iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 29/05/2026

Part 2 in my series on Miles Davis coming to Substack tomorrow, featuring the exact recording that marks the transition to his electric period. Any guesses? Clue: it’s not Miles in the Sky, Filles de Kilimanjaro, or In A Silent Way…

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/05/2026

Subvert is IMO the closest anyone has come to answering that question. Unlike Bandcamp, Subvert takes 0% of payments to artists. Instead, when you purchase music on the platform, you'll see an option to contribute an additional amount to help keep Subvert community-owned.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/05/2026

I joined early on (proud member #118) because, having gotten to know its founder @austinrobey.xyz through an online residency with @metalabel.bsky.social & subsequently met up with him in NYC in 2023, I really believe in the vision behind it: essentially a collectively owned version of Bandcamp.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/05/2026

Today, a new platform called @subvert.fm launches publicly. Uniquely, Subvert is structured as a co-operative of over 20,000 members: artists, labels, supporters, and workers. In other words: a marketplace for music collectively owned by the people who use it, rather than by a corporation.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 08/05/2026

"There’s a real beauty here... a moving experience." Many thanks to Dominic Valvona for this attentive and detailed review of (Dis)possessed for @monolithcocktail.bsky.social 🙏

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 01/05/2026

All the sounds in the piece were created using these objects, and the music I composed with them is almost entirely based on cantorial melodies linked to the specific sections of the Torah that are still legible on the parchments.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 01/05/2026

(Dis)possessed responds to objects in POLIN’s collection that were made out of (mis)appropriated Torah parchment during and after World War II.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 01/05/2026

My new album (Dis)possessed is out now: music I created for a sound installation at Warsaw's POLIN Museum in 2024. Available exclusively on Bandcamp: alexrothmusic.bandcamp.com/album/dis-po... #BandcampFriday

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 17/04/2026

New release coming on 1 May, exclusive to Bandcamp, where I've just launched a new backstage area for listeners who want to support my music more directly and sustainably. Check it out at: alexrothmusic.bandcamp.com/backstage

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 20/06/2025

His work in the '50s–'60s introduced some seriously innovative guitar sounds that presaged punk, heavy metal and prog. Resisting labels' attempts to "clean up" his sound, Wray turned his brother's chicken coop into a 3-track studio & spent the '70s experimenting on his own terms. Legend.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 20/06/2025

Moment of appreciation for Fred Lincoln Wray Jr. Of Shawnee descent, he grew up in a mud hut dodging KKK. Caught TB fighting in Korean War & lost a lung. No more singing so focused on gtr. Went on to invent the power chord on his 1st hit "Rumble", which was banned for fear of inciting gang violence.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 13/06/2025

Thank you 🙏 Most of the eruv was .8mm welding wire, which I stretched round trees by threading through holes in wooden blocks tied to trunks (so as not to harm the bark) (L). Then at strategic points I inserted guitar strings by crimping wire & string together with ferrules (R).

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/06/2025

Deep thanks to the Foundation for this invitation, and to the locals who participated in the project. Photos by Alicja Szulc (the good ones) and me (the rest).

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/06/2025

The sounds we recorded—barely audible to the naked ear, fragile, yet rich in overtones— will become the basis of a new composition which will feed into Fundacja Zapomniane's ongoing commemorative activities.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/06/2025

Then I invited members of the local community to interact with the installation, recording sounds from the strings as they did so. Thus the forest was transformed into a large-scale musical instrument—a resonator of history—& the eruv reimagined as an acoustic perimeter of remembrance.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/06/2025

1st I built a symbolic 150-metre-long eruv around the 3 mass graves, using guitar strings (from my own guitar) & wire stretched between trees. Movingly, this was the first time the scale of the burial site had been made clearly visible.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/06/2025

My latest attempt to answer this question responds to the requirement in Jewish law to mark the boundaries of graves (which in this case are otherwise invisible in the landscape), & the idea of an eruv—a symbolic enclosure that extends the sacred space of the home into the public realm on Shabbat.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 12/06/2025

