Phantom Power

About Phantom Power

Sound is all around us, but we give little thought to its invisible influence. Dr. Mack Hagood explores the world of sound studies with the world's most amazing sound scholars, sound artists, and acoustic ecologists. How are noise-cancelling headphones changing social life? What did silent films sound like? Is listening to audiobooks really reading? How did computers learn to speak? How do race, gender, and disability shape our listening? What do live musicians actually hear in those in-ear monitors? Why does your office sound so bad? What are Sound Art and Radio Art? How do historians study the sounds of the past? Can we enter the sonic perspective of animals? We've broken down Yoko Ono's scream, John Cage's silence, Houston hip hop, Iranian noise music, the politics of EDM, and audio ink blot tests for blind people. Phantom Power is the podcast that both newcomers and experts in sound studies, sound art, and acoustic ecology listen to--combining intellectual rigor and great audio. SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring the anomalous, the luminous, and the numinous. We’re a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions. ⁠spectrevisionradio.com⁠ ⁠linktr.ee/spectrevision⁠

Publisher

SpectreVision Radio

Category

arts · music · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

12 Mar 2018

Latest episode

2 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

13 of 141 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   2 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Analog Revolutionaries with Theodore Gordon

   Host explores the mysterious "black box" of audio technology with musician, musicologist, and scholar Theodore Gordon, discussing revolutionary synth ideas from visionary musicians.

2. 

   18 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Animal Collective’s Geologist: Still Digging Up Sonic Gems

   Host Mack Hagood interviews Brian Weitz, also known as Geologist from Animal Collective, exploring sonic texture, internet culture, and his fascination with the hurdy-gurdy.

3. 

   28 Aug 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Tashi Dorji: The Radical Openness of Improvisation

   Host Mack Hagood interviews guitarist Tashi Dorji about his radical philosophy of improvisation and its impact on music and life.

Inside a recent episode

Analog Revolutionaries with Theodore Gordon

Published 2 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] She's at the conservatory studying with Roman Sender. And she has a one-track tape recorder, like from Sears, and she puts the microphone of her tape recorder out her window and records the sound outside of her window. And then she rewinds the tape, listens back, and she has this epiphany, which is that technology can sense sound differently than I sense sound. Or rather, there are sounds that exist that I can only access through using feedback of magnetic tape. And So tape becomes this real catalyst for an exploration of consciousness and also kind of like musical desire. She starts to have this improvisation group because her mentor, Robert Harrison, is teaching his students that to get compositional ideas, you should improvise and then record yourself on tape, rewind the tape, see what you did, and then pick out the things you like and write them down. […]

Who has been a guest on Phantom Power

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Theodore Gordon
• Brian Weitz
• Tashi Dorji
• Siavash Amini
• Robin Miles

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

2,227

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.9 / 5

61 ratings

Spotify

4.6 / 5

25 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 58 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

69

Social presence

0

YouTube

68

Engagement

51

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Questions about Phantom Power