Oblique Curiosities are David Ben Shannon and Sarah E.  Truman. We’re old friends and have written songs together since 2011. Often, the impetus of these songs emerge from a series of texts to each other about a personal (or world) event, a concept we’re trying to think through, or as we run after a train, plane, or bus we’re about to miss (it happens more than you’d think). Our (agreed upon) music influences include Fever Ray, Joe Hisaishi, Brian Eno, Kishi Bashi, Kate Bush, Tunng, Everything Everything, and the Mos Eisley Cantina Band. We’re both academics. Our collaborative research interests include music making, affect theory, queer theory, Doctor Who (and other SF), critical pedagogies, and research-creation. Sometimes we write scholarly articles about our compositions.

Our latest song ft. Kathryn Yusoff, 2023.

Recent song ft. Kate Pahl, 2022.

Our never-finished album which will be released when we have some time and $ to record the lyrics properly, mix/master everything, and are on the same continent!

Written and performed by Oblique Curiosities.

We sometimes write papers in academic journals about the music we compose:

Truman, S. E., Shannon, D. B., and Yusoff, K. (2023) Cosmic Beavers: Queer counter-mythologies through speculative songwriting. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 28(6). 

Shannon, D. B. and Truman, S. E. (2020). Problematizing sound methods through music research-creation: Oblique Curiosities. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. 19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406920903224

​Truman, S. E. and Shannon, D. B. (2018). Queer sonic cultures: An affective walking-composing project. Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry. 1(3). https://doi.org/10.22387/CAP2018.19