Laura Cocks is a flutist who resides in New York City. Recent releases include, FATHM (Out of Your Head/Relative Pitch, 2025), Music For Two Flutes (with Weston Olencki; Hideous Replica, 2024), field anatomies (Carrier Records, 2022), and many releases with TAK ensemble.
the tradition by GAX
I heard one half of GAX, Vasco Alves, live in February 2025 and haven’t been able to stop thinking about his performance since then. This whole cassette by GAX is absolutely phenomenal, so please do listen, & while you’re at it, listen to everything that Infant Tree puts out. This first track is a total ocean of breath and quantum friction. There are few things more exciting to me than the many-layered rhythmicity of this one. Listen to it in the dark right before bed, or – and I mean this quite honestly – dance to it.
“For Those Who Wish to Sing Will Always Find a Song” by Ryan Sawyer, Performed by Ryan Sawyer’s Shaker Ensemble
This track could be shared for the absolute wilderness & sensitivity of Ryan Sawyer’s technique on maracas alone – their care for the intricacies involved will fully move you. But there’s universes to be unpeeled here at every layer. This is a live recording and you hear the sanctity of friendship, the urgency of contact.
I recommend listening to this at any moment in your day, but ideas include: a 45-minute commute in which you can occasionally close your eyes; at home alone or with others at dawn, midday, dusk, or night; laying in the backseat of a car with the windows down. Fun disclaimer: I’m playing flutes on this one, but that’s 100% not why it’s on here, this work is a total godsend.
Roots in the Sky by Trina Basu and Arun Ramamurthy
The release of Amplify Palestine’s BDS Mixtape 3 was a much celebrated occasion in my aural world, and I found myself returning repeatedly to this track in particular. Listening to it is like being reminded of what it feels like to learn to breathe in different durations. I love the relatable-ness of the dynamics at play here – they feel so human, and, what’s more, they make me want to be human.
It’s rich and vibrant and will put you right where you need to be. I’ve found it’s incredible to listen to this track while just sitting at the table – there’s a plethora of options here, but I like listening to this one as though I’m listening to someone speak.
Aphid and a Palm on the Top of Orange Cliff by Nursalim Yadi Anugerah, Performed by JACK Quartet
I’ll tell anyone who will listen, but I’ve been a fan of Yadi’s music for years and years (and of course a JACK Quartet superfan) & this recent collaboration is an absolute portal. It sounds like what I imagine the lines on your fingertips would hear if they had ears and you traced them slowly across every leaf you stopped to cherish.
There’s an unending stream of adjectives that I want to share with you to help make you excited to listen to ths entire work, but I’ll limit it to these: tidal, tannic, mineral, unending. Listen to this one when you’re not sure what planet you’re on, but want to give yourself room to be as specific as possible in that unknowing.
Foggy Mountain Breakdown/Ground Speed performed by Weston Olencki
There’s everything you could want in this perfect track from this perfect record. There’s place and there’s movement, and there’s also the movement of time in a place held like a little ball of spun silver that you might eat, which is to say there’s legend. What I love most – and it’s truly a hard-won battle to not just say ‘everything’ – is the form of this track. Some shifts you might notice, others you will only register once they’ve already begun to unfold. And once registered, the steps can’t be retraced because you’ve somehow moved only an inch in that last mile.
And now we’re here. And now here somehow becomes more here. And even more. And when you think here couldn’t possibly be more endemic to itself, it somehow is. Listen to this one when you want to remember what’s possible if you – and I fully mean this from the bottom of my cliché heart – love the journey.
Water Margin by Charmaine Lee
This track feels like an invitation, and it has been the landscape of much introspection for me over the last few months. There is a feeling of breadth here that somehow moulds the fever-like quality of being pulled from all of the points on your personal circumference into something tangible and clarifying – layers of thick warmth envelope something brittle and on the brink. There’s a sense of possibility in this one that tells grief to be hopeful. I’ve enjoyed listening to this one when I don’t know what else to listen to – not because there’s anything indecisive here, but because there’s something wise.
Stemmed outwards by Chris Williams, Performed by Williams and Patrick Shiroishi
This gorgeous offering from Chris Williams features Patrick Shiroishi transports me to what I imagine it feels like to be a rock skipping on a planet with a very different sense of gravity, or one of those rainbows that get cast against a wall from a prism that’s being shaken by the wind. I love this sense of motion, and the chasm this track casts it in. Listen to this one in the bath, while floating in water or drinking it, or first thing in the morning.
The Wind Doesn’t Blow This Far Right by Lisa O’Neill
This one has words that speak for themselves, so I’ll let them. I don’t remember how I first heard this track, but I haven’t stopped turning it over and over since. Neither should you – listen to this one at your leisure, frequently.
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