Longform Editions, a Bastion of Experimental Sounds, Is Shutting Down

Andrew Khedoori has this quirk: When he’s in the car driving around the streets of Sydney, Australia, he needs to hear meditative music. No lyrics. Nothing too busy or too noisy. Which means he often turns on something from the Longform Editions catalog, which he’s built up alongside cofounder Mark Gowing over the last seven years. During that time, they’ve released four pieces of music every few months, by modern experimental luminaries like Claire Rousay, KMRU, More Eaze, and Cole Pulice; indie vets like Steve Gunn and Sam Prekop; and up-and-comers from Australia and beyond. True to the project’s name, each digital-only release features one piece of music that’s at least around 20 minutes long—otherwise, artists have complete freedom to explore and expand. “My kids understand that when I’m driving the car, it’s daddy music,” Khedoori tells me. “Sometimes they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, I want daddy music.’ And then sometimes they’re like, ‘I want the Frozen soundtrack.’”

On February 12, Longform Editions will put out their final quartet of releases. That group includes a gorgeous 24-minute piece by Christian Fennesz, “The Last Days of May,” that marks the ambient legend’s longest single composition to date. Talking about why he’s ending the project, Khedoori says, “We started Longform Editions with the idea to present music in a way that encouraged you to sit back and take time—especially with all of the digital clutter and algorithms dominating our lives—and now we just need to literally take that time for ourselves.” His daughter is 5 and his son is 4, and he wants to be able to dedicate more brain space to them, too.

Longform Editions was designed to be bulletproof from typical music-industry trappings like securing radio play and physical distribution, and showed how a niche music operation could sustain itself in the streaming era. They covered costs for mastering, their trademark abstract artwork, and promotion, and split any revenue made from digital sales 50-50 with artists. (After a year, Longform Editions would also hand complete ownership of pieces back to the artist.) Most of the project’s income came from monthly subscriptions via Bandcamp, proceeds of which were also shared with artists. Khedoori says they were making around $1,200 a month in Australian dollars ($750 USD), adding that individual sales over the lifespan of the project totaled a “reasonably high five-figure sum.”

But it’s clear that, for Khedoori, it’s not about the money so much as giving artists a space to create uninhibited, challenging work without having to worry about typical commercial concerns. “We’ve associated music so closely with industry that we’ve forgotten that it’s an art form and a part of expression,” he laments. “In Australia, people have dropped out of making music because they feel like it doesn’t add up. But if that’s someone’s only motivation for doing it, that makes me a little bit sad. If we let the economy drive the culture, the cookie-cutter mentality is going to live on and we’re only going to be hearing the same stuff over and over.”

Since 2018, Khedoori has spent an average of eight hours a week making Longform Editions run. This time usually came on either side of his day job working for the Australian Music Radio Airplay Project, where he oversees distribution of homegrown music to community radio stations throughout the country. He would get up at 4:30 a.m., make his kids’ breakfasts and lunches, maybe hit the gym, and answer some emails from artists working on Longform Editions releases, all before his regular work day began. “One of the pure joys of Longform Editions was seeing an email in my inbox from someone who’d worked on a piece of music that we discussed, and then listening to it,” he says. “It fuels a lot of creative energy for other aspects of my life as well. It’s an amazing way to start the day.”

Khedoori, who previously ran the label Preservation, chose the artists he wanted to work with based on his own fandom, and took pride in making sure they felt attended to. Sometimes the process could be fast: Claire Rousay turned around her piece, “It Was Always Worth It,” just nine days after Khedoori asked her to contribute. Other times it could take people as much as four years to deliver their music. Khedoori’s involvement in the creative process also varied. Some pieces came in and instantly stunned him. Others involved a bit of back-and-forth. Khedoori remembers pushing the Melbourne producer Kane Ikin to expand on certain musical ideas from his first draft, adding that Ikin was grateful for the feedback and excited about the hypnotic final composition, “Boundary Curve.” “I don’t want to make it sound like I’m some kind of Rick Rubin figure summoning some great pieces of music,” Khedoori says. “But there are people who have said that the work they did for Longform was the best work that they’d done.”

Some of his favorites from the series are the ones that bowled him over both musically and emotionally. Along with Rousay’s entry, which compiles field recordings of the everyday into a vulnerable and affecting whole, Khedoori cites ambient saxophonist Cole Pulice’s walloping “If I Don’t See You in the Future, I’ll See You in the Pasture” and composer More Eaze’s ambitious 43-minute piece “Eternity” as personal highlights. He takes special care to mention former LCD Soundsystem member Gavilán Rayna Russom’s “Trans Feminist Symphonic Music,” which, at 71 minutes, stands as the longest Longform Editions release. “It’s essentially a rejection of binary codes through music composition,” Khedoori explains with a touch of awe in his voice.

Even though Longform Editions is ending, Khedoori isn’t done giving the underground artists he loves a blank canvas to follow their purest creative impulses. He’s already talking with some folks who released music with Longform Editions for a new project he hopes to debut in 2026. “The rate of releases will not be as grand,” he teases, “but there will be the same underlying principles and creative energy.”

Below you’ll find a playlist of Andrew Khedoori’s 11 favorite Longform Editions releases, for paying subscribers only. Your support allows us to shed a light on underground sounds and stories from around the world, and so much more.