Björn Schmelzer is a Belgian conductor, musicologist, and anthropologist, though he frequently crosses disciplines and incorporates many academic and creative influences in his work. He founded the vocal ensemble Graindelavoix in 1999, a group devoted to radical, heterogeneous reimaginings of vocal music from the Medieval, Renaissance, and contemporary periods. We go deep here, exploring Björn's unique ideas around the meaning of modernity, crisis, and trauma in the artistic experience, the esse...
Dec 08, 2022•2 hr 36 min
Nandor Nevai is a true American iconoclast and cult figure. A rigorous modernist composer, renegade philosopher, and comedian of the margins, he has waged a decades-long assault on all things digestible and sane. Nevai's own work has intersected with "Brutal Classical", noise, war metal, and improvisation, and his myriad collaborations have included To Live and Shave in L.A., Aborted Christ Childe, and Laundry Room Squelchers. We talk about psychism, free metal, abortion, chem trails, and Nandor...
Nov 08, 2022•1 hr 48 min
'Crescent' (1964) is my favorite John Coltrane record, and Jeremiah is my favorite guy to chop it up with. This is kind of Trane's goth record, deeply underrated. It sparks off a conversation about humility, lyricism, ecstasy, and the idea of late work.
Nov 08, 2022•1 hr 58 min
Since the 90s, Weasel Walter has been a prolific and influential force in the worlds of no wave, free jazz, metal, and modern composition. An iconoclastic drummer, guitarist, composer, and improviser, Weasel has led the Flying Luttenbachers, and Cellular Chaos, as well as countless other, more collaborative projects. We talk about Iannis Xenakis, Natasha Leggero, ignorant death metal, and being a musical lifer.
Nov 07, 2022•2 hr 6 min
International hardcore superstar Danny Diablo aka Lord Ezec (Crown of Thornz, Skarhead) and black metal riff-lord Paul Delaney (Black Anvil) join me to talk about not being pigeon-holed, standing up for your friends even when they’re wrong, helping your fans cut the perfect line of coke, and the Jewish roots of the Ary*n Br*therh**d.
Oct 05, 2022•2 hr 22 min
Hannah A. Barnes is a composer of powerful, alien chamber and orchestral music, as well as a conductor, and lecturer at DePaul University. We talk about the importance of aesthetic difficulty, accusations of musical fascism, her relationship to the canon, and how her music subverts linear time.
Oct 05, 2022•2 hr 1 min
Eugene Robinson is one of the most original underground cultural figures of the past 40 years. As the lead singer of numerous projects including Oxbow and Whipping Boy, a renowned martial arts fighter, journalist, and author, Eugene has defied categories and expectations at every turn. We talk about 80s hardcore vs No Wave, Rene Girard, sacrifice, evil, and leaving New York.
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 20 min
Toby Driver is best known as the mastermind of long-running goth-prog legends Kayo Dot, as well as a member of Bloodmist and Secret Chiefs 3. We talk about Jane's Addiction's 1990 record, Ritual de lo Habitual, as well as white dreadlocks, what constitutes New Age music, and Toby's horrific Jane's A concert experience.
Oct 04, 2022•2 hr 1 min
Will Samson, host of the fantastic No Future podcast, joins me to talk about our favorite Captain Beefheart record, 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby' (1970). Will is quite knowledgable about Beefheart, and is a truly serious, thoughtful appreciator of unusual music in general.
Oct 04, 2022•2 hr 14 min
Writer and noise musician Xylon Genesis Otterburn returns to the live stream to talk with me about 'Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge', the 2004 classic by My Chemical Romance. We discuss the many phases of emo, the im/possibility of arena rock, Bandcamp skepticism, and more...
Oct 04, 2022•3 hr 6 min
Nicholas Dolinger is the author of Sunbathing, I Want To , a collection of theological poems, as well as other works published by Expat Press and Terror House. He is also the host of The Beautiful Toilet podcast, and a business reporter for Epoch Times. We talk about the classic Dr. Dooom (Kool Keith) album First Come, First Served , as well as Yukio Mishima, having diarrhea while on LSD, and the implicit politics of wearing a wig.
Oct 04, 2022•2 hr 54 min
Jeremiah and I discuss Morton Feldman, a towering colossus of 20th Century music, who has had an profound impact on both of our creative lives. We focus on three compositions: Durations, Rothko Chapel, and Patterns in a Chromatic Field.
