Benjamin Teitelbaum is an author and professor of musicology and international affairs at CU Boulder. His interests include music, the radical right and geopolitics, reactionary ideology and aesthetics, political theology, and Scandinavian folklore. He is author of War for Eternity: The Return of Traditionalism and the Rise of the Populist Right (Penguin, 2020) and Lions of the North: Sounds of the New Nordic Radical Nationalism (Oxford, 2017). His next book, "Limitless" is forthcoming from Vers...
May 31, 2025•1 hr 9 min
Pablo Andoni Olabarría is a Spanish composer and conductor who runs @memieval.music, an Instagram page dedicated exclusively to memes about early music. We talk about Pablo's own drone-based music, the role of the conductor, notation, memory, music before and after the Western Canon, and Ren Faires. 👉 Many thanks to my patrons! Consider becoming one here: patreon.com/lastthingspodcast 👉 If you'd like to join my Discord server, you can request an invitation here: https://www.charlielooker.com/j...
May 19, 2025•1 hr 45 min
Calder Hannan is the person behind the YouTube channel Metal Music Theory and the band Florid Ekstasis, and also plays guitar in Aphelion Entity. Calder recently completed his PhD in Music Theory with his dissertation “Tactus Transformations in Metal.” He currently teaches music at Columbia and Fordham in New York City. Our conversation touches on the STEM to metal pipeline, how rhythm is viewed in academia, parallax head banging, and hiding your music theory power level. 👉 Many thanks to my pa...
Feb 26, 2025•2 hr 8 min
Michael Olivo is an American cartoonist, designer, and host of the Blind Shovel podcast. He's been published by Cold Cube Press, Fantagraphics, and Never Press, to name a few. He's also a co-founder of Eternal Wealth, an art fabrication company centered around custom objects and furniture, and the Art Director of the Williams Center, a multi-venue art center located in Rutherford, NJ. We talk about Catholicism, fatherhood, black-and-white morality, respecting symbols, what it means to draw a lin...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 39 min
Musician, fashion designer, and visual artist, PICTUREPLANE (aka Travis Egedy) has made a major name for himself over the past decade in the outer limits of global pop culture. His music engages industrial dance, gothic hip-hop, and emotive New Age, while his clothing line, Alien Body, serves up a stylized study of symbology, the occult, and societal decay. We talk about ontological anarchy, DIY spaces, 1990s optimism, Witch House, and Travis' friendship with Lil Peep. 👉 Many thanks to my patro...
Sep 18, 2024•2 hr
Conner Habib is a writer and the host of the podcast, Against Everyone with Conner Habib. He's an activist and former porn actor, and he gives lectures around the world on topics as wide-ranging as occultism, James Joyce, sex work, and art. We talk about the cultural/political/economic triad, Freedom, alchemy, Carl Jung's charlatanism, and Conner’s new PEN/Faulkner Longlisted debut novel, Hawk Mountain. 👉 Many thanks to my patrons! Consider becoming one here: https://www.patreon.com/lastthingsp...
Sep 12, 2024•2 hr 5 min
Jeremiah Cymerman, the great musician, and my long-time conversation partner, joins me to talk about Louis CK's crushing 2016 TV series, Horace and Pete. We get into fathers and sons, barflies, MeToo, and the N-word. 👉 Many thanks to my patrons! Consider becoming one here: patreon.com/lastthingspodcast 👉 If you'd like to join my Discord server, you can request an invitation here: https://www.charlielooker.com/join 👉 If you'd like to subscribe to the monthly Last Things newsletter, sign up her...
Aug 11, 2024•2 hr 7 min
Uboa is the musical vehicle of Xandra Metcalfe, who has spent the better part of a decade dipping into every corner of heavy music. From harsh noise to dark ambient, to glitch, to doom metal, Uboa's eclectic approach to dark music has led her to become a cult figure, particularly online. I talk with Xandra about her extreme compositional and mixing techniques, autism, parasites, Freud, dehumanization, and unwinding your bowels. 👉 Many thanks to my patrons! Consider becoming one here: patreon.co...
Jul 26, 2024•3 hr 25 min
Necro is a true legend of underground rap, pioneer of the death rap sub-genre, renown producer, and inspiring entrepreneur. We talk about his new metal track, being white in rap, Metallica's note choices, jails in Europe, fake Hasidic crackheads, and his complex relationship with his Uncle Howie. 👉 Many thanks to my patrons! Consider becoming one here: patreon.com/lastthingspodcast 👉 If you'd like to join my Discord server, you can request an invitation here: https://www.charlielooker.com/join...
Mar 18, 2024•2 hr 10 min
Sean Ragon has been active in industrial, and experimental music communities for over fifteen years, and in DIY punk in general going back to the 90s. He’s primarily known as the frontman of neofolk collective Cult of Youth, which triumphantly returned from a long hiatus last year. Sean also makes electronic music as Venerence. He’s deep in the culture, and his contributions over the years have been truly original and widely respected. Sean and I talk about runic yoga, Asatru, attempting to rema...
