Forgot to share these writeups of several records I’ve been listening to recently—here they are.
This year has been real quiet for Thoughts of a Certain Sound. Work, extracurricular projects, and life have seriously cut down the time I’m able to spend on writing.
Nevertheless, I have some work coming down the line I’m excited about. A whole slate of new interviews, a redesign project, and some new essays… as I find time to write them.
Because my pace of publishing has slowed down so much, I’ve reduced the cost of subscriptions to $5 per month, which, in San Francisco prices, is about two-thirds the cost of a single beer or iced matcha.
In any case, I hope you enjoy maybe listening to some new (or kinda old-ish but new to you?) records. Thanks for reading!
@c__z__ headlined our first gathering with a thesis defense in two parts: first, his theory of non-euclidean beat geometry, then a blistering rebuttal to tech house haters worldwide. Throughout, he fielded questions on bodies in motion. “How do you float at the club?” Like this.
Clear your living room and turn on your sub for this one, linked you know where.
Thank you again @_buckwilson_ for mastering our first pair of recordings.
We expect further advancements in drum science at our return to the Public Works Loft. Stay tuned and save the date: Thursday, April 23rd.
stratus 004 :: music for listening
saturday, april 11 :: 4 p.m. – 10 p.m.
pallas gallery, 1111 geary st., san francisco
hosted by llloyd & DJ CZ
with special guests:
Motoko & Myers (Wonja + DJML) // Oakland, CA
food by Nupoor
drinks by Etteila Wines
scents by endev
🎟️ via RA–bio link
stratus is an event series dedicated to soundsystem music outside of club spaces :: music for listening, for gathering, for absorbing, for diving into.
we’re hosting two dear friends from across the bay: Oakland artists–producers–DJs Wonja & DJML, aka Motoko & Myers, an alias the pair have used on releases from Cone Shape Top, Soda Gong, Future Times, and Bass Clef’s Open Hand Real Flames. besides their production work, the two operate a long-running show on Lower Grand Radio called Do/While, showcasing far-out sounds from all over the globe. we’re thrilled to have them as stratus guests and can’t wait to dive deep into their selections.
as always, we ask that guests keep voices and conversation to a minimum inside the main gallery, and please be mindful of space when sitting or lying down. we’re cultivating space for intentional listening. thank you for journeying with us!
our friend and talented chef Nupoor returns, serving a delicious meal (meat & veg options available) around eveningtime. if you’d like to enjoy a bite, please pre-order your meal through RA—it helps us prepare the right amount of food :)
low-intervention wine by Etteila Wines and N/A beverages will be available for purchase throughout the evening.
🔊:: inner & inward :: far-out & fantastical :: drumless & dreaming :: soft touch, quiet sound :: spirit forward, carriage return :: no place like home :: music for listening
Outsider Sounds and Visions Fest is a two day music festival in West Oakland March 27 and 28, 2026 celebrating the twenty year anniversary of @ratskinrecords happening at First Church Of The Buzzard in West Oakland as well as streaming online featuring over thirty five bands / performances. Presale ticket link in our bio.
We are beyond enthralled to bring on legendary underground sonic seances in nightclub form masters @surfacetension.sf for a special set of performances for OSAV Fest. Their influence is beyond description and we can’t wait to hit these zones together on the dance floor.
Surface Tension is overjoyed to be a part this rare and crucial convocation of the wild electronic spirits. CZ and Jason P will be supporting a mind-boggling range of live acts and closing the dance floor Friday, and Jason P will be supporting solo on Saturday.
SURFACE TENSION Once and future experimental club night Surface Tension was launched in 2013 by Justin Anastasi, Nihar Bhatt, Damon Way, Jason P. and Chris Zaldua (aka DJ CZ).
Surface Tension presented an alternative vision of club culture in which techno, bass music, and left-field experimental sounds were each constituent parts of a greater whole.
In pursuit of this conception, Surface Tension hosted S.F. debut performances by a slew of internationally renowned artists, including Sandra Electronics (Regis + Silent Servant), Beau Wanzer, Powell, Orphx, Djrum, E-Saggila, Inga Copeland, and more.
Lapsing in 2018, Surface Tension’s co-founders focused on other musical projects, including the record label Left Hand Path and the club nights TVOD, Vague Terrain, and stratus, before returning in December 2025 for a night at Gray Area as part of the Recombinant Media Festival.
Thank you to our festival sponsors @psychiceyerecords@vitalartsorg@sixtyhurts_records@thepinballstore
Hearing ambient music in a live setting isn’t a new phenomenon - the legend of the “chillout room” is permanently engraved as a key component of ‘90s electronic music culture. But during the past year or so, a new kind of ambient music event has begun to pop up, one that not only takes place outside of the usual club and party paradigm, but prioritizes both community gathering and deep listening.
@c__z__ has seen the phenomenon developing first hand in San Francisco, and has also contributed by organizing some ambient events of his own. In this guest piece for First Floor, he takes a closer look at what’s happening, tracing the history of ambient events while also sharing his own modern-day experiences, including the significant difficulty of putting on music events where selling alcohol is not the primary objective.
In a time where much of the talk about contemporary electronic music culture is (for good reason) rather negative, Zaldua has found a glimmer of hope in these events, and points out that they’re actually happening all around the globe.
Follow the link in the usual spot to read the full piece. The paywall is currently down, but only for the next 24 hours, so move fast.
Photo by @lesslowmoremid , taken at un/becoming, an event organized by San Francisco crew @the_v_0_i_d .
✏️ certainsound.net
Just published: an interview with Phipps Pt., the Bay Area duo of Lovage Sharrock and Jon Leidecker (aka Wobbly), whose album ‘Songs We No Longer Sing’ was one of my favorite discoveries of 2025.
