Silence (IARC0077), but his discography is vast and storied. His early work in Pierre Schaeffer’s oft-lionized Paris electro-acoustic studio GRM is enough to award him a legend badge, but his work continues to this day at the domestic workspace in his adopted home of Byron Bay, Australia.

In the latest from Tracing the Lines Tom Skinner reflects on the evolution of two London venues—Brilliant Corners and “mu”—and their impact on the city’s music community and the eventual live recording of Voices of Bishara at “mu.”

Tracing The Lines editor David Brown recently spoke with Jeremiah, Marta, and Sam. This is a generously edited rendering of that casual conversation about the evolution of their artistic practices, the niche interests that cemented their friendship, and the process of creating an album package.

Chicago photographer, filmmaker, and musician Maren Celest shot the photographs used for Ben LaMar Gay’s Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun. She also filmed, edited, and animated the accompanying video for a track from the album called “Muhal”.

Tracing The Lines editor David Brown recently caught up with Celest to pick her brain about that collaboration and those processes, as she remembers it. The following piece is compiled from parts of that casual conversation.

This is a curiosity piece. Ruth Goller is very interested in octopuses – how they move, how they eat, how they live – so we found her an octopus expert to speak with. This is what they talked about.