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 48 min
Luke Calzonetti and I gab about a death metal classic, Suffocation's Pierced from Within (1995). Luke is a visual artist and electronic musician based in Brussels, whose projects include Sugarstick & Xerox, Run Dust, the EC Band, and, previously, Child Abuse. We go back many years to Luke's days in NY in the '00s.
Aug 23, 2022•2 hr
Bradley Coy is a fantastic young producer, guitarist, and vocalist, who makes music under the moniker Silk Defect. He also has lots to say about culture and philosophy. We talk about his debut album, Luxury of Dirt, as well as Catholicism, Mark Fisher, and the sublimity of feeling small.
Aug 23, 2022•1 hr 44 min
Jeremiah Cymerman returns to talk about Mr. Bungle's 1990 self-titled debut album. We get into consumption, violence, bad taste, pastiche, and nu metal.
Aug 22, 2022•2 hr 28 min
I'm thrilled to be joined by the truly legendary composer JG Thirlwell, mastermind behind Foetus, Manorexia, Xordox, The Venture Bros., the list goes on. We talk about what it has meant for Jim to inhabit different characters, score TV, and confront his mortality, over the course of a career stretching back to the early '80s.
Aug 22, 2022•1 hr 14 min
Alex Mincek is an acclaimed, prolific composer, professor of composition and music technology at Northwestern University, and co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble. His works for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and electronics have been performed across the world. We go deep about compositional flow, stasis, repetition, margins of difference, listener perception, Deleuze, Henri Bergson, Modernism, Uptown vs Downtown New York schools, and more...
Mar 10, 2021•1 hr 41 min
John Lamberton is a guitarist/composer based in Los Angeles who focuses on intensely complicated rhythm and generative processes. He's also the host of BRIDGE podcast, a coffee wizard, and a card-carrying Bayesian transhumanist. We talk about using algorithms to compose death metal, footwork music, suffering-focused ethics, SlateStarCodex, in-group signaling, NoFap, and quite a bit more.
Mar 10, 2021•2 hr 18 min
Daisy Press is a vocalist acclaimed for her original interpretations of early music and contemporary composers, and more recently as the high priestess of Voice Cult, a "convent" devoted to singing the music of Hildegard of Bingen. We talk about tuning the voice, Morton Feldman, chant for everyone, and Burning Man.
Feb 13, 2021•1 hr 43 min
Sam is the man behind the musical projects Zs and Diamond Terrifier, runs the eclectic NY music venue H0L0, founded the arts non-profit/outreach program Representing NYC, and recently started a new podcast, Place of Assembly. I go deep with my old, dear friend about constructing social space, Deleuzean encounters, and having the experience that's there to be had.
Feb 13, 2021•2 hr 5 min
Angel Marcloid is the composer/multi-instrumentalist behind Fire-Toolz, some of the most beautifully difficult to pigeon-hole music around today. We talk vaporwave, ancient mysticism, gender, jazz fusion, nu-metal, and her wholly unique and colorful artistic realm.
Feb 13, 2021•1 hr 51 min
Adam Kalmbach is the man behind Jute Gyte, a prolific and utterly iconoclastic experimental black metal project, which has garnered a true cult following. We talk about Adam's use of microtonality, his approach to compositional form, and some of the broader philosophy and historical touchstones behind his vision.
Feb 13, 2021•1 hr 45 min
Joan is a prolific and unique visual artist, and makes occultist electronic music as Temple ov Saturn. We talk about modernity, the sacred, nature, and pornography.
Feb 13, 2021•1 hr 55 min
Dave Davidson is one of contemporary metal's premiere electric guitar stylists, the leader of the highly popular band Revocation, and an in-demand educator. We talk about what it means to be a virtuoso, Dave's love of the work of Cornel West and HP Lovecraft, his new project Gargoyl, and the disintegration of the universe.
Feb 13, 2021•1 hr 28 min
Dennis is a young, prolific musician from Detroit, a producer, songwriter, and vocalist, who makes hard-hitting electronic music under several aliases including OLMS, White Christian Male, and THEDROVE. We get into connections between psychedelic and goth music, David Tibet, lobotomies, and the Peter Pan syndrome of coastal elites.
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr 29 min
Josh Strawn is a musician and writer, whose projects over the years have included post-punk and industrial bands such as Vaura, Azar Swan and Blacklist, as well as writing about politics and culture for the Daily Beast, Bust, and Talkhouse. I talk with Josh about the aesthetics of goth music, the thought-worlds of Nick Land and Mark Fisher, and approaches to writing