Soundologia Will Get You Amped About Experimental Music

Soundologia is a rarity in musical podcasts. Founder, musicologist, and producer Predrag Pedja Kovačević isn't on air chatting about pop star flubs, nor is he ranting about his favorite songs from high school. His show is dedicated to promoting experimental music, offering a platform to expose more people to this strange and wondrous genre and the people who make it.

"It's a tiny niche. The experimental music community is a very, very small community anywhere around the world," he says. Still, Kovačević is unfazed. The internet and other technologies open new channels for composing. He thinks people who take risks in their work are thinking ahead, and Soundologia is most certainly looking to the future. It features interviews with music by Miami-based sound and multidisciplinary artists using tech to actualize their particular visions.

Kovačević moved to Miami from Serbia in 2018 to study at Florida International University's Herbert and Nicole Wertheim School of Music and Performing Arts. There, he focused on music technology and eventually taught. As a musicologist, he writes about and analyzes music, which is reflected in his well-researched deep dives into each artist.

As a true academic, he spends days researching his guests ahead of time. He aims to turn people to experimental music, keeping it engaging. Guests discuss personal challenges they face in making art, like parenting and funding, and their journeys to South Florida from homelands abroad.

"Miami has an interesting, weird community because it's more a city of visual arts," he says. Many of his guests create full-sensory experiences with their work. Dr. Liza Seigido, for instance, who founded the Psyche Electro-Acoustic Opera Company, often uses tools that allow audience members to control lights and music during her performances.

Many are also professors from the University of Miami and FIU who have access to resources like full orchestras. "All of them," he says, "put some science behind the projects, starting from physics, acoustics, and music theory." For instance, Slovakian-born Juraj Kojš makes "orchid music" by writing software to create algorithms from the DNA sequence of Florida native orchid species. "That is biology, basically," Kovačević observes.

He also explored Miami's homegrown scene when he spoke with Venezuelan-born Gustavo Matamoros, who started the long-running Subtropics Music Festival in 1985 by bringing experimental music legends John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, and David Tudor to town. Another conversation with noise musician Richard Garet required him to forego an academic lens. "We approached noise [as] a subculture, deep listening concept, from sound art to sound design, from circuits, making analog things using different devices," he says.

All the guests have a real perspective on their work and the city where they live. Some have founded prestigious music organizations, and all are deeply entrenched in the cultural scene. In each episode, the guests explore what it's like making experimental music in Miami and the benefits and challenges artists face.

The success of Art Basel Miami Beach, artist residencies, and grants like those from the county and Knight Foundation have given artists a substantial boost. UM and FIU offer different but strong music programs and organizations, as well as plenty of live experimental and orchestral performances. Also, it's more affordable to attend FIU than Berkeley.

Kovačević is still looking forward to growing his platform, turning it into a nonprofit, and exploring artists in Chicago, where he now lives.

Soundologia is available on all leading streaming platforms, including Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, or Podbean. For more information, visit soundologia.com.