Joel Stern

Enjoyable going through all my records for a stocktake/audit. This one is special. The fake Pole LP pressed by fatcat, subsequently withdrawn and branded with an X when the artist alerted them to the prank. It's good. Picked up in London around 2001 "The Pole story was a costly mess. I think probably it was a prank that got out of hand and for which no-one had the balls to own up to. It felt at the time like a betrayal by friends. In retrospect, there were definitely clues being dropped that it was a prank, and I should have twigged, but when you’re snowed under and just not expecting something like that to happen, then you can miss it… We spent quite a bit of money mastering and then pressing 100 or so copies on vinyl – which we used to use for promo mailouts back then – and it happened at a time when budgets and margins were starting to being really scrutinised and questions raised about the viability of releasing the more leftfield stuff in particular, so it really didn’t go down well and made things more precarious for future releases in the series. Hardly any of them made any money as it was. I burnt a big ‘X’ through the sleeves of those press copies and gave them away free on the door at a Split Series gig we put on shortly after.  Maybe I will write about it properly one day, but I’ve long since gotten over it" - Dave Howell.

Love this — and all my Lol Coxhill records. This LP is notable for the track ‘Tuburcular Balls’, which is what has entered my head ever since whenever that Mike Oldfield nonsense comes on.

𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 performing at 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍 # 𝟏𝟏 on 8 May, along with 𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡, 𝐋𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬 𝐆𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐮𝐬, and 𝐨𝐡𝐦𝐢. A big thank you to all attended. 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 is a platform for collaborative research and artistic experimentation, founded in 2020 by 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐃𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐫𝐚𝐲, 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐫, and 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 in order to subject automated systems to political and aesthetic scrutiny. The collective works across writing, installation, performance, music, software, curation, pedagogy, and radio. @machinelistening @sdockray @sternjoel

new performance tomorrow — friday 8 may, naarm cbd (@hair__ari ). machine listening trio w/ @sdockray + james parker. improvised dataset theatre, indexical uncanny, konvolute in (un)real time. final test before nz. ⸻ HAIR is thrilled to present the return of our sound performance series. 𝐒𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐍 # 𝟏𝟏 features live sound works by 𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡, 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐋𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬 𝐆𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐮𝐬 and 𝐨𝐡𝐦𝐢. One night only, off-gallery set up. Please join us on 𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝟖 𝐌𝐚𝐲. Doors open at 6pm. Free entry. 𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐡 is a composer and artist working across music, video performance, and installation. As co-founder of Essendon Airport, he helped define a distinctive minimalist, post-punk sound, while early solo recordings such as 50 Synthesizer Greats established a rough, concept-driven approach to electronic music, often marked by irony, humour, and experimentation. 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 is a platform for collaborative research and artistic experimentation, founded in 2020 by 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐃𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐫𝐚𝐲, 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐫, and 𝐉𝐨𝐞𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧 in order to subject automated systems to political and aesthetic scrutiny. The collective works across writing, installation, performance, music, software, curation, pedagogy, and radio. 𝐋𝐞𝐰𝐢𝐬 𝐆𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐮𝐬 is a Naarm/Melbourne-based composer, artist, and writer whose practice spans music, immersive installation, video, and text. His recent works have explored questions of sounding, listening and embodiment relating to genres such as Gothic romanticism, science fiction, and the weird. 𝐨𝐡𝐦𝐢 is a Naarm based musician, producer, and co-founder of Altar space. Their sonic practice explores spacious and dystopian worlds through a combination of electronic and acoustic instruments. @chesworth.d @machinelistening @sternjoel @sdockray @lewiscancut @ohmi HAIR’s 2026 exhibition program is supported by @cityofmelbourne Drinks sponsorship @rewineoz @bricklanebrewing Poster design @meeweeweem Organised by @cristea_zhao

Playing tomorrow (Wed) night @northcotesocialclub with the excellent @irahadzic , part of @liquid_architecture ’s Li(quid) Listening. Improvisations for Buchla Easel, cloned voices, and music boxes — different species of machine music, somehow alive. Wed 22 April 8pm Northcote Social Club 301 High St, Northcote Li(quid) Listening brings together irregular but precise sonic practices across high/low forms — music, politics, technology, theory — all hovering at the edge of global sound culture. If anyone needs guestlist, let me know x

Pleased to spend time with Kristen Gallerneaux’s excellent new album Life Day, and to review it for @thequietus — this week’s Album of the Week. Thanks to editor Robert Barry for the invitation, and to @k_gallerneaux for such a rich, layered, deeply felt work. Its themes — life after a sudden confrontation with mortality — resonate strongly with me for reasons known to all my friends. A gift to think through some of this via such a beautiful record. Read at The Quietus, and pick up a copy via @shadowworldarchive "Gallerneaux’s writing frequently circles obsolete or marginal media: radio transmissions, early synth prototypes, EVP recordings, not as relics, but as sites where time folds in on itself. There is a recurring gesture of bringing something back into contact with itself across time through layers of mediation. In this sense, Life Day is hauntological. Not in the familiar register of longing for lost pasts or futures. But more in its concern with persistence: of bodies, of signals, of sonic artefacts that continue beyond their source."

