Sonos, Hanif Abdurraqib & work x work Bring Object of Sound's First Immersive Installation to On Air: The Podcast Experience

From February 23-26 at Brooklyn's Wythe Hotel, Object of Sound, Hanif Abdurraqiband work x work invite listeners to step into the music that's shaping our culture. Presented by Sonos, the series' first-ever walkthrough installation will premiere as part of the inaugural On Air: The Podcast Experience, featuring a floor of multiple rooms taken over by five singular shows and their creators. Alongside the worlds of Radiolab, On Being, The Heart and My Favorite Murder, Object of Sound will take visitors on a sonic journey as they venture through a listening lounge curated by the podcast's award-winning host, music critic, poet and essayist, Hanif Abdurraqib.

Open to all ticket holders for both On Air: The Podcast Experience and On Air Fest, attendees can flip through original vinyl and artifacts from Object of Sound, while adding their own personal selections to a living playlist inspired by "the songs of where we come from." The prompt will come with a personal story and special podcast episode from Abdurraqib, encouraging visitors to share their roots as the resulting soundtrack is amplified throughout the experience via Sonos speakers. The room will also include a private podcast booth and hotline, where fans have the opportunity to record their own message for future Object of Sound episodes. Hanif Abdurraqib says:

"Object Of Sound is a show that has always rested on a foundation of asking simple questions around the ability music has to form and expand communities. The show is propelled by folks who listen, who email us, who send me messages, who call the hotline and tell us about songs they love, which in turn become songs I love. This affords us an incredible opportunity to make that experience as tactile as possible."

Find tickets and more information here:

https://www.experiencepodcasts.com 

As On Air: The Podcast Experience further expands the creative possibilities of audio, Object of Sound will bring to life the blend of textural storytelling and freeform radio that just earned it a nomination for Best Entertainment Podcast at the 2023 Ambies. Throughout its fourth and latest season, Hanif Abdurraqib welcomed artists such as Carly Rae Jepsen, Nick Hakim and Ravyn Lenae for a mini-series on The Wonders of Songwriting, in addition to honoring the late Scott Hutchison's music, life and legacy, and delivering revelatory, inspiring conversations with trailblazers like Björk, Tegan and Sara, and Malian guitarist Fatoumata Diawara. In each episode, "Abdurraqib's encyclopedic love and understanding of music is infectious" (The New York Times), and listeners can revisit them all here. 

Object of Sound is a Sonos original podcast, led by Joe Dawson and produced by Hanif Abdurraqib and work x work: Scott Newman, Jemma Rose Brown and Kathleen Ottinger, who are also helming On Air Fest and its biggest year to date. In addition to On Air: The Podcast Experience, the forthcoming edition of the annual event will bring exclusive presentations, premieres, live tapings and more from Audie Cornish & Kara Swisher, Normal Gossip, Mobituaries with Mo Rocca and Dead Eyes' Connor Ratliff, On Being with Krista Tippett and Dr. Vivek Murthy, People's Party with Talib Kweli, Slowburn: Roe V. Wade and dozens of others.

About Sonos Radio

Sonos Radio is the premiere radio experience on Sonos. Available for free to all Sonos customers, Sonos Radio is built for and inspired by Sonos listeners and represents the broadest selection of radio available around the world, bringing together more than 60,000 broadcast radio stations from long-time partners along with over 100 exclusive original stations and shows from Sonos. Sonos Radio HD offers an upgraded, ad-free Sonos Radio experience that delivers an expanded catalog of exclusive original content in high-definition, lossless CD-quality audio (16-bit/44.1 kHz FLAC). Sonos original content is available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Ireland, Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark. Sonos Radio HD is available in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, Canada, Austria and France.

About Hanif Abdurraqib

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he released the book A Little Devil In America with Random House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Gordon Burn Prize. Hanif is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

About work x work

work x work is a full-service creative agency amplifying the world's leading brands through storytelling, design, and experiences. Our innovative work has made us the go-to agency for organizations looking to participate in audio culture. In addition to design, strategy and events, we create multi-channel campaigns, original content and produce podcasting's premier cultural event, On Air Fest.

 Hanif Abdurraqib by Megan Leigh Barnard

For more information, contact Matt Hanks, Greg Jakubik or Annie Mickum at

Shore Fire Media, (718) 522-7171