May 13, 2026 | Leave a comment Hot off the presses, a piece I’ve been working on for the last few months for harmonica and computer, Melting Voices. I’ve been thinking a lot about the echo chamber of social media and group think recently. It seems as if society is becoming more and more polarized as we stop talking to each other, and instead for insular bubbles of likeminded voices that echo and repeat our a priori assumptions and opinions without challenging falsehoods or allowing for a reevaluation of a prior position. Worse, it seems that this is becoming more and more the cultural norm, with groupthink and tribalism manifesting more and more outside of the internet. And the rise of AI has only further accelerated this trend as we now communicate with sycophantic auto-complete machines. That’s the impetus behind Melting Voices – using a set of eight glitched delay line to simulate the online echo chamber that, depending on your perspective drowns out all dissent, or creates a circular firing squad of self-reinforcing ideas. This line of thinking leads to a simple set of questions: what are we really saying if we’re only speaking to people who mirror our thinking? Can we escape from these self-constructed bubbles? Can we learn to respectfully and meaningfully communicate with each other once again? Or are we doomed to nothing but constant validation from an obsequious digital hive-mind? Sadly, I don’t have any answers.