Fred Armisen on “100 Sound Effects”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The comedian talks about his new album, a sound-effects record for the modern era, with the staff writer Michael Schulman.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.4	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Fred Armisen, well, he's got a thing about sound.
0:15.3	He does a bit where he claims to be able to imitate every single accent in American speech.
0:20.7	Pittsburgh, Yinsko there.
0:22.5	Yons go there to Pittsburgh.
0:24.3	And then down to Baltimore, motor oil.
0:27.4	I always think motor oil.
0:29.1	Baltimore.
0:30.1	Motor oil.
0:31.8	Then down Virginia.
0:34.4	And on Saturday Night Live, he co-wrote the recurring sketch
0:37.1	about how people talk in L.A.
0:39.8	Get back on San Vicente, take it to the 10, and switch over to the 405 North, and let it dump you out into Mulholy, you're polite.
0:49.5	Recently, Armisen announced an album called 100 sound effects, and the track titles are a little like
0:55.4	punchlines themselves. First time homeowners switching circuit breakers, Romanian crowd at rock club
1:01.4	shouting for an encore. I confess, I wasn't sure if this was an album album or a concept
1:09.7	art, but it's a real album and it's even coming out soon on vinyl
1:13.2	if you're so inclined. Well, hi. Hi. So I play this album for myself and my cat last night. She was
1:22.2	confused. Uh-huh. There are no birds on it, I don't think, so she was not that interested.
1:27.4	That'd have to be a separate album for animals, because they're a different audience.
1:33.5	The New Yorkers Michael Shulman met up with Fred Armisen, and they recently went out to do some sound recording of their own.
1:41.4	Okay, let's start with the basics.
	...

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