“It’s great that you’re one of the few career madmen who still finds the time and the passion to review so much (I’ll immodestly include myself in the list, along with Massimo Ricci, Frans de Waard and a few other usual suspects).”
DAN WARBURTON, PARIS TRANSATLANTIC
“I really like your open ears and words for all these little details which are important in complex music. It’s not self-evident in this overloaded world of musical creations to find mindful listeners.”
RETO MÄDER
“It is always a delightful surprise to receive a review of one’s own music, which was written by an insightful mind – someone who actually took the time to listen carefully, and then reflect upon the presented music in a personal yet profound way…”
BERNHARD GAL
“Your way of writing is sincere and beyond the superficiality that appeared with the lack of time that many journalists or critics nowadays suffer from in doing their research. It’s very encouraging to see someone still holding fast to the idea of a great fanzine. We need such spirits more than ever.”
FELIX KUBIN
“Clear and away the most consistently rewarding music magazine running …”
MIMAROGLU MUSIC SALES
“There are hardly any mags that I keep for longer than a week. But I’ve still got all TSP issues on my shelves. The world would be much poorer without.”
ERIK ‘ED’ BENNDORF, DENSE PROMOTION
“This is a fantastic, curious music mag of the sort that us denizens of the margins imagine exist, but seldom do we find them.”
TILTED FORUM
“We happened to be at Rough Trade in Soho on the last day that it was open, and acquired issue 15 of The Sound Projector. It’s a music magazine so esoteric that it makes The Wire look like Smash Hits. Page after page obsessively filled with reviews organised in chronological order, featuring rather obscure bands (mostly of the noise and black metal variety) with colourful names such as 666majik999 or Solar Anus. Captured in the magazine is the promise of music as a slightly sinister, potentially dangerous force; a sensation that we haven’t felt in a long time. The magazine is edited, designed and written by Ed Pinsent, who also happened to be involved in Escape, a really great British comic that was published in the Eighties.”
EXPERIMENTAL JETSET, in GRAFIK MAGAZINE 159 (2007)
“Thank you for rejuvenating my music enthusiasms, involuntarily and from afar. I haven’t seen or read The Sound Projector since I moved to New York from London in 2001; then, last week, Keith Whitman’s listing of the Vinyl Viands issue on his Mimaroglu site led me to your website, where I’ve been having a fabulous time bouncing from Led Zeppelin to Erik M to Sudden Sway to The Vitamin B12 und so weiter. Particular thanks for alerting me to what great pop records the last two Sparks CDs are–I had no idea! I just wanted to say thank you for such a wide-ranging, informative and infectiously enjoyable site.”
MILES CHAMPION by email
“VINYL VIANDS 2006: with this new issue it’s pretty much official; the sound projector is the best music magazine running. in this issue mr. pinsent selects a stack of vinyl from his shelf, then sits down and concocts witty expositions on their contents, methods of acquisition, etc… the whole thing has this ritualistic flair but never dips into sheer repetition; there’s always something interesting to say, some revelation to be found. records reviewed in this issue range from recent noise vinyl way on back to 60s esp-disk originals; not your ‘keeping up with the new release schedules’ coverage here, no sir… ed is as likely to review a rare 1970 french prog lp as he is the new fusetron title. it’s a joy to read and genuinely funny to boot. if you’ve ever pored the shelves of your local mom & pop record shop for dusty experimental gelt, you’ll be familiar with the thrill of the hunt celebrated within these pages. very highly recommended!”
MIMAROGLU MUSIC SALES
“Great magazine, I love how the reviews are actually informative and critical instead of all-praise blurbs or write-offs.”
CHRIS MOON, LAST VISIBLE DOG
“The Sound Projector #14: Ed Pinsent’s (who is a fine man) long running, hard working magazine which yearly gathers a wide range of disparate musics under The Sound Projector banner. It’s hard not to like the far ranging aesthetics of the magazine and even harder not to like Ed’s honest and intelligent and hipster-jargon free writing. And, although TSP usually tries to ‘accentuate the positive’, Ed writes a great nasty review. This issue contains his superbly edited interview with Karla and me, an interview with Graham Lambkin and Darren Harris, an essay by me, ‘I Hate Freedom!’, in which I explore the many false claims made for improvisation, as well as the usual assortment of interests and oddities. If you never seen a copy of TSP, I would recommend having a look. Makes The Wire look like a hype driven rag where music goes to die.”