I loved hearing from the two of them about intermingling their two very different practices: Lovage is a guitarist and songwriter, Jon is a computer musician. Over a decade-long span, the two moved from a “writer-producer” relationship toward a genuine collaborative process, cemented together by live performance. It’s a really cool story to match an absolutely beautiful record.
Read on: certainsound.net
Artist spotlight: DJ CZ ( @c__z__ )
Https://device23.secretparty.io
CZ is a figurehead of independent music culture as a DJ, writer, and promoter. Over 15+ yrs, CZ fiercely fought for, innovated within, and set grand vision for the future of independent bay area music. CZ is perfectly suited as a laboratory technician for the next installment of 'Device 23' which addresses the corporate take over of dance music culture
In the early 2010s we knew Chris as a regular DJ at Parameter + founding member of Surface Tension hosting events showcasing the bleeding edges of left-field dance music. Later iterations include Vague Terrain, exploring experimental club electronics. More recently, his vision evolving into 'Stratus', dedicated to sound system music outside of club spaces where attendees absorb and dive deep into listening experiences. With an immense knowledge of the electronic music history, DJ CZ is a high value wildcard. Capable of playing anything + everything, weaving seemingly disparate realms into quilted fabrics of auditory universes both at once familiar and entirely novel. A rare breed of sonic mastery cultivated over a lifetime of unbridled passion for music which stirs one's soul into peaceful dreams, ecstatic revelations, and contemplative expansion
A widely published cultural commentator and currently found via his own platform 'Thoughts of a Certain Sound' (certainsound.net) CZ surgically dissects, evaluates, and reconstructs the intricacies of the scene + theorizes on music culture at large. After the tragic fires in Oakland, CZ championed the underground, extending himself to educate the mainstream press + its readers, dynamically reframing the narrative, invoking the intrinsic importance of independent music + the people who foster it. Through moving memorials of those passed on too soon, reflections on capitalist /corporate influences on housing, venues, ticketing, streaming, etc., or compelling dives into the avant-garde, CZ is a beacon of intellect, insight, and razor-sharp vulnerable honesty
With immeasurable excitement we host DJ CZ for a 90m peak hrs set @ SPAGHETTI CODE LAB
📷 Miriah Tiffany
MUSIC AND DANCE ARE LANGUAGES OF FREEDOM
SPAGHETTI CODE LAB
FRIDAY FEB 6TH 2026
https://device23.secretparty.io
DJ CZ @c__z__
Dropper @travisdropper
D-Syn @d_synthesis
Faited @faited.fdotf
no.e saKAna @jno.eparker
Riflefeet @riflefeet
+Resident rotation w/
B-Rad @b_rad254_
Waht @dowahttnoww
Psyop @psyop.flac
Tix - https://device23.secretparty.io
No door tix
Camping, music, dance, food in a beautiful permitted forest
Approx 45 mins from SF/Oak
Early arrival at noon on 2/6 depart by noon 2/7
Join us for the next installment of 'DEVICE 23', an experiential series exploring the for-profit corporate infiltration and exploitation of dance music culture
~SPAGHETTI CODE is tangled source code with messy, unstructured logic which jumps around unexpectedly resulting in hard to understand and at times volatile results. A core group of renegade developers sought to inject this tangled code into the transmissions of THE SQUARES, disrupting their candy sweet mind-control marketing directed at ravers. These renegades, known as the 'SPAGHETTI CODERS' have been secretly developing 'DEVICE 23', capable of jamming THE SQUARES transmissions and liberating those under its insidious mind control by opening a SPIRAL VORTEX of music and dance
THE SQUARES transmissions are a ploy to extract profit from cultural phenomenon they have long sought to control with zero concers but to fill their pockets and greedy investors seeking to siphon the culture dry to fund their agendas of world domination. Disguised as invitations to ecstatic release, the transmissions subliminal authority directs the fashion, speech, and behaviors of their targets to conform, comply, and pay a fee to consume a product they brand as 'RAVE', yet it is simply a mirage of nostalgia imprisoned in a corporate hell scape
THOUGHT SOCIETY was given unfinished pieces of DEVICE 23 capable of opening the SPIRAL VORTEX to feed energy into the SPAGHETTI CODERS secret lab, powering development of device 23. After last week's SPIRAL VORTEX at 'NO U-TURN' sufficient energy has been collected. The time has come to for ravers to enter THE LAB and see the device for themselves before full deployment later this year ~
MUSIC AND DANCE ARE LANGUAGES OF FREEDOM
Quicksand I
1/29 8pm - 1am in the Public Works loft
Inaugurating a party where DJs move the crowd with sparing recourse to functional dance music and intensity is understood in terms other than hard and fast.
We’ve invited a pair of our favorite locals to interpret the theme: @c__z__ , selector/writer/party starter/scene lynchpin, and @staticvibecheck , rising star with tekkerz for days. @__col.son__ , quicksand resident, kicks off proceedings.
Let’s throw some weird shapes.
——
Tickets in bio
Design by @keane.wah
✏️ certainsound.net
Freshly repressed eleven years after release, I wrote about one of my favorite albums of all time, HTRK’s “Psychic 9-5 Club,” which is also one of the most influential albums of the 21st century, in my estimation.
I tried to capture in words how much time I’ve spent with this record, and how much it shaped me. From people who’ve reached out to me after reading this essay, it seems many others feel the same way about it, too.
If you haven’t already heard this record, you have a wonderful experience awaiting you. If you have, and you love it as much as I do, perhaps these words will resonate.
Read on: certainsound.net
