Sam Wenc: The Experimental Language Of The Pedal Steel Guitar

Click the play button to listen

Today we're putting The Tonearm's needle on guitarist and composer Sam Wenc.

Wenc is a Philadelphia-based artist who has spent nearly a decade building one of the more distinctive bodies of work in American experimental music, mostly under the name Post Moves.

Now he's released his first album under his own name. It's called Language at an Angle (Lobby Art Editions, 2026). The record grew out of a year of live performances—from Philadelphia to Japan—and it captures Sam doing something specific with pedal steel guitar: striking it, bowing it, treating it as both a sound source and a physical object. The result sits somewhere between drone, jazz, and a kind of American folk music you can't quite place.

Sam's here to walk us through the record, his move to Philadelphia, and what it means to finally put his own name on the work.

Comments