SCOTT FOUST, Swill Radio catalogue
“The Sound Projector’s focus is on music and sound art that is way off the beaten path. Actually, it’s about work that’s not even on the path off the beaten one. In the middle of all the reviews of porch light sound recordings and features on such hitmakers as Shadowbug 4 and the Climax Golden Twins might be a long article dissecting the symbology of Blue Öyster Cult’s early album covers and songs. Even better though–in a totally Dada move–they sometimes have a short section where they do straightforward reviews of the latest records by Britney Spears, Destiny’s Child, and Jojo. Too much. Seriously, anybody interested in the odd and the lovely should buy The Sound Projector regularly. Ed Pinsent is the publisher, editor, writer, illustrator, designer, and a number of other invisible things. There are other people involved in the art and the writing, but Pinsent is the main man.”
BRENT BURKET’s Heart As Arena blogspot
“The Sound Projector is a great launch-pad for the active mind, and potentially painful on the wallet – few record buyers will come away unscathed. Which is as it should be.”
www.delia-derbyshire.org
“The Sound Projector is a steam-powered tank rumbling through the suburbs in the dead of night, hell-bent on sorting all this u-bahn musical activity STRAIGHT … the whole thing’s chock with pure information laid out in a practical manner, very much a joy to behold (the enthusiasm mr.p shares for the subject in question comes across in droves). highly recommended for those of you on the rise within the experimental underground ranks and/or the aging denizen who (like me) pines for the era of fanzines.”
MIMAROGLU MUSIC SALES
“Really enjoying reading all the amazingly written reviews…you are blowing my mind! Your knowledge of music is astounding, and to have you write so beautifully about my music in this great journal is really just a dream come true!”
WILLIAM BASINSKI
“I’m overjoyed looking over this issue. So many of my favorite people. Thanks so so much for doing what you are doing.”
ERIC LANZILLOTTA, ANOMALOUS RECORDS
“I know from my own releases that good reviews do not necessarily encourage people to buy recordings. The only magazine our customers seem to read (and buy things based on reviews they wrote) is The Sound Projector.”
ANOMALOUS RECORDS CATALOGUE
“It is a breath of fresh air to discover that there *is* someone out there who is actually listening, and more incredible still; someone who can transcribe those thoughts in an articulate manner. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a reviewer who understands the music quite as well as [Ed Pinsent] seems to.”
GRAHAM LAMBKIN, The Shadow Ring
“The Sound Projector is one of the best music magazines ever.”
FREEDOM FROM (USA record label)
“Minimalism, noise, art, nothing music, drones, electronic(a), improv, rap and hip hop, nightmares (sic). All covered in this fine and extremely quirky magazine. growing in size with each infrequent issue. Plugs the ever increasing gap between W.H.Smith colour glossies and photocopied fanzines. Largely the efforts of the frightening Ed Pinsent, who also scratches some bizarre cartoon imagery to illustrate the mag, It’s an idiosyncratic and largely opinionated read. Stacks of reviews and features in this issue on Donald Miller, Big Stick, Peter Blegvad, Rev Dwight Frizzell and a large interview with Peter Rehberg from Mego [also Including introduction to the label and primer on selected releases]. Endorsed.”
THESE RECORDS CATALOGUE
“- actually is one of the best magazines we have ever seen in this planet…”
REYNOLS
“A truly independent, heart felt, educated, critical, interesting wonderfully enjoyable journal it is. Like nothing else and obviously a work of love and dedication. Your eclectic taste and ability to write with conviction about so much always impresses me.”
JANEK SCHAEFER
“Sound Projector 7: Latest edition of perhaps the most informed and informative of small press music journals presently around. A 124pp perfect-bound A4 read caught in a semi-pro glow, yet defying such trappings through virtue of its heavily impassioned and generally easily-digestible stance. If I was forced into aiming a couple bullets at it, I think I’d try and do away with the consistent breaking up of the music reviews (of which much of The Sound Projector is made) into categories such as Japanese Noise, Doom Rock, Pixie-Dusted Folk, Post-Techno & the like and shake the writing out of its occasional lapse into a torpor … but these are minor gripes.
Really, there’s not much to complain about a mag that’ll meld all from Roel Meelkop & Anima-Sound to Dr Dre & Bowery Electric to the same discerning ears responsible for sandwiching the gaps with several comprehensive interviews which, by & large, sustain the flow. This time, the latter include Van Dyke Parks, People Like Us and Otomo Yoshihide.