How to engage with sites of trauma through sound? I've been asking myself this since moving to Poland 7 years ago. And this week I had the honour of being invited to participate in a commemoration ceremony in the Chodówki Forest, where over 600 Jews were massacred & buried during the Holocaust.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 26/05/2025

This unique new sound installation by Miyu Hosoi in partnership with @citiesandmemory.bsky.social uses sound to collect snapshots of places and times all over the world. On the map pictured here, the little dot in Kraków represents my recording of the famous Hejnał Mariacki trumpet call.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 26/05/2025

Happy to have played a small part in this new exhibition at the Barbican. Observatory Station is a global collaborative project that reflects on the relationship between sound & place, between reality & imagination.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 02/04/2025

Hands up: who knew Mary Lou Williams and Cecil Taylor recorded together?

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 31/03/2025

A couple of shots from Kasia Witek's performance The Peace Of Wild Things, which premièred at Laban Theatre, London, earlier this month. Music by me in collaboration with @alicepurton.bsky.social (cello, voice), James Opstad & Caius Williams (double basses) 📸 Rocio Chacon More info on my website.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 18/03/2025

Kasia Witek's latest dance performance, which I've scored, premieres this week at Laban Theatre in London, commissioned by Trinity Laban Dance Collective with new music I created in collaboration with double bassist Caius Williams: www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/whats-on/tri... 📸 from yday's tech rehearsal

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 07/03/2025

The music is accompanied by a specially commissioned series of photographs by MOAL, which are available as A3 prints and include a download of the music—my first physical release in about a decade!

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 07/03/2025

Viscera has won awards at festivals around the world, including "Best Sound & Music" at Los Angeles' Experimental Film & Music Video Festival and "Best Dance Film" at Dreamers Of Dreams / New Renaissance Film Festival in London.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 07/03/2025

My debut film score builds on my experiences recording guitar on soundtracks for TV shows such as #BlackMirror (composed by @jonopstad.bsky.social) and #SilentWitness (by Sheridan Tongue).

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 07/03/2025

Today I'm delighted to release my original score for Celina Liesegang & Arturo Bandinelli's experimental short film Viscera. Set in an abandoned hotel on an island in the middle of the Atlantic, Viscera is a dance film exploring the relationship between time, memory & trauma.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 05/03/2025

These photographs will be available as A3 prints which include a download of the music—my first physical release in about a decade! RSVP for the listening party here: fb.me/e/2EH4ba7hf

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 05/03/2025

My new EP drops on Friday and I'm celebrating with a listening party. RSVP 🔗 below. Viscera is my first film score 🎥 The release includes a specially commissioned series of photographs by MOAL, created by using extremely long exposure times to capture entire scenes of the film in single images.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 04/03/2025

#NowPlaying Sunny Five – Candid Somehow missed this release early last year, despite it featuring some of my favourite musicians on the planet. Such is the challenge of keeping up with an artist as prolific as Tim Berne. Great to hear him and Ducret playing together again!

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 28/02/2025

Billy Hart listening to the Coltrane track above in this lovely @nytimes.com profile by @darkforcesswing.bsky.social: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/a...

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 26/02/2025

#NowPlaying Roberta Flack – First Take Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" has always been my go-to version—at once tender and mighty. I'd never heard this whole album though, and it's a classic. Thoughts below 🧵

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 25/02/2025

The extended pieces on Stil. were inspired by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto’s exquisite Seascapes. There is indeed something oceanic about Deupree’s music: overlapping loops mimic tides, creating rhythmic waves that seem regular on the surface but are in fact constantly evolving.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 25/02/2025

#NowPlaying Tonight's double bill: Taylor Deupree – Stil. (2002) & Sti.ll (2024) Glitchy ambient electronic music (Stil.) reimagined acoustically (Sti.ll), nudging it towards a post-minimalist contemporary classical soundworld. Hypnotic listening.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 25/02/2025

In between, I've released 3 records I'm v proud of: MultiTraction Orchestra debut Reactor One (@superpanghq.bsky.social) Contemporary Album of the Month—@theguardian.com "Stunning...music with real gravitas."—The Best Jazz on @bandcamp.com "Startlingly good."—@boomkat.com alexrothmusic.bandca...

