More photos and videos from last month’s relaunch of Crossfade Lab in Phoenix with @calaalliancephx . A total joy to work with the extraordinary @karimawalker and @mabefs in shaping a special night of video, performance, sound, music, and story (and walkie-talkies and tuning meditations). Major love to dream team @auntieroman@_sehablaespanol_@sofiaady for all their vision and hard work in making it happen. And special thanks to the Trevor G Browne High School choir for jumping aboard and to @vivaphx for having us as part of this year’s truly awesome festival.
𝘏𝘜𝘕𝘛𝘐𝘕𝘎𝘛𝘖𝘕 𝘚𝘌𝘚𝘚𝘐𝘖𝘕𝘚: We’re back with the third part of our collaboration @thehuntingtonlibrary Inspired by the art exhibition, “the eight directions of the wind: Edmund de Waal at The Huntington,” this series of intimate vinyl listening sessions—co-hosted by creative director @joshdkun and In Sheep’s Clothing—explores themes of exile, sanctuary, and migration.
Session three focuses on a 1977 album by Los Tigres Del Norte, one of the most prominent bands in the norteño genre, based in San Jose, California. Formed by the Hernandez brothers, the band is known for singing corridos. These Mexican narrative folk ballads tell stories about everything from daily life to outlaws. The event will also feature @carlosycharlos , a beloved norteño trio from Los Angeles County, who will perform and take part in a conversation about the album. Formed in 2014, they perform corridos, rancheras, polkas, waltzes, boleros, and redovas at all types of cultural events in Southern California, as well as at backyard celebrations, weddings, and quinceañeras.
Join us for a morning session 9:45am on June 7th at the Huntington Art Gallery Loggia. This event is free with required RSVP ~ link in bio ~
A Day of Quantum Listening. On November 17, 2024, we celebrated the legacy of legendary composer, accordionist, and theorist Pauline Oliveros at the @ebellofla with a program curated by @clairechaseflute for @pstinla . We are now proud to share a short film documenting the day directed and edited by Matthew Beighley @beighleyfilms . Please take a look via @densityarts via link in bio. 🔔👂🏻
Crossfade Lab lingered in the space between signal and response, where nothing arrives alone.
What stayed with us wasn’t just sound or image, but the feeling of being inside something shared. A reminder that listening is an active form, that dissonance can hold care, that we are constantly shaping and being shaped by what surrounds us.
Voices folded into one another. Questions moved through the room and came back altered. What are you seeking? The answers weren’t singular. They echoed, overlapped, and resisted clarity.
What remained was a kind of openness: to each other, to place, to the instability of meaning. A sense that even in fragmentation, there is rhythm. Even in noise, there is relation.
Back in February, @nitejewel and I were invited to visit the Jay T. Last sheet music collection at @thehuntingtonlibrary . 35,000 scores across three centuries of US Popular Music- newly categorized by topic, boxed, indexed, and loaded into an online search database by the collection’s curator David Mihaly. We were kids in a candy store. Ramona went sad song hunting and I was back on my usual LA quest. We could have stayed for days. Now we are bubbling with ideas so stay tuned. Any researcher can schedule a visit. An invaluable resource. Thanks David!!
We’ve been having conversations (on-stage and off-stage) for over 25 years. Excited to continue the tradition with @julietavenegasp at the @grammymuseum to talk about Norteña, her new album and her first book, a memoir of growing up in Baja California.
