Sean Solomon flips channels between music and visual arts; Soprano singer Katharina Konradi listens while she performs
This is Punk Rock Bach for April 23, 2026.
An indie musician, opera performances, amateur woodworking — this issue of Punk Rock Bach has a little bit for everyone.
This week, we sit down with Sean Solomon, whose new album “The World is Not Good Enough” just dropped. He’s a musician with a fun background: he animates cartoons!
We’ve also got a Q&A with an opera singer from Germany who keeps her phone handy to keep the music playing.
Onward!
Animator Sean Solomon’s new album blends his music with his artwork
Any similarity between the title of Sean Solomon’s new album “The World is Not Good Enough” and the James Bond movie “The World is Not Enough” is purely coincidental.
“I made movie posters for my release show, because we did a release at Brain Dead, the movie theater. So, I made these, like, parody movie posters. And while I was, like, trying to figure out what parody posters to make, I realized that there was a James Bond movie that had a similar title,” Solomon told Punk Rock Bach. “But I think it’s different enough, you know?”
Solomon’s album released last week via Anti- Records. Not only did he record the music, but he also drew the album cover and self-directed/self-animated the music video for the track “Car Crash.” That music video came out last year, according to a news release.
“Car Crash” is one of three songs from the album that Solomon said he especially enjoys playing live. The other two are “Finish Line” (“I think it has the most dynamics for me,” he said.) and “Remember.”
Solomon’s background is in animation. He initially went to Cal Arts for its experimental animation program, but he said he dropped out after two years to work for a company that Fox had hired to build its own version of Cartoon Network’s mature programming block, Adult Swim.
“It was called ‘ADHD,’ ‘Animation Domination High-Def,’” Solomon said. “And I got that job when I was 20, and I ended up, like, designing the logo and making a bunch of GIFs and shorts and kind of learning really quickly there.”
He would go on to be art director for the show “The Lucas Bros. Moving Co.,” before ADHD ended.
By then, he said, he was freelancing — making music videos for bands. One video he created was “Necessary Evil” for Unknown Mortal Orchestra, a group with which Solomon is set to tour beginning this spring.
“So, it like, kind of came full circle recently,” he said.
Solomon said he thinks about the way he creates visual art and music “like changing the channel on a TV.”
“Sometimes I’m in the headspace of making the animations, and sometimes I’m in the headspace of writing songs,” he said. “And I think if I didn’t have both that, I would get kind of bored and antsy. And, so, when I start to feel like my songwriting is getting stale or boring, I switch to animation, and they’re kind of like different parts of my brain.”
However, he said music is the most immediate of the two.
“Because you can sit down, pick up a guitar and write a song in one session, whereas with animation, it’s a little bit more…there’s a little bit more pre -planning involved,” he said.
Sean Solomon’s new album “The World is Not Good Enough” was released on April 17 via Anti-Records. It is available to order on his website and digitally on Bandcamp, Apple Music and other services. His first tour date is April 30 in Portland, Oregon, according to his website.
Soprano Katharina Konradi keeps her phone tuned in on Birdy’s ‘Fire Within’
German opera singer Katharina Konradi’s year seems to have started with a bang and is continuing on that trajectory. CAvi-music released her album “Un Cycle Imaginaire,” in which she sings with Daniel Heide accompanying her on the piano.
Last week, she was set to perform an evening of songs in German, Russian and French in West Yorkshire, U.K. And on Sunday, April 26, Konradi is set to sing at the Sala Principal in Valencia, Spain, with Julius Drake accompanying her on piano.
As always, Punk Rock Bach is curious how Konradi listens to music. And with such a mobile career, it may come as no surprise that she streams her tracks…
Editor’s note: Q&A has been lightly edited for style, syntax and typos.
Punk Rock Bach: How do you prefer to listen to music?
Katharina Konradi: I stream the music. I have a lot of CDs at home and I record CDs myself but I don’t have any CD player at home.
PRB: What are you listening to now?
Konradi: I feel a bit nostalgic so I listen to my old preferred albums: Patricia Kaas, Birdy and her album “Fire within” from 2011 and DOTA — the German song singer and writer Dota Kehrer.
PRB: What do you listen on?
Konradi: As I’m always on the road, a mobile phone is the most practical option to listen to the music for me. And for sure, I listen to the music live from orchestra and my colleagues while singing on the stage.
Katharina Konradi’s latest album “Un Cycle Imaginaire,” via the CAvi-music label, is available to order via various classical music shops — including PrestoMusic and Arkiv Music. Tickets for Konradi’s April 26 performance in Valencia, Spain, are available online.
Hitting pause on a music server and green-lighting DIY speakers
A few weeks ago, when I chatted with Bottlehead Co. Partner Jameson O’Guinn, he mentioned during our conversation he started down the DIY audio road with a speaker kit from Parts Express. For whatever reason, that part of his story really got my attention.
So much so, that I went ahead and purchased a pair of C-Note DIY speakers from Parts Express. I’ve hit the pause button on my “Lois X-1000” music server I started earlier, and focusing my attention on the C-Notes.
And I have a reason for taking a break from the Lois: soldering. The way I’m starting to envision the music server’s final construction, I’m fairly sure I’ll need to do some sort of soldering before it’s finished. Just one problem: I don’t have any soldering experience under my belt!
But the C-Notes can change that. Each of the two speakers has a cross over component — the electrical build that powers the tweeter and woofer drivers. From what I can tell, the soldering for each board is fairly straight forward and will serve as great practice for the Lois.
But before I begin with the electrical, I need to construct the cabinets. Fortunately, the C-Notes come with pre-cut medium-density fiber (MDF) boards that you glue together. Once constructed, the builder can finish the cabinets in a way that’s prettier than raw MDF board.
I’m going with two coats of shellac primer and then two light coats of wipe-on polyurethane. So far, I’ve applied the first coat of primer and have let that cured. I’ll apply the second coat this weekend, and coat the underside after the rest of the cabinet is complete.
Be sure to check back next week to see how the speaker project is going.
What I’m listening to
Katharina Konradi’s Q&A made me curious about her performances and what her voice sounds like — so I decided to hunt down her recent recordings: “Un Cycle Imaginaire” and a recording of some Mozart masses.
My first stop was the Metropolitan Opera gift shop at Lincoln Center — which has a wall of opera recordings and albums. But unfortunately, they did not have either Konradi albums for which I was looking.
So I just bought them online — NOT from Amazon, but rather one of the classical music stores. I’ve been listening to the albums since they arrived and they’re wonderful.
Konradi’s voice is resonate with beauty and grace. Pairing her voice with Daniel Heidi’s piano work really highlights her abilities. Meanwhile, on the Mozart masses, Konradi sings with a group on several of the piece.
Strongly recommend both albums, especially if you need a break from modern pop music.
Thank you for reading Punk Rock Bach! We’ll be back next week with more interviews, features and our brand of DIY attitude!