Oct 30, 2023•1 hr 35 min
Kavus Torabi is a British guitarist, vocalist, and composer, with a long and prolific career in the world of avant-garde rock music. He is known for his collaborative work in the 90s with Monsoon Bassoon, and the 00s with cult math-rock heroes Cardiacs, as well as his solo work as Knifeworld, and under his own name. He's also a member of the current line-up of legendary psych rock band Gong. Kavus and I have been fans of each other’s musics for years. Our fun conversation gets into the vibrant a...
Sep 26, 2023•2 hr 42 min
Justin Pearson has been a vital and prolific force in underground music since the 90s. His many bands, including the Locust, Dead Cross, Head Wound City, and Retox, have made an indelible mark on the canon of heavy music, and his long-running label, Three One G, has been an important platform for numerous like-minded experimentalists. We talk about “Annoying” as a genre, healthy inter-band competition on tour, the uniqueness of the 90s San Diego hardcore scene, and our different experiences at t...
Sep 04, 2023•1 hr 46 min
Musician, visual artist, and actress, Sophie Leetmaa joins me to talk about Parenthetical Girls’ art-damaged baroque pop cult classic, ‘Safe as Houses’ (2006). We get into bloodletting, the Tumblr era, listening to Tori in the bath, music from Popeye, and lore from the unsung 00s micro-scene that spawned P Grrrls. 👉 Many thanks to my patrons! Consider becoming one here: https://www.patreon.com/lastthingspodcast . 👉 If you'd like to join my Discord server, you can request an invitation here: ht...
Aug 28, 2023•2 hr 25 min
Wyattxhim's YouTube channel is a rich, one-of-a-kind resource for commentary on black metal, death metal, and all related genres of heavy music. From his album reviews, to iceberg charts, to nuanced video essays, Wyatt’s depth of knowledge, humor, and elite taste have been attracting a rapidly-growing following of extreme music cognoscenti. Wyatt and I talk about crying to Peter Sotos, left-wing black metal that's actually good, the purity of old-school YouTubing, and the importance of challengi...
Aug 23, 2023•1 hr 47 min
Nick Podgurski is a musician, artist, educator, and contemplative mentor interested in transformation and the nature of creativity. Since the 00s, he has been growing a truly unique body of work and thought, with his own projects Feast of the Epiphany and New Firmament, and as a collaborator with GRID, Lydia Lunch, Extra Life, and Yukon. Nick and I go way back, to the original line-up of Extra Life. Nick and I talk about practicing loss, George Gurdjieff, and the importance of Something Else. 👉...
Aug 14, 2023•2 hr 4 min
Heinali is the moniker of Oleh Shpudeiko, a composer from Kyiv, Ukraine, whose work reimagines Medieval music with a modular synthesizer, borrowing techniques from contemporary analog synthesis, generative music, and improvisation. His recent activities have been a highly acclaimed live performance from inside a bomb shelter, and a new Heinali record, Kyiv Eternal . His past projects have included installations and collaborations around the world, and the award-winning music for the video game B...
Aug 02, 2023•2 hr 5 min
Sam Mickens is a singer, guitarist, composer, and performance artist based in Los Angeles, whose powerful, idiosyncratic work brings together sweet soul, glam rock, classical music, comic books, and professional wrestling. His many projects include The Sam Mickens Ecstatic Showband & Revue, his ‘00s art-rock band, The Dead Science, the theater piece “Kayfabe: Game of Death”, and his many recent solo records. Sam and I go deep here on one of our favorite books, Yukio Mishima’s “The Sailor Who...
Jul 24, 2023•2 hr 11 min
Patrick Higgins is a composer of experimental music, including works for chamber orchestra, string quartet, percussion ensemble, and his own virtuosic and unique language on guitar and electronic processing. He’s been a member of the classic New York avant-garde band ZS since 2012, and his music has been performed around the world. Our conversation gets into Pat’s amazing string quartets, the meaning of narrative in instrumental music, opening up space to think differently, his concept of “socia...
Jul 20, 2023•2 hr 12 min
Visual artist turned music video director, Zev Deans, has been responsible for some of the most iconic visuals in heavy music since 2010, including work with Portal and Behemoth, as well as mainstream artists like St. Vincent. He has also done film restoration work with the HR Giger estate, and fabrication work for Matthew Barney. Zev is a deeply respected and beloved fixture in my corner of culture. Zev and I talk about gentlemen duels, Polish catacombs, deepfakes, the role of AI in his recent ...
