Today, we're putting The Tonearm's needle on guitarist and composer Sam Wenc.

Wenc is a Philadelphia-based artist who has spent nearly a decade building one of the more distinctive bodies of work in American experimental music, mostly under the name Post Moves.

Now he's released his first album under his own name. It's called Language at an Angle, and it came out on Lobby Art Editions in January. The record grew out of a year of live performances—from Philadelphia to Japan—and it captures Sam doing something specific with pedal steel guitar: striking it, bowing it, treating it as both a sound source and a physical object. The result sits somewhere between drone, jazz, and a kind of American folk music you can't quite place.

Sam's here to walk us through the record, his move to Philadelphia, and what it means to finally put his own name on the work.

(The musical excerpts heard in the interview are from Sam Wenc's Language at an Angle)

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Dig Deeper

• Artist and Album:

Visit Sam Wenc at samwenc.com and follow him on Instagram
Purchase Sam Wenc's album Language at an Angle from Bandcamp or Qobuz, and listen on your streaming platform of choice
Lobby Art Editions — Sam Wenc's label, releasing Language at an Angle and his previous catalog

• Susan Alcorn:

Susan Alcorn — official website of the pedal steel pioneer to whom Language at an Angle is dedicated
And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar — Alcorn's landmark 2007 solo album
Susan Alcorn: Revolutionary Voice of the Pedal Steel Guitar — The Tonearm's tribute, including a full conversation with Alcorn on her album CANTO
Susan Alcorn obituary — WRTI

• Collaborators:

Sam Yulsman — pianist on Language at an Angle; studied with George Lewis at Columbia
Bark Culture — the Philadelphia trio of Victor Vieira-Branco (vibraphone), John Moran (bass), and Joey Sullivan (drums); members appear in Wenc's live band
Victor Vieira-Branco — vibraphonist and Bark Culture leader
Bark Culture — Warm Wisdom — the trio's 2024 debut album

• Venues:

Roulette Intermedium — Brooklyn venue where Wenc held his album release show
The Stone — New York experimental music venue referenced in the episode

• Musical References and Influences:

George Lewis — composer, trombonist, and Columbia University professor; Sam Yulsman trained with him
Okkyung Lee — South Korean cellist and improviser; Wenc cites Alcorn's improvisations with her as influential
Marshall Allen / Sun Ra Arkestra — Marshall Allen, still active in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood, is mentioned by Wenc as part of the city's deep musical lineage
Olivier Messiaen — composer whose work Susan Alcorn famously transposed for pedal steel
Víctor Jara — Chilean singer-songwriter; Alcorn covered his songs

• Additional Context:

Mississippi Records — the independent archival label Wenc manages alongside his own music work
Sam Wenc — Post Moves: Heart Music — released on Where to Now? Records, representative of his work under the Post Moves alias

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Dig into this episode's complete show notes at podcast.thetonearm.com

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Sam Wenc: The Experimental Language of the Pedal Steel Guitar