Curators
Browse all Herb Sundays curators
Jeremy Deller
Jeremy Deller (b. 1966 in London; lives and works in London) studied Art History at the Courtauld Institute and at Sussex University. Deller won the Turner Prize in 2004 and represented Britain in the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. He has been producing projects over the past three decades. He began making artworks in the early 1990s, often showing them outside gallery spaces.
1 playlist
Jeremy Greenspan
Jeremy Greenspan is a musician, producer, songwriter, and engineer from Hamilton, Canada. In the last 20 years, he’s released five albums as part of the duo (though it’s a Nine Inch Nails type thing in many ways) Junior Boys, and co-wrote three albums with fellow Canadian producer and singer Jessy Lanza. Jeremy has co-produced and recorded with other artists such as fellow Hamiltonian Caribou, Morgan Geist, Kelley Polar, and Colin Fisher. He runs Barton Building Studio in Hamilton, and most recently he has produced an album for the artist Man Made Hill which is scheduled to be released on Orange Milk Records this summer.
1 playlist
Jonah Weiner
Jonah Weiner is described as a proper journalist and clotheshorse/aesthete who writes Blackbird Spyplane—a style & culture newsletter offering his ‘unbeatable recon’ of under-served items from around the globe.
1 playlist
Jonnine Standish
Jonnine Standish is, in her own words, a singer/songwriter. Born in Kingston upon Thames, UK in the 1970s and moving to Melbourne/Naarm at the age of 3, she co-founded the group HTRK (pronounced 'Hate Rock') and has lent her voice to collaborations with acts like Croatian Amor, Dreamcrusher, Rowland S. Howard, and Loraine James. She began writing solo music in 2017, earning an Australian Music Prize nomination for her first album (Boomkat Editions, 2020), and even picked up bass guitar through an online course.
1 playlist
Josh Marcy
Josh Marcy is the director of music at Media Arts Lab (Apple’s agency of record) who has spent his life discovering music, making it work with picture, and helping indie artists earn a living. Born and raised in Beverly Hills, he fell in love with dance music at Pomona College and got his start in music supervision while assisting Zalman King. Over the years, his passion for crate digging, remixing, and live shows has led him to collaborate on projects like Locussolus and record emerging talents such as Hanni El Khatib.
1 playlist
Katoman
No one title clearly defines who Katoman is and what he does. One may know him as the person behind the bar counter at beatcafe located in the heart of Shibuya but others may know him as radio personnel or a record label manager. After several words with Katoman, you’ll realize his bottomless musical knowledge which has established him as a respective individual whose influence expands beyond both musical and cultural borders. From an early age, Katoman’s keen ability to catch “the latest music” before it becomes the latest music has given exposure to bands such as Battles, The Locust, The Album Leaf, Nisennenmondai, and The Mars Volta to a wider audience which has placed him in a unique lane of his own. The ambiguous genre “Cheesewave” fabricated by Katoman sparked the curiosity of avid music lovers in various countries. One stop at beatcafe is enough to hold a grasp of the enriching depth Katoman brings to the table. Without him, it’s no doubt Tokyo’s, moreover, Japan’s music scene would.
1 playlist
Kelly Moran
Over the past decade, New York-based composer and producer Kelly Moran has challenged the piano's traditional, classically-imposed school of thought with a more contemporary, experimental approach. An accomplished and highly sought-after composer, Moran has collaborated with artists the likes of Oneohtrix Point Never as part of his touring ensemble for 2018 album Age Of, as well as singer and composer FKA Twigs' live ensemble. Moran has also composed for classical musician Margaret Leng Tan and worked with other visionary contemporaries like Kelsey Lu and Yves Tumor. As a solo artist, Moran's critically acclaimed albums, Bloodroot and Ultraviolet, have explored a variety of extended piano techniques like John Cage-inspired prepared piano and exercises in improvisation. Her unique strand of experimental piano compositions, which conjure hypnotizing textures and dramatic compositional arcs, have been included on year-end lists across classical, avant-garde, and metal genres.