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 25/02/2025

Viscera is the first release under my own name since my 2022 EP Inpouring (a collaboration with experimental cellist @alicepurton.bsky.social, also on Zyla), which @avantmusicnews.bsky.social called "Prime-grade modern creative music." zylaworks.bandcamp.c...

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 25/02/2025

Excited to announce the release of my award-winning original score for Celina Liesegang & Arturo Bandinelli's experimental short film Viscera, coming out on multidisciplinary label @zylaworks.bsky.social on 7 March, accompanied by a specially commissioned series of photographs by MOAL.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 24/02/2025

#NowPlaying @juergfrey.bsky.social & Quatuor Bozzini – Jürg Frey: String Quartet No. 4 Supremely serene music, best treated as a kind of guided meditation.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 23/02/2025

#NowPlaying Charles Lloyd – Canto My entry point into Lloyd's music, which I've loved ever since. Great band: Bobo Stenson, Anders Jormin, Billy Hart. This + Hyperion with Higgins prob my favourites from his ECM period. Mysterious, generous, pure-hearted and exploratory all at the same time.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 19/02/2025

#NowPlaying McCoy Tyner & Joe Henderson – Forces of Nature: Live at Slugs' @bluenoterecords.bsky.social Coming back to this remarkable 1966 recording that surfaced last year. Such a treat to hear four giants of jazz really stretch out in a live setting, at a key moment in the music's history.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 17/02/2025

Visually, it's remarkable, both in itself and in the sense that it looks how the book did in my imagination—an extremely rare feat. It also has an excellent score by Camilo Sanabria.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 17/02/2025

The biggest video streaming platform in the world has produced an adaptation of arguably the greatest novel of the last century. And, contrary to my expectations, it's actually very well done. But why is no one I know talking about @netflix.com's One Hundred Years of Solitude?

One Hundred Years of Solitude Netflix poster

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 16/02/2025

Some of this weekend's listening: @photay.bsky.social – Windswept Gary Bartz – Music Is My Sanctuary @matthewherbert.bsky.social – The Horse Stan Getz & Bill Evans

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 11/02/2025

New addition to my playlist of 2024 favourites: divr – Is This Water @wejazz.bsky.social European take on the post-@vijayiyer.bsky.social piano trio, with delicious production by my friend Dan Nicholls subtly nudging the band's sound towards electronic aesthetics.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 10/02/2025

(I was interviewed for the film but didn't make the cut; nevertheless, it's nice to get a mention in the credits.)

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 10/02/2025

When the world seems like a dark place, and making art feels at best trivial, if not futile, remember these words from my old composition teacher Frank Denyer.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 08/02/2025

#NowPlaying Dawn of Midi – Dysnomia @erasedtapes.com Once in a generation a group reinvents the sound of the piano trio. This was the last record that did that for me. Deep polyrhythmic grooves slowly evolve over 9 continuous tracks, like The Necks playing Steve Reich mixed by Aphex Twin.

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 04/02/2025

After its release, Withers told @nytimes.com: “I'm really a factory worker. That's a real job. This thing I'm doing now, it's just a break. I don't expect to be here very long.” "Ain't No Sunshine" has over a billion streams & is 285th on @rollingstone.com's list of the Greatest Songs of All Time 😂

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Alex Roth @alexrothmusic.com · 04/02/2025

#NowPlaying Bill Withers – Just as I Am The cover photo was taken on Withers' lunch break outside the factory he was working in at the time of recording, installing airplane toilets.

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