Jul 11, 2023•2 hr 17 min
Jesse Moynihan is a cartoonist, storyboard artist, and writer who has worked on Adventure Time, Midnight Gospel and his own critically acclaimed graphic novel series, Forming. Our conversation gets into Jesse's roots in the Philadelphia experimental music scene, the connection of prog rock to animation, the meaning of visual noise, Ai anxiety in art and music, the wackness of '00s New Atheism, and Jesse's newest personal project, Jesus 2. 👉 Many thanks to my patrons! Consider becoming one here:...
May 17, 2023•2 hr 20 min
Colin Marston is a prolific multi-instrumentalist and record producer, who has been a vital fixture in the worlds of metal and experimental music since the 00s. Between his bands Krallice, Behold...the Arctopus, and Dysrhythmia, his studio, Menegroth the Thousand Caves, his numerous solo projects and collaborations, and his membership of the reunion line-up of tech-death legends Gorguts, his body of work is immense and many-tentacled. Colin joins me to talk about Gorguts' 1998 avant-garde master...
May 08, 2023•2 hr 46 min
'The Believer' (2001) is Ryan Gosling's first movie, about a neo-Nazi who's secretly Jewish. It sounds like a Chappelle sketch, but it's a truly deep meditation on both anti- and philo-semitism. Billy Zane plays a Yarvin-esque highbrow reactionary hottie. Jeremiah and I have been obsessed with this film for years. Our discussion takes us through a lesser-known midrash on Isaac vs Jesus, the incomprehensible vs the idiotic, questioning as mystical practice, Marxism, and nothingness-without-end. M...
Mar 23, 2023•2 hr 2 min
Peter Evans is recognized as one of the world's leading voices on the trumpet, a true innovator on the instrument, as well as an important composer. He's worked with experimental luminaries including John Zorn, Brian Ferneyhough, and Kanye West, and his own music has been performed around the globe to great acclaim. We talk about Peter’s wild new compositions for MIDI piano, AI anxiety, Bach, Onlyfans, the African clave rhythm, and defending Truth and Beauty. Check out Peter's music here Last Th...
Mar 14, 2023•2 hr 19 min
Dylan Reznick is a cloud-rap pioneer, known for his projects FRIENDZONE and Chlorine Mist, as well as his beats and production for A$AP Rocky, Main Attrakionz, Yung Lean, and Mykki Blanco. I've known Dylan since his early days in the amazing weirdo noise crew Religious Girls. We talk about early '10s micro-genres, the collapse of the music press, AI, chopping up vocals, and Dylan's fantastic brand new releases under his Birthplace moniker.
Mar 04, 2023•2 hr 7 min
M Lamar, the incomparable composer, artist, operatic countertenor, coiner of the term "negrogothic", good friend, and long-time collaborator of mine, graces the live stream to discuss Diamanda Galas' 1990 live record, 'Plague Mass'. Lamar's work spans opera, metal, performance, video, sculpture and installation to craft sprawling narratives of radical becomings. We talk about mourning, the Devil, how Lamar got to know Diamanda, and questions about the definition of the word "avant garde" This st...
Mar 04, 2023•1 hr 45 min
Karl D'Silva is a fascinating figure in the UK underground music scene. His dark electronic pop songs are both subtly slippery and crushingly direct, and he's blessed with the kind of powerhouse singing voice that you just have to hear to believe. He's also prolific as a saxophonist and collaborator in far more overtly experimental contexts, working with Helm, VANISHING, Rian Treanor, Ex-Easter Island Head, and a million others. Here, Karl and I talk a lot about the voice: finding one's own, ove...
Mar 04, 2023•1 hr 35 min
Tyondai Braxton is a world-renowned composer of orchestral and electronic music, whose body of work has cut across minimalism, dance music, prog rock, film scores, and improvisation. From his accolades as a member of the band Battles in the 00s, to his recent appointment as a professor at Princeton, Ty has remained a brilliant maverick, as well as a truly stand-up person. We talk about the conceptual and compositional foundations of Ty's crushing new orchestral record, 'Telekinesis', his evoluti...
Dec 19, 2022•1 hr 14 min
Se'nam Palmer describes himself as a 29-year-old black person, musician and faux-losopher. His main band is Crispin Wah. He came by to talk about Kendrick Lamar's 2015 chart-topper, 'To Pimp a Butterfly', which takes us through issues of inner conflict, hoteps, and the joys of being a session musician.
Dec 12, 2022•2 hr 7 min
Steff (@poetrygrifter) is a semi-anonymous poet and poaster in an MFA creative writing program. We went deep about her adopting of various historical personae in her recent work, today's bleeding edge literary scene, identity politics and representation, the reactionary twitter-sphere, and more.
Dec 08, 2022•1 hr 37 min
Will Samson is a music aficionado and co-host of Resident Life Enjoyers 151 podcast. He returns to Last Things to discuss the Magnetic Fields' classic 1999 three-volume opus, '69 Love Songs'. We get into artifice, chord progressions, my complex relationship to twee-ness, and what it means for music to be 'charming'.
Dec 08, 2022•1 hr 28 min
