This second episode drops us back into one of the Sound of Machines community meetups — the kind of space where unfinished ideas are welcome, strange tools are encouraged, and nobody feels pressure to explain themselves too much.
We start with Thad, who describes himself not as a musician or sound artist, but as someone who likes to make toys. What he puts on the table is a series of small, handmade noise boxes built around contact microphones and simple materials: springs under tension, bits of metal, wood, and anything else that responds well to vibration. It’s a reminder that contact mics don’t just amplify sound — they reveal what’s already happening inside an object. Springs scrape. Wood creaks. Metal rings in ways you don’t hear until you’re listening from the inside.
Thad’s setup extends into software as well: an old, exposed laptop running Linux and Guitarix, paired with a custom MIDI controller. Physical knobs control digital effects, loops can be recorded and warped, and visitors are invited to interact with the system like a kind of sonic zen garden. The sound quality isn’t the point. The interaction is.
There is a short aside about apprehension engines.
That theme carries into Jey’s work, which moves sharply toward performance art. Jey uses contact mics as part of a live, physical, and intentionally unsettling practice. Objects become props. Sound becomes gesture. A contact mic in the mouth captures screams without the feedback problems of a traditional microphone, while also reinforcing the visual intensity of the performance. Horror isn’t an aesthetic add-on here — it’s the structure.
Jey talks about noise as a spectrum rather than a category, and about boredom as a creative enemy. Standing still behind a table isn’t enough. The body has to be involved. Objects carry meaning. Even something as simple as a head scratcher becomes an instrument when amplified and performed with intention.
We also learned about the genre called Trash Core.
As the conversation opens up, we hear from Henry, who offers one of the quiet insights of the episode: when you loop noise long enough, it stops sounding like noise. Not because it becomes prettier, but because your brain starts to recognize patterns. Familiarity replaces confusion. Listening changes.
There is a brief aside about Radio Garden.
Henry demonstrates this way of thinking through experiments with frame drums, magnets, cinnamon, and resonance. By adding small amounts of mass in precise locations, he reshapes how surfaces vibrate. Singing into a drum head reveals nodes. Magnets shift harmonics. The same idea extends to strings weighted with fishing sinkers, producing inharmonic, bell-like tones that feel more sculpted than accidental.
From there, the meetup widens out. Pete talks about controlled feedback and screaming at mannequin heads and we hear a brief clip from one of his songs that uses these exprimental techniques.
Mark then shares his background in live visuals, analog video feedback, and found metal objects salvaged from theaters and scrap shops. Across all of it runs a shared curiosity about feedback loops — sonic, visual, physical — and how far they can be pushed before they collapse.
The meetup runs long, drifts into odd time signatures, and ends on a misunderstanding that feels exactly right. No conclusions. No takeaways neatly wrapped up. Just people showing their work, asking questions, and listening closely.
That’s what these gatherings are about.
