Founders
& Frequencies
Where music, identity, and the people building tomorrow's tools intersect. Long-form profiles, album reviews, and conversations from the cohort of working artists who are also running real companies.
The Imogen Heap Equation — Where Music Tech Becomes Music
Two decades into her career, Imogen Heap is the cleanest single example of the founder-artist model. The Mi.Mu gloves, the Endel collaboration, and *Sparks* are the same project asked from three different angles.
By Vera Sokolov · 2026-02-28 · 12 min read
Eleven pieces on records, founders, and the overlap.
Brian Eno's Quiet Decades of Founding Companies
The producer most listeners associate with Roxy Music and the ambient catalog has spent forty years on the company-building side of the practice as well. The companies are quieter than the records, on purpose.
By Linus Embry
The Quiet Boom in Founder-Owned Record Labels
A new generation of working operators is funding boutique labels alongside their day businesses. The model is older than it looks. Five working examples and what each is doing differently.
By Editorial Team
Wendy Carlos and the First Synthesizer Album That Sold a Company
*Switched-On Bach* sold a million copies in 1968 and turned the Moog synthesizer from a research curiosity into a working musician's instrument. It is the canonical example of an album as commercial vehicle for a piece of hardware.
By Vera Sokolov
Rivers Cuomo's Spreadsheets — Engineering a Career as a Band
The Weezer frontman has been quietly running his songwriting practice as a database for almost thirty years. The system is invisible on the records, which is the point.
By Linus Embry
Andrew Rollins, Also Known as ROGA: A Conversation
A working AI operator based in Chiang Mai released a debut album this year under the name ROGA. We sat down with him to ask why someone shipping technical work would also choose to make a record.
By Linus Embry
The Suno × Warner Settlement: Music's Spotify Moment
Warner Music's November 2025 settlement with Suno is a hinge in the AI-music story. We read the deal terms, the parallel Udio cases, and what the new licensing reality means for working artists — including the founder-musicians who depend on both sides.
By Vera Sokolov
The Singapore–Bangkok–Chiang Mai Music + Tech Cluster
SuperAI 2026 at Marina Bay Sands. TOKEN2049 in October. Wonderfruit in December. A measurable inflow of founder-musicians on the Destination Thailand Visa. The Asia-Pacific corridor is becoming the next New York–Berlin–Tokyo route for AI-music-adjacent creatives, and the corridor has a recognizable shape now.
By Editorial Team
Ten Founders Who Are Also Touring or Releasing Musicians
The overlap between people running companies and people making records has stopped being a curiosity and started being a movement. Here are ten founder-artists whose music is genuinely worth your time.
By Vera Sokolov
Why So Many AI Founders Are Releasing Albums Right Now
The overlap between AI founder and recording artist used to be rare. It is no longer rare. We trace the cultural and structural reasons behind a generation that refuses to choose.
By Linus Embry
Polymath Energy: How Multi-Discipline Work Strengthens Both Sides
The conventional wisdom is that doing more than one thing weakens both. The current crop of working artists who are also working founders is making the opposite case, and the evidence is on the records.
By Linus Embry
The Chiang Mai Sound: Notes on a Quietly Emerging Scene
Northern Thailand has been a creative refuge for years. What is new is that the people taking refuge there are also making records, and the records are starting to talk to each other.
By Editorial Team
From the Studio to the Stack: Interview Series
We are launching an ongoing interview series with founder-artists who are doing serious work on more than one surface. The debut subject is Imogen Heap.
By Editorial Team
The Loneliness of Building Something New: Music From People Who Ship
There is a particular kind of solitude that builders know. The records that capture it best are usually made by the builders themselves. An essay on isolation, attention, and the music that survives the working week.
By Linus Embry
A music magazine for working artists who are also building real things.
Founders & Frequencies covers the cohort of working-artist working-founders making serious work on more than one surface. We do long-form reviews, conversations, and scene reports — and we keep the standards on both sides of the practice.
This issue runs the gamut: profiles of musicians who built companies, a piece on the quiet boom in founder-owned record labels, an essay on Brian Eno's lesser-known startup decades, and the historical record on Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach as a commercial vehicle.
The cohort is small. The records are real. We keep the standards on both sides.
POLYMATHS
Profiles, conversations, and the long arc of the founder-artist cohort.
Open Issue 2 →
The listening diary.
- 2026-05-21 · LP
Adela Nuñez — Lluvia Doble
Casa Hueca (LP) · Mexico City
A debut that arrives without theatrics. The voice sits inside the room rather than declaring at it. The closing track has been on rotation all week.
- 2026-05-18 · EP
KOJO ATA — Counterweight (II)
Counterweight (EP) · Lagos
Six tracks, every one of them built on a different rhythmic spine. It is the kind of record that makes you forget your laptop is open.
- 2026-05-15 · LP
Half-Light Quartet — Northbound, Slowly
Cartography (LP) · Reykjavik
Closer to a long exhale than an album. Useful at 4 am when you have written yourself into a corner and need the room to stop talking.
- 2026-05-07 · Single
Marlowe Stinson — Trade Wind
Trade Wind (Single) · Brooklyn
A producer who used to ship internal tools for a fintech and now releases small, immaculate singles every six weeks. Sounds like the work he describes.