Beneath the heavily decorated enthusiasm for everything favoured by The Sound Projector’s contributors you’ll also find tangential opinions roaming, which is always a commendable trait and, of course, succeeds in keeping everything animated. Many lesser publications could learn from this, believe me. Anyway, should you need an example of how to produce something properly, look no further. Anybody & everybody who dips into The Sound Projector will be suitably rewarded by one of the most compelling reads currently around.”
RICHO JOHNSON, Adverse Effect, Autumn 2000 Edition, Volume II #4
“Sound Projector 7: Screaming out its passion for all things experimental from a layout that weds Alexander Rodchenko to the bastard lovechild of Sniffin’ Glue and Love And Rockets, the ‘Se7enth’ issue of Sound Projector weighs in an at a hefty 124 pages, nearly all of it the work of editor and publisher Ed Pinsent. Inside there are good, in-depth interviews with Otomo Yoshihide, Van Dyke Parks, People Like Us and Nocturnal Emissions’ Nigel Ayers, articles about the rebirth of Prog, the recorded works of Godzilla composer Akira lfukube and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Disinformation’s Joe Banks getting charged about lightning, and 163 record reviews organised into sections called ‘Nostrums, Stratagems, Gidgets And Gadgets’ and ‘Very Special Nothing Music’.”
PETER SHAPIRO, The Wire Issue 197, July 2000
“The Sound Projector 7th Issue features interviews with People Like Us, Nocturnal Emissions, Otomo Yoshihide, and Van Dyke Parks, and articles on God Speed You Black Emporor, Akira Ifukube and “The Negatives of Lightning” (by Disinformation), though most of the 124 pages are taken up by reviews of recordings, many in a very in depth manner and bordering on mini-articles themselves some times.”
ANOMALOUS RECORDS CATALOGUE
“Just as likely to review a completely rare and out of print LP as the latest CDs, this is an excellent and well produced ‘fanzine’ from people who froth at the mouth over music.”
ANOMALOUS RECORDS CATALOGUE
“A nicely balanced, intelligent and knowledgable overview of avant-garde, electronic, folk, experimental, rock, improv etc. music from past and present. Absolutely stuffed with more text than you could possibly get through in a few sittings, this enlightening journal makes for an extremely less infuriating cousin to, say, Resonance or somesuch (which itself, for all the redeeming features, is executed with less panache than a Free Ads paper…). Included this time [Fifth] are Charlemagne Palestine, Simon H Fell, Japanese noise, Part One of an English folk music discourse, minimalist and krautrock record round-ups, plus over 100 reviews that fill in all the gaps. 94 pages of essential accompaniment to your now out-of-control music habit.”
FOURTH DIMENSION CATALOGUE
“Great UK mag covering a wide variety of music, and with superb artwork and presentation (‘written and drawn by Underground cartoonists who like music’).”
BETLEY WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS CATALOGUE
“Personal interpretations of contemporary music. Artist overviews and the occasional interview from a team of cartoonists that brought you Hairy Hi-Fi some time ago. Covered in here: Faust / Tony Conrad, Mark Kramer, Japanese noise including a Boredoms breakdown and Keiji Haino, plus stuff on Moondog, La Monte Young, Bobby Brown. Very nicely laid out too.”
FISHEYE CATALOGUE
“Extended reading still at the same personal angle as issue #1. #2 hits electronic music running from Tricky through to Musique Concrète, Sun Ra, some Krautrock, Japanese noise, This Heat and all sorts of good stuff is reviewed too. #3 continues the electronics theme taking in the Theremin, Silver Apples and Panasonic, more Krautrock, Jap Noise, plus more good record and book reviews.”
FISHEYE CATALOGUE
“God, this is so good. Though the cover may list an Aladdin’s cave of the great and good in electronica, noise, Prog Rock, space rock, exotica and hip-hop, this zine doesn’t actually feature interviews. Rather, the editor turns record and book reviews into detailed articles with informed criticism, which is a different slant on the usual formats of other zines. The sheer weight of reviews is made easy to swallow by separating subjects into chapters, in this case Japcore / noise, Krautrock, UK improvised music, drum and bass, among smaller sections…Yep, if you want source material on obscure releases, plus understanding the historical context of new music, and contact addresses of people putting out their own noise tapes, then this is a good place to start.”
