From the Archives: Stephen Vitiello on his new LP with Brendan Canty and Hahn Rowe

With the microsound veteran’s new Balmat album finally out, a repost of our interview from April

Back in April, I ran an interview with Stephen Vitiello, an ambient and experimental musician whose catalog includes collaborations with artists like Taylor Deupree, Steve Roden, Tetsu Inoue, Pauline Oliveros, and Lawrence English, about an album he had just announced for Balmat, the label I run with my Lapsus Radio co-host, Albert Salinas. The follow-up to First, a 2023 release on Longform Editions, the sensibly titled Second is a trio record with drummer Brendan Candy (Fugazi, Messthetics) and multi-instrumentalist Hahn Rowe (Hugo Largo) that pushes Vitiello’s music into new spaces, mingling the textures and atmospheres of ambient and post-rock with the heft and drive of post-punk, krautrock, and dub.

At long last, the album came out on Friday, so I’m rerunning the interview. I hope you don’t mind me adding to your inbox with what is, in part, a bit of promo for the label; I really, really love this record, and I want as many people to hear it as possible. (I’m still pinching myself that I now have members of Fugazi and Hugo Largo on my label.) And, beyond any narrow self-interest, I also think it’s a fascinating conversation with a talented and thoughtful artist who deserves more recognition for his contributions to electronic and experimental music over the past three decades.

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