This week, Dmitri is joined by Dom McLennon, artist producer, and creative strategist from Hartford, Connecticut. Best known as a lead vocalist and assistant producer for BROCKHAMPTON, Dom also runs COURTVISION, a creative agency connecting artists and brands across gaming, education and community.

We cover a lot of ground on this one, from treating music technology as a sandbox, to bringing music-making tools into public libraries, to why community outreach is actually a smarter marketing play than chasing virality.

Along the way, we dig into gesture-based instruments, creative strategy for independent artists, music education, and how the history of Black artists reimagining technology laid the foundation for modern music innovation. Dom also shares how he has been integrating the Orchid by Telepathic Instruments and the Tembo by Musical Beings into his creative process in ways their makers probably never imagined (To see Dom demo these instruments, check out the video version on YouTube.

It's a wide ranging conversation you won't want to miss.

The news

• Study reveals €1.06bn of private copying royalties in 2024

• This Music Festival Company's $30 Million Fundraise Proves AI Isn't the Only Hot Sector for Investment

• Live tours face a huge challenge this summer

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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What happens to an artist's reputation the moment they admit they used AI? Does admitting how they used AI make a difference? New research suggests the stakes are higher than most realize, and the answer is far from simple.

This week on the podcast, Dr. Joel Carnevale, assistant professor of Management at Florida International University, joins Dmitri to break down the findings from his recent article in The Conversation that put that question to the test. Using a music composition scenario with Hans Zimmer asa stand-in for established reputation, Joel and his co-authors designed experiments to find out how disclosure affects the way listeners evaluate a creator's competence and credibility.

The conversation covers why authenticity is at the heart of the debate, what different types of AI disclosure actually signal to audiences, and why how you disclose may matter more than whether you disclose Dmitri and Joel also explore what all of this means for a music industry where nearly every working producer is already using AI in some part of their process.

The news

• Global recorded music revenues hit $31.7B in 2025, up 6.4% YoY; users of paid music subscriptions reach 837M

• Why Mark Cuban Thinks Music Is (Basically) 'the Worst Industry Ever' for Investors

• Live Nation Employees Bragged About 'Gouging' Customers and 'Robbing Them Blind' In Dozens of Leaked Exchanges—Here's a Look at the Unsealed Documents

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

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Everyone's talking about the AI boom in music, but is the industry's infrastructure actually ready for it?

Bjorn Lindvall, CEO and co-founder of MusicInfra, has spent his career at the intersection of music rights and finance, first as co-founder and COO of Hipgnosis Songs, where he helped build a multi-billion dollar catalog acquisition business, and now building the infrastructure to fix one of the music industry's oldest and most expensive problems: getting rights holders paid correctly and on time.

In this episode, Bjorn breaks down what it actually means to prepare the music supply chain for the AI boom. We dig into why the royalty math is about to get dramatically more complex, what the wave of generative AI licensing deals signals for publishers, labels, and everyone downstream, and why fixing the back end of the music industry might be the most important thing the industry does this decade If you work in music rights, royalties, music technology, or music publishing, this one is essential listening.

The news

• Could you tell if your favourite song was made with AI? The viral Papaoutai cover controversy suggests not

• Gaming giant Steam faces legal action from the UK's PRS over alleged music copyright infringement

• US blindsides states with surprise settlement in Live Nation/Ticketmaster trial

• YouTube now generates more ad revenue than Disney, NBC, Paramount, and WBD — combined

• Survey suggests TikTok may be losing its lustre for Gen-Z

The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!

Get Dmitri's Rock Paper Scanner newsletter.