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Madalyn Merkey





Since live performances are quite different than writing music, what do you enjoy most about it?
When I started doing live performance, the most exciting thing to me was that something might go wrong. I would make a pledge to myself that if I was able to make one sound, then I did my job as a performer. In reality though, the most enjoyable thing is hearing people’s reactions and questions after a performance. Being on the road can be isolating and having just a sliver of communication can make all the difference in solidifying a shared experience. But perhaps the best thing is unique performance spaces, be it unique room acoustics or special multichannel speaker arrays. It is really fun to design a computer program for a specific room. That’s endlessly fascinating to me.
If there was something consistent in all your works representative of you, what do you think it would be?
I hope my work allows one’s self the space to listen and reflect outside of a traditional musical purpose. When I conceive of work, it normally is intended to be perceived from the vantage point of a singular listener, even in a group setting. I really hope to connect with someone else internally.
Please share with us your current goals, or new challenges you would like to undertake.
My current goals are to rebuild my studio in a new space - fabricate new furniture myself to join my collected equipment together. I’m personally at a crossroads where I have ceased my day job existence in favor of tagging along business trips with my partner. When I return to the US I hope to focus on rebuilding my studio and working on sound recording full time for myself. I think the biggest changes can be psychological in allowance to myself - to be creative in full service of my own interest rather than a company. I hope that I can further pursue performance spaces with Ambisonic sound systems. I would like to work in total immersion. I have a new LP on Mana Records called Puzzle Music that should be out in the UK before the end of the year. This album is a return to mostly analog systems for me, more in line with my first record Scent from 2012.