C.V. Book Festival to Host Q&A on ‘Mood Machine,’ The World of…
GET IN THE MOOD. Regardless of how you listen to music — whether through Spotify, live performances, or analog formats — each of these formats and more will be shared during the 2025 Chippewa Valley Book Festival’s final session on Oct. 25, “Music in the Age of Streaming.” The live Q&A welcomes Liz Pelly, author of Mood Machine, and Siri Undlin of Humbird. (Photo by Juliet Farmer)
“Music in the Age of Streaming,” the final speaker session of the 2025 Chippewa Valley Book Festival, will begin at 4pm on Saturday, Oct. 25. The event welcomes Liz Pelly, music journalist and author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, accompanied by Siri Undlin of Humbird, who has created music (and now resides) in Eau Claire for over a decade.
Margaret Leonard, owner of Dotters Books in downtown Eau Claire — and a member of the book festival’s authors and events committee — said she first felt pulled to Liz’s new book due to her conscious connections to Eau Claire’s music scene and an interest to learn more about the unconscious implications of streaming music online.
“I picked (Mood Machine) up because it just felt like something I should know about in the context of like my closest relationships,” Margaret said. “As a community that really thinks of itself as like an artist’s community, I think that (algorithmic impact) is vital enough for us to think about as we move forward.”
Margaret, befriending Siri over the years, inquired if she would be interested in co-presenting the Chippewa Valley Book Festival session alongside Liz in a semi-casual and self-directed question-and-answer.
Siri, who also read the book in a similar timeframe as Margaret, thinks although the book relates to Spotify’s rise and algorithmic trends over time, the comprehensive research — and calls-to-action — Liz offers to readers can be applied to broader corporations than just those in the music industry.
Liz Pelly, pictured left, author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. (Photo by Felix Walworth)
“This should resonate with music lovers, but actually (for) any platform you’re using that is using algorithmic technology, these principles apply,” Siri said. “If you’re going to be an informed consumer, I think you need to be educating yourself and (Liz) makes it easy.”
Mood Machine, published just this year, illustrates a timely exploration of modern-day music consumption and hopes to change readers’ perspectives on how they ingest — and share — music in the modern age.
“For all of the inequities exacerbated by streaming, Pelly also finds hope in chronicling the artist-led fight for better models, pointing toward what must be done collectively to revalue music and create sustainable systems,” her website reads.
Liz’s background in music reporting (The Guardian, NPR, The Baffler, etc.) lends itself to an investigative approach to how Spotify first formed, and to the ways in which technology can feel “so exciting and open and anarchist in the beginning — but then it gets co-opted by capital,” Siri added.
Margaret said she hopes the session will offer valuable takeaways for both regular attendees of the annual book festival and new participants.
“As a book festival, we’ve been trying to reach a bit broader swaths of the city and our audience; I don’t feel like we have ever done anything that’s really so much about art making,” Margaret said.
To mark the conclusion of the Chippewa Valley Book Festival, an after-party will be held at Leona’s Pizzeria (406 Galloway St, Eau Claire) following the “Music in the Age of Streaming” event. This celebration will also serve to highlight one of downtown’s many active music venues and continue the conversations sparked between Liz and Siri’s question-and-answer.
“Part of (this) intention was trying to model some of what (Liz is) calling for in the book,” Margaret added.
Regardless of how you listen to music — whether through Spotify, live performances, or analog formats — Siri believes the book festival has become a space for conversations on how to best support creatives of all kinds in today’s landscapes.
“I just feel lucky to live in a place where there is a book festival and there are people who dedicate so much time and intention to bringing in diverse voices,” Siri said. “It’s the fruition of a lot of labor — from people who are big advocates for literature, for education, and community.”
For more information on the 2025 Chippewa Valley Book Festival schedule, or to register for “Music in the Age of Streaming” on Oct. 25, visit cvbookfest.org. Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist can be purchased online or in-person at Dotters Books (307 S Barstow St., Eau Claire).
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