Hello, I’m Joshua Minsoo Kim. I’m a culture writer and film programmer whose writing about music and film can be found at Pitchfork, BOMB Magazine, The Wire, Rolling Stone, NPR, the Chicago Reader, Stereogum, Billboard, Metrograph, Cinema Scope, and MUBI Notebook. I’m the founder and editor-in-chief of Tone Glow. I’m currently writing a book about music, sound, and silence in avant-garde film for Repeater Books. I’m also a high school science teacher in the Chicagoland area.

Contact: Email | Twitter | Instagram | Letterboxd
Work Archives: Interviews | Film Programming | Tickets for Upcoming Film Screenings

Photo by Roberto Rodriguez

Current Album Recommendations (last updated 7/2/24)

Richard Felciano - Linearity* (NCET, 1968)
Vincent Le Masne et Bertrand Porquet - Guitares dérive (Shandar, 1976)
Norio Sato - Norio Sato Plays Takahashi & Kondo (ALM, 1977)
Merle Travis - Rough, Rowdy, and Blue (CMH, 1986)
Mler Ife Dada - Coisas que fascinam (Polydor, 1987)
Rick Corrigan’s OSTs for Stan Brakhage’s Faust Films (unreleased, 1987-1989)
Netsanet Mellesse - Dodge (aka Spirit of Sheba) (Dona Wana, 1992)
超级市场 (Supermarket) - 模样 (The Look) (Modern Sky, 1998)
Various Artists - The Music of Islam, Volume Thirteen: Music of Pakistan; Lahore, Pakistan (Celestial Harmonies, 1998)
Shrubbies - Memphis in Texas (Merlin Audio, 1999)
王凡 (Wang Fan) - Sound of Meditation Within the Body (Sub Jam, 2001)
Gotty Boi Chris - G-Ology (Blackhouse Entertainment, 2005)
Hanne Lippard - Talk Shop (Sussurra Luce, 2024)

Previous album recommendations can be found here

Tone Glow is an independent publication that I started as a blog in 2015. In December 2019 it moved to Substack, where it has featured over 100 interviews and countless reviews from dozens of different writers. The website will forever remain free and without ads, determined to provide the best coverage of experimental music, film, and more. All writers are paid out of principle from the money I make as a schoolteacher, as well as with support from donators via Ko-Fi and Patreon.

Tone Glow’s interviews are exclusively presented as longform Q&As, and are born out of a desire to see extensive conversations that provide insight into an artist’s life, practice, and work. My goal is to understand the artist as a person first, and to allow the stories they share to inform an understanding of their art.

Tone Glow also regularly features a “Writers Panel,” which finds multiple writers reviewing the same album. This decision was inspired by the pop music blog The Singles Jukebox, which I write for and edit. This format is used to encourage writers to think and write about music that is typically out of their wheelhouse, and for writers to be comfortable with approaching all arts writing from their unique vantage point.

Recent Album Reviews

2pillz’s PILLZCASSO (Pitchfork)
rRoxymore’s Juggling Dualities (Pitchfork)
Takako Minekawa’s traces of the ceiling (Pitchfork)
KATSEYE’s Beautiful Chaos (Pitchfork)
Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s Church of Kidane Mehret (Pitchfork)
James Krivchenia’s Performing Belief (Pitchfork)
Joshua Bonnetta’s The Pines (Pitchfork)
Los Thuthanaka’s Los Thuthanaka (Pitchfork)
Lucy Liyou’s Every Video Without Your Face, Every Sound Without Your Name (BOMB Magazine)

Other Writing

Film review of Amiel Courtin-Wilson’s The Silent Eye (Metrograph)
5-10-15-20 interview feature on Haruomi Hosono (Pitchfork)
Interview feature on Sandwell District (Crack Mag)
Interview feature on Penelope Spheeris (Chicago Reader)
Feature on Chicago Filmmakers’ Picture Restart Series (Chicago Reader)
Interview feature on Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader)
Blurb for Annea Lockwood’s Water Energy (LA Philharmonic)
Exhibition review on Collaborative Cataloging Japan’s Community of Images: Japanese Moving Image Artists in the US, 1960s-1970s (The Wire)
Interview feature on Amina Claudine Myers (Chicago Reader)
Obituary for Damo Suzuki (Rolling Tone)
Coverage of the 2024 Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival (Tone Glow)
A list of my 10 Favorite Perfumes of 2023, paired with 10 Favorite Albums (Tone Glow)
A profile of Hermeto Pascoal (Pioneer Works)
21 blurbs for a decades-spanning list of The 100 Greatest Songs in the History of Korean Pop Music (Rolling Stone)
An interview with Rhayne Vermette appears in a chapter of Exovede in the Darkroom: The Films of Rhayne Vermette (ARP Books)

Recent Musician Interviews for Tone Glow

Everything But the Girl
Eliana Glass
Maria Somerville
Macie Stewart
Steve Roach
Toe
Ichiko Aoba
Tsunami
Caxtrinho
Wojciech Rusin
Hans-Joachim Roedelius
Asa-Chang
Chow Lee
Molina
Hikaru Utada
Marcos Valle
AraabMuzik
Bill Callahan
Nilüfer Yanya
The Softies
Diamanda Galás
Juan Atkins
Honeywell
Michael Rother
Shed
Spice 1
Mon Laferte
Shinichi Atobe
Lync
Owen (aka Mike Kinsella)
[Ahmed] series: Joel Grip, Pat Thomas, Seymour Wright, Antonin Gerbal, and [Ahmed]

Recent Filmmaker Interviews for Tone Glow

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