1 playlist
Kevin Saunderson
Kevin Saunderson (b. 1964) is a pioneering Detroit techno producer and DJ, one of the original Belleville Three who helped shape early Detroit techno. Celebrated for his innovative work with Inner City and his enduring influence on electronic music, he continues to push boundaries both as a producer and through his various aliases.
1 playlist
Laurel Halo
Laurel Halo is a musician, DJ and founder of the recording label Awe. Drawing from a range of musical traditions, her output is diverse yet singular, with releases traversing ambient, leftfield club, experimental pop and film score. Since 2012 she has released a number of albums ranging in genre, complexity and scope, including Quarantine (2012, Hyperdub), In Situ (2015, Honest Jon's), Raw Silk Uncut Wood (2018, Latency), and Possessed: OST (2020, Vinyl Factory). She has performed in venues, festivals, clubs and institutions across the world, including the Southbank Centre, Sydney Opera House, The Kitchen, Kölner Philharmonie, CTM/Transmediale, Sónar, Berghain, Nowadays and Montreux Jazz Festival, among others. She has collaborated with musicians, artists and designers including Moritz von Oswald, Metahaven, Kevin Beasley, Julia Holter, Eli Keszler, Leila Bordreuil, Hanne Lippard, Eckhaus Latta, Martine Syms (Herb 68), John Cale, and the London Contemporary Orchestra. Her most recent LP, Atlas, was released in fall 2023 as the debut on her record label, Awe. The album, described as "roadtrip music for the subconscious", is a series of sensual ambient jazz collages featuring instrumentalists such as Bendik Giske, Lucy Railton and Coby Sey. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
1 playlist
Lauren Oyler
Lauren Oyler is an American author based in Berlin and has written two books, this year’s No Judgment, a book of essays, and Fake Accounts (2021). Her essays on books and culture appear in places like The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the London Review of Books, Harper’s Magazine, and the Guardian.
1 playlist
Leo Fitzpatrick
Leo Fitzpatrick is an actor, artist, gallerist and curator. He’s currently the proprietor of LES gallery Public Access, which has a perfectly rough and ready program. It’s an ideal white box to let the kids congregate at. I see Leo as sort of a through-line of NYC youth culture, but instead of just lording over his past, he’s trying to stir up new stuff for the next phase of youth.
1 playlist
Liz Warner
Liz Warner (aka Liz Copeland) has been a friend and personal musical inspiration for 2 decades. Both she and her partner Clark Warner have been involved in Ghostly since the beginning (literally the first party at Detroit club Motor we threw featured the two of them on the decks). Liz has carved out a singular space for herself in music as an adventurer in the spaces around sound. She started in Detroit as a live radio producer and host, which quickly led to roles as a music writer and editor, voice over actor, audio feature producer, television host, event and exhibition curator, live event presenter, and DJ. As the daughter of an aluminum radio tower designer and manufacturer, she has viewed the world through the lens of sound from an early age. She’s known for her voice, which cooled the late-night FM radio shift at NPR-affiliated Detroit public radio station WDET starting in 1995. She’s interviewed folks like Drexciya (a must-listen) and has always brought a keen inquisitiveness and character to her work. Her work has been honored by the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards, the Southern California Journalism Awards, and the Los Angeles Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. When the Warners moved west for a stint, she brought her talents as a resident DJ for Los Angeles broadcaster dublab with her show Alternate Take, and her recent projects include hosting the global music video series Border Blaster produced by Dublab on KCETLink.
1 playlist
Loraine James
Across a remarkable run of releases in barely half a decade, London’s Loraine James has established her identity through a blend of refined composition, gritty experimentation, and unpredictable, intricate electronic programming. While titles released under her given name on the esteemed label Hyperdub tend toward IDM-influenced, vocal-heavy collaborations, James reserves her alias, Whatever The Weather, for a more impressionistic, inward gaze. On Whatever The Weather II, rich worlds of layered textures flow seamlessly from hypnotic ambience, to mottled rhythms, to cut-up collages of diaristic field recordings. The result is a uniquely fractured beauty, born from a compelling union of organic and human elements, processed through a variety of digital and analogue methods.
