(back home)
Zubin Hensler writes, records, mixes, and performs music. He also works on media across the radio/podcast/film spectrum, contributing with sound design, mixing, editing, as well as original music.
As a collaborator on recorded music, Zubin primarily works out of Honey House and Black Birch studios in Philly and a variety of spaces in NYC. He moves between recording, mixing, producing, playing instruments, programming drums, and anything else that needs to be done. His work has gotten friendly reviews like ‘best new track’ from pitchfork, ‘best debut album’ from NPR, ‘bravely original’ from The Guardian, and ‘it just sounds really cool’ from Stereogum. Collaborators include Half Waif, Elori Saxl, Lisel, Vieux Farka Toure, Kitba, Oropendola, Charlotte Jacobs, Hannah Epperson, Moonheart, Thelma, really big pinecone, and many many more.
As a composer, he’s worked on films that have premiered at festivals including Venice and Tribeca; dance premiered at Kampnagel and Jacob’s Pillow; and media commissioned by MOMA, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York City Ballet, Topic, Univision, and PBS.
As an instrumentalist, he’s contributed to albums by Fleet Foxes, Daniel Rossen, Samora Pinderhughes and Common, Dave Douglas, Nick Murphy/Chet Faker, and many more. As a performer he’s played venues like Hollywood Bowl, Red Rocks, MASS MOCA, the Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals, and two NPR Tiny Desk concerts. He co-founded the brass quartet The Westerlies, with whom he made two records and toured extensively. He’s also been a long time member of the Half Waif tour band, along with duo performances with Nandi Rose Levine.
As an audio engineer, he’s worked with institutions such as MOMA, BK Museum, Found Sound Nation, iHeart Radio, and Ubisoft. He’s been a long time engineer for Afropop Worldwide, working on FM programming as well as various podcast series. He’s also worked frequently with artist Guadalupe Maravilla on recording and mixing for film and audio projects.
As a teacher, he’s co-led clinics with The Westerlies at schools like Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music, NYU, and Yale. He’s also led a number of experimental sound workshops with Found Sound Nation at places like MIT and MASS MOCA, where he spent many years teaching a high school workshop in conjunction with the Bang on a Can summer program.
Zubin’s personal music so far has largely been released under the indie pop moniker ‘twig twig’. He has a new instrumental body of work developing, aiming for release in 2027.
photo by Kiki Vassilakis