Selected Works
© Nick Zazove, 2026
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The works shown on this page are a small selection of my catalog demonstrate which professional acumen in music composition, production, analog audio tracking, and visual media.
Music Composition & Production
“From Me to You”
Date of Album Release:
04/02/2025
• Electronic songs created entirely from short samples of the eponymous song recipient’s name.
• Each song demonstrates an eclectic, varied array of digital synthesis and sampling techniques. They are quirky, emotionally elaborate, and stylistically distinct from one another.
• Intended as gifts for people of great inspiration to me during a pivotal period of artistic growth.
“Siren”
Date of Composition
04/02/2025
Verse-Chorus form, constructed from manipulated sample of tornado siren, various soft synths, and drum programming coded in Sonic Pi (Ruby).
Multiple melodic themes, classical counterpoint, 12-tone serialism, and electronic sound design.
Inspired by the electronic excursions of Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Bowie; the compositional approaches of Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg; and the beat-driven aesthetics of DJ Shadow and DJ Premier.
Artistic concept explores the blurring of freedom and repression as diametric equals in ubiquitous digital code structures, inaccessible to the public thus they shape modes of expression by design. Analogous to the birth of serialism from the embers of 1940s fascism —> maximalist digital programming techniques that similarly reconstruct timbral language from bits and integers.
“Late Nights”
Date of Composition:
12/23/2024
^ Sonic Pi Code Example
Live, improvised studio performance of my modular synthesizer.
Inspired by artists such as Morton Sobotnick, Pauline Oliveros, and Aphex Twin.
Artistic concept, quite literally, is to show how I like to spend my free time — particularly as a frantic dead-of-night music composer.
“Computer Sympathy”
Date of Album Release:
Sometime in 2026
One of three full length albums intended to be released by 2026/early 2027
Podcast Work - Artist Discovery
• Audio documentary podcast episode that explores Kent, UK based folk artist Carlo Villa.
• Three hours of interview tape accumulated, edited down to sixteen-and-a-half minutes.
• Explores themes related to composing music thoroughly in an era that may not be equipped to fully understand it — but continuing because one is intrinsically motivated.
Introducing: Carlo Villa
Date of Release:
04/23/2026
Interview, editing, and all sound-related work by Nick Zazove
Music by Carlo Villa
• Audio documentary podcast episode that explores Florida-raised and LA-based pop artist, Nep.
• One hour of tape accumulated, edited down to ten minutes.
• Explores themes of escaping a home that never felt exactly like home but experiencing an ironic homesickness that compels one to write an entire album.
Introducing: Nep
Date of Release:
05/07/2026
Interview, editing, and all sound-related work by Nick Zazove
Music by Nep
• Non-music related, short form audio documentary podcast episode about Bryan Fox, a former LA-based actor and photographer turned-tennis professional.
• Thirty minutes of tape accumulated, edited down to five minutes.
• Explores themes related to finding peace in oneself after experiencing the turbulence of trying to “make it” in the LA-arts scene.
Bryan Fox
Date of Release:
TBD
Interview, editing, and all sound-related work by Nick Zazove
Museum Installation Work
• Proposal: Video depicts one of four proposed video panels for theater-based installation. People may walk into space and trigger new visual crossfades on the surface of triangular prism based on floor panels hooked up to Max/MSP patch.
• Concept: Click Here
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Dead Alive (Work in Progress)
Date of Release:
TBD
Audio & Video by Nick Zazove
• One stop of an Audio Tour for Teresa Montoya’s exhibition, “Tó Łitso (Yellow Water): Ten Years after the Gold King Mine Spill” shown at Northwestern’s Block Museum.
• Proposal: Click Here
— (Password is same as the one used to access this general portfolio page)
Audio Tour — Tó Łitso by Teresa Montoya
Date of Release:
TBD
Audio by Nick Zazove
Audiovisual Works
Four audiovisual projects based on original musical compositions. Created using non-linear video editors such as Final Cut Pro and visual coding programs such as Adobe After Effects; Max/MSP’s Jitter, & Processing.
• Click on any of the squares below to check out the visuals!
Audio Tracking — Analog Studio Work
Prepared piano recorded through AWS SSL 24/48 Console. A/B stereo pair over the strings, two lavalier mics taped to the piano bridge, and an X/Y pair near the piano lid parallel compressed using an LA-610.
The engineering intent was to emphasize performance of prepared elements and maximally preserve the dynamic range over a subtle, warm bed of compression.
Shi-An Costello, “Chopin Etude No.3”
Mixed & Engineered by Nick Zazove
Date
02/19/2025
Nick Zazove, “The Haraway Cyborg Execution”
Composed, mixed, and engineered by Nick Zazove
Date
03/27/2025
Solo-improvised modular synth, voice, and piano recorded through SSL’s in-line mixing mode.
SM58 into studio, tie-line to modular synth pre-amp. Piano stereo pair C414s; multitracks later re-amped through a Yamaha piano amp.
Modular synth stereo image captured line-in to console, bused into parallel LA-610.
Mixed digitally in Logic Pro, mastered using SSL console + outboard gear.
Artistic concept explores duality of identity in a digital age. Social media algorithms hijack people’s reward systems to hyper-individualize their feeds, yet the platforms perpetuate a mirage of open communication. This practice has normalized political radicalization.
Jazz quartet recorded through AWS SSL 24/48 Console.
A/B KM184 stereo pair over the piano strings, SM58 vocal mic; cardioid C414 at the F-hole of the bass; cardioid C414 pointed toward first finger tone hole of clarinet; 10 multi-mic setup across drum kit (overheads placed equidistant from snare, spaced apart for wide image); omnidirectional room mic placed in center of quartet.
The engineering intent was to emphasize room cohesion, togetherness of band.
Evan Steinkoler, “Spiral Waltz”
Mixed & Engineered by Nick Zazove
Date
02/19/2025
Documentary Work
Final undergrad thesis — a documentary about the band Sonic Youth. The book “Girl in a Band” by Kim Gordon and documentary “1991: The Year Punk Broke” by Dave Markey were the most prevalent source materials cited in this work.