Hidden tracks

Finding music without the algorithm

Featured in

  • Published 20250506
  • ISBN: 978-1-923213-07-4
  • Extent: 196 pp
  • Paperback, ebook, PDF

WHEN MIKEY YOUNG shuts the door of his custom-built home studio, it feels to him ‘like the whole world disappears’. Inside it’s dark, warm and completely soundproof. You can hear your heart beating and lungs expanding with every breath. It’s not exactly an anechoic chamber – but it’s not far off. 

Young is a self-described ‘homebody’ who is ‘pretty good’ at being in one room for long periods of time – and this room is where he spends most of his waking hours these days. It’s nestled within the small apartment he shares with his partner on the top floor of an old two-storey industrial brown-brick building in North Melbourne. 

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