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL FANZINE no 11
“An absolutely superb magazine. Makes a great alternative to Wire and Audion (or addition, depending on your point of view), it’s well written, well structured and features all sorts of music other mags refuse to cover, or cover very pretetentiously.”
ANDY GARIBALDI
“There’s plenty of the gushy enthusiasm of the recent convert, as well as a great deal of speculation to annoy the well-informed nitpicker. Fortunately, it’s this occasional naivety that makes the magazine so refreshing. Ed and his collaborators have things to say about the music which simply wouldn’t occur to a nerdier crew…”
BRIAN DUGUID in THE WIRE 156
“Sound Projector outsmarts the opposition with accidentally fashionable pieces…like most zines, its pursuit of honest appraisal means it tends to foreground the writers’ personalities over the music, but it stands out for the enthusiastic and informed commentary from Ed Pinsent, Edwin Pouncey and others who really enjoy buying records…”
ED BAXTER in RESONANCE vol 5 no 2
“A singularly eccentric new magazine with impressionistic extended review / features and cartoon visuals on a diverse bunch, including Faust, Keiji Haino, Family Fodder, Harry Partch, Joe Meek, The Theremin, Kramer, et al. Done with a naive charm and sense of exploration from open-minded record collectors.”
THESE RECORDS CATALOGUE
“Seventy perfect bound pages, every one of them brimming with beautifully crafted line drawings and similarly well-crafted record reviews…the magazine sets out to be personal, speculative, eccentric and discursive and freely admits to not trying to be a ‘happening’ zine; rather, a platform for purchases the writers happen to care about – and all power to them for it….”
PHIL McMULLEN in PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE 22
“With no perceivable editorial policy save editor Ed Pinsent’s own tastes, The Sound Projector [Third] hangs together well inside its red, black and white woodcut-styled cover. The older zine editors get, the less intimidated they are by all the style wars that buffeted their youth; finally they’re content to let Prog Rock sit beside Kosmische and Krautstuff contemporary and historical. Also: user-friendly primers on UK improv and estranged Minimalists (Niblock, Palestine and Wada), plenty on Japanese imports, and on Raymond Scott.”
BIBA KOPF in THE WIRE 168
“Edited by Ed Pinsent, whose reviews in Resonance cause Evan Parker so much heartache, you might expect his own Sound Projector [Fifth] to be far more scurrilous than the engaged and engaging, broadranging music digest it is in reality. Charlemagne Palestine, Chris Watson, Simon Fell and Merzbow are interviewed, monolithic music (Die Krupps, Death In June etc) is investigated, Noise, Improv, cosmic guff, free jazz and more are all covered.”
BIBA KOPF in THE WIRE 183
“I’m confident that it’s my favourite ‘new music’ publication. I especially value the record-centred approach you take – the palpable sense of discovery that comes from finding odd records in shops and the usual learning curves that ensue – so much better than the academic or the hip-cultural approaches found in many magazines, and ‘truer’ to the record-collector / discoverer mentality / practice that I’m sure so many of us share. Whilst I don’t share all your enthusiasm – that’s no surprise – I find all the writing (and illustrations) worth reading, since it’s all presented so enthusiastically and so informedly, but so unpretentiously – I’ll never really enjoy Japcore much, but I’ll always enjoy reading about in S.P. Your feature / review on the Unknown Deutsch / Pyramid stuff got me out and listening to it; your peculiar Folk through the Wicker Man piece made me look anew at my own extensive folk collection (and afforded much more thought than much of Folk Roots ‘expert’ coverage); your pieces on Prog are special favourites. I could go on and on…new sounds, old sounds, written about inspiringly and above all with no concern for preference over genre – Norton ‘trash’ can live happily next to AMM next to Bob Davenport next to Charlemagne Palestine… grand and splendid stuff, indeed.”
CHRIS ATTON – FROM A LETTER TO THE EDITOR
“Sound Projector continues to be excellent – it sounds like the people who write for it actually like listening to music and don’t find it too irksome to write about, therefore unique, Shame it’s not a quarterly.”
MARTIN ARCHER
“Quite nice…it’s good to see that you actually think about the stuff rather than accept the ‘handed-down’ ‘wisdom’ of others. Keep it up.”
BYRON COLEY
“This magazine just gets better and better.”
THESE RECORDS CATALOGUE
“Excellent.”
BOB COBBING, SOUND POET