1 playlist
ML Buch
Marie Louise Buch is a Copenhagen-based composer, producer, guitarist, and vocalist who collaborates often with other great artists like CTM (formerly of Choir of Young Believers). Following her debut EP Fleshy (2017), she released the acclaimed Skinned (2020) on Danish imprint Anyines, and her new album Suntub on the 15 Love label is making the rounds as one of the most striking albums of the year.
1 playlist
Marcus J. Moore
Marcus J. Moore is a music journalist, editor, curator, pundit, A&R, music supervisor, and author of The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America. He’s working on his next book, High and Rising, a cultural biography of Herb Gods De La Soul, to be published by HarperCollins. Moore has been a contributing writer with The Nation and a contributing editor with Bandcamp Daily. His coverage of soul, jazz, rap, and rock can be found in The New York Times, Pitchfork, TIME, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, The Washington Post, NPR, Rolling Stone, and The Atlantic, among other outlets. He’s also written extensive liner notes for albums by Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis, among others, and bios for Chance The Rapper, Erykah Badu, and Jhené Aiko, to name a few. Ever the cratedigger, he compiles playlists for local restaurants, bars, coworking spaces, and cafés, and has been known to deejay in Brooklyn, East Africa, and the Washington, D.C. area. In 2020, he released his own album, a compilation of obscure jazz and Black Liberation soul, for indie label Paxico Records.
1 playlist
Margeaux Labat
Margeaux Labat is a music recommender (my word, if it is a word) and curator based in Brooklyn. She posts videos about her music discoveries/passions on TikTok and Instagram under the handle @marg.mp3, as well as long-form artist interviews on her YouTube channel. She also holds down an excellent NTS radio show and is a member of the Pitchfork video team.
1 playlist
Mark Fell
Mark Fell is a multidisciplinary artist based in Rotherham (UK). His practice draws upon electronic music subcultures, experimental film, contemporary philosophy, and radical politics. Over the past 30 years, Fell’s output has grown into a significant body of work – from early electronic sound works and recorded pieces to installations, critical texts, curatorial projects, educational systems, and choreographic performances. His work has been seen or experienced in some of the most renowned galleries and museums in the world and has been recognized by ARS Electronica (Linz). His collaborations include experimental legends such as Laurie Spiegel, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Okkyung Lee, Luke Fowler, Will Guthrie, Terre Thaemlitz, John Chowning, Ernest Edmonds, Peter Rehberg, Oren Ambarchi, and Mat Steel (as SND). In 2022, he published “Structure and Synthesis, The Anatomy of Practice” with Urbanomic press, which brings together the various strands of his philosophical and political thinking into an analysis of creative practice. These days, you’ll find him appearing across the globe, with live shows and collaborations keeping him active in the art and music scenes.
1 playlist
Mark Leckey
Mark Leckey is a UK contemporary artist (a second Turner Prize winner in these pages after Jeremy Deller, Herb 36) in the tradition of artists like Mike Kelley, moving from medium to medium with ease, searching for another way to rid himself of (or delve back into) his memories and ideas. He’s also a music person, helming a regular NTS radio show, working with artists like Lung Dart, and releasing audio components of his work on labels like The Death Of Rave, Warp, and Boomkat Editions. This is why I’ve been insistent on him being a part of the Herb catalogue.
1 playlist
Martine Syms
Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles (CA)) obtained a MFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (NY) (2017) and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (IL) (2007). Syms has earned wide recognition for a practice that combines conceptual grit, humour and social commentary. Using a combination of video, installation and performance, often interwoven with explorations into technique and narrative, Syms examines representations of blackness and its relationship to vernacular, feminist thought, and radical traditions. Syms’s research-based practice frequently references and incorporates theoretical models concerning performed or imposed identities, the power of the gesture, and embedded assumptions concerning gender and racial inequalities.
1 playlist
Matthew Schnipper
Matthew is a beautiful writer, the kind I want to be one day. He’s honed his chops as Fader’s editor-in-chief, Pitchfork’s executive editor, and now as an editor at Vice. The music he finds is often incredibly “rare” and I’m reminded how much deeper I need to search.
1 playlist