Crossfade Lab returns with @mabefs and @karimawalker on April 16th, 2026 at @walterstudiosphx as part of @vivaphx
04.16.2026
7PM
Walter Studios
FREE
RSVP link in bio - See you soon ✌🏽
This past Sunday, we gathered for the second listening session on the music of migration and exile in L.A., a collaboration with @insheepsclothinghifi as part of the Edmund de Waal @thehuntingtonlibrary exhibition eight directions of the wind. We focused on the 1979 debut LP by trailblazing Japanese-American band Hiroshima (it sounded big and spacious and deeply sticky and funky on the ISC custom sound system) and were lucky to be joined in person by the band’s co-founder June Kuramoto. June shared stories of the band’s days at the Baby Lion Supper Club in Koreatown, shouted out the radio support of KKGO, and underscored how Hiroshima connected communities and cultures across neighborhoods like Little Tokyo, Boyle Heights, and the Crenshaw district. She spoke on the terror of the WWII Japanese-American prison camps and how they connect directly to contemporary ICE raids and kidnappings, migrant prisons and detention centers. But June’s message was clear: the only way through is moving together. @jinjabrew and @patrickshiroishi then offered a breathtaking performance— butoh, saxophone, sound loops, bells— that carried June’s words and music into the air above the courtyard of the 18th century Shoya House where we assembled— a space originally designed for coming together, for harvesting and sustaining new growth, and imagining new futures. Big thanks to the Huntington’s Robert Hori for inviting us to make this happen, and to @anaiwataki for introducing me to June. Bonus points: @seanmiura was in the house! (A few videos here re-shared from ISC and Patrick). Next session is June 7th.
Dyanne Cano and Josh Kun
Discuss Lost Record Stores: A Map of LA
Saturday, April 4, 2026, 4:00PM
Book Soup
8818 W. Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90069
No RSVP needed
Dyanne Cano is the founder/editor of the archival project, Lost Record Stores, and co-owner of R/D Record Cabinets. As a freelance photographer in the 2000s, their portfolio includes Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power, Le Tigre, Yo La Tengo, Bratmobile and The Gossip. Dyanne’s work has been featured on KCRW and in publications like the LA Times, Flaunt, Paste and SFGATE. They hold a BA in English and Art History from the USC and an MPA from Baruch College - The City University of New York.
Josh Kun is a cultural historian, author, and curator. A MacArthur Fellow and Grammy nominee, his books include Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America, Songs in the Key of Los Angeles, To Live and Dine in L.A., The Autograph Book of L.A., and The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles. He is Vice Provost for the Arts at USC where he is Professor and Chair in Cross-Cultural Communication in the USC Annenberg School.
Inspired by Judy Baca’s landmark mural The Great Wall of Los Angeles, Gustavo Dudamel and Gabriela Ortiz brought together a group of composers Juhi Bansal, Nicolás Lell Benavides, Viet Cuong, Estevan Olmos, Xavier Muzik, and Nina Shekhar to create an hour-long symphonic tribute to the Angelenos who have shaped this city’s history, featuring an original film by director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. The Great Wall of Los Angeles concert will be performed by the LA Phil and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel at Walt Disney Concert Hall on March 7. Thank you to @laphil@dubfrosty for the invitation to write about the project, to @judy_baca and the @sparcinla team for their conversations, kindness, and archival dives, to @sserrato for the design vision, and to all the composers for sharing their stories with me. (Video clip from Bill Moyers, Creativity in America).
𝘏𝘜𝘕𝘛𝘐𝘕𝘎𝘛𝘖𝘕 𝘚𝘌𝘚𝘚𝘐𝘖𝘕𝘚: We’re back with the second part of our collaboration @thehuntingtonlibrary Inspired by the art exhibition, “the eight directions of the wind: Edmund de Waal at The Huntington,” this series of intimate vinyl listening sessions—co-hosted by creative director @joshdkun and In Sheep’s Clothing—explores themes of exile, sanctuary, and migration.
Session two focuses on the self-titled 1979 debut album by the trailblazing Los Angeles band Hiroshima. Formed by Dan Kuramoto and June Kuramoto, Hiroshima pioneered a singular L.A. sound that merged Japanese koto and taiko with jazz, R&B, pop, and funk. Their debut for Arista Records—a landmark of Asian American music— had roots in music scenes in Boyle Heights and Koreatown, and in histories of war, discrimination, protest, and imprisonment that shaped the band’s biographies. The event will feature a conversation with June Kuramoto and a special live performance by multi-instrumentalist @patrickshiroishi and butoh dancer and vocalist @jinjabrew
Join us for a morning session 9:45am on March 22nd at the beautiful Japanese Heritage Shōya House. This event is free with required RSVP ~ link in bio ~
