Sonorous exists because making records still matters.

We live in a time of crazy contradictions for those of us that love making music, and even more so for those of us that love the art of putting it on a recording. On the one hand there has been an amazing explosion of tools, both inside and outside of the computer. Our ability to make records is limited only by our imagination and our time ( its own conversation ). And yet, and possibly because of this, the endeavor has never made less sense as an economic activity.

Record making got started as a way to turn music, which is inherently limited in its reach and scale, into a product. Hence we get the term producer, for those of us that pull all this together and make a finished record. The word product is right in there. But these days we find things have completely turned around. For most artists making a record is now a money losing endeavor. It's incredibly time consuming and exacting, in a way that only those that have done it can understand. And yet these days a record commands vanishing little in financial returns the great majority of the time. So you would think we would stop with it and focus our energy on the live show or something that can command a ticket price. But something funny happened in the last 75 years. This thing that used to be a way to turn a process into a product became a beautiful art form in its own right, and many of us soldier on against all practicality.

Sonorous Brooklyn is hopelessly wound up in this labor of love. We exist to make these records, as fully realized as we are able, and in defiance of the realities of a world that has often forgotten its value. If you refuse to be deterred in making an uncompromising recording, especially the kind that involves picking up some instruments and playing in a room together, perhaps we can help each other in these pursuits.

Sonorous is run by producer, engineer, and drummer Josh Arenberg, in collaboration with a community of musicians and record makers in Brooklyn and beyond.