@machinelistening lecture/performance tomorrow evening at @mca_australia as part of Vision Machines series oganised with @the_power_institute . Details below. Our work telescopes in on the meaning of 'the egocentric subject produced by the dataset' in the 'reality lab' that we call life. Come along. ----- Technologies don’t just capture images – they interpret, analyse and act on what they see. Join us for the second session of the three-part series Vision Machines, co-presented by the Power Institute and the MCA. Gain insights from academics Chris O’Neill and Elizabeth Stephens, as well as research and art collective Machine Listening, as they consider how vision machines create models of reality. Program curators Andrew Brooks and Nick Croggon will also moderate a discussion examining how model-making machines have shaped the world. The night concludes with The Present is an End by T. Morimoto (Tom Smith), a live performance using a web browser to combine moving image, text and sound into a speculative vision of the future.

Opening tomorrow in Aotearoa/New Zealand, is Direct Bodily Empathy — Sound, Signal, Feedback. Machine Listening’s Environments 12 plays daily in the Len Lye Cinema at 1:30pm on 4 April – 3 June, 25 June – 26 August, 10 September – 11 October. 📢 Alongside Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Andrew Faleatua + Stroma, Simon Ingram, Len Lye, Machine Listening, Yuko Mohri, Aura Satz, Rachel Shearer, Weather Cry, YoungEun Kim, and curated by Anna Briers. 

Direct Bodily Empathy – Sound, Signal, Feedback explores sound as a material force of consequence in the world. Through audible currents and felt vibrations, sirens and noise, deep listening is used as a means of knowledge building and a tool for critically engaging with a planet in crisis.

If you haven’t heard it yet, Environments 12 is a, speculative addition to the once-popular Environments series (1969-79) that anticipated a mass-market in mood-altering nature recordings. In our work, a more-than-human chorus tells and retells stories of ‘psychologically ultimate seashores’, reef lullabies, natural symphonies designed for zoo enclosures, and large language models for whales and crows. A collection of songs and fables recovered from the ruins of a future history. Now released through Belgium’s @futura_resistenza 🌀

Heading to Castlemaine on Saturday to perform in support of the excellent @julianwiliams , who’s launching his new EP. I’ve long admired Julian’s solo work and his performances with hi god people, so it’s an honour to be part of this. I’ll be joined by old friend and collaborator @cured.pink_official Andrew McLellan, visiting from Sydney—you might know him from Cured Pink and Witness K. I first met Andrew when he was a 17-year-old transplant from Cairns, turning up to noise shows in Brisbane in the late 2000s with big hair and a cool attitude. We’ve played together and released records over the years as Soft Power, Greg Boring, and in various short-lived ventures you can still find if you google diligently. Expect some peacefully out-of-tune electroacoustic sketches that add up to one big question mark.

Machine Listening is at Vision Machines next week! 👁️🖥️ Find us on Thursday 9 April 6-8pm for session two ‘Models. How vision machines see the world’ at @mca_australia in Gadigal/Sydney co-presented with @the_power_institute The Vision Machines series brings together artists, researchers and writers to think through how technological systems are changing what it means to see and produce ‘models’ of the world. We’ll be presenting alongside Chris O’Neill and Elizabeth Stephens, followed by a conversation moderated by Andrew Brooks and Nick Croggon. The night concludes with a live performance by T. Morimoto (Tom Smith), weaving browser-based image, text and sound into a speculative future. Hope to see you there. 👀 —��Video render from from 55 Falls / Ambient Assisted Living (2025), a two-channel video installation with four-channel audio by Machine Listening (Sean Dockray, James Parker, Joel Stern), commissioned for The Mourning After at RMIT Design Hub.

Appearing tonight on @pbsfm from 10pm (AEST) on The Sound Barrier with Ian Parsons. I’ll be discussing recent solo and @machinelistening works exploring synthetic nature, voice cloning, hideous replication, and cybernetic music. An honour to be on such a great program—tune in on air or online whenever you like.

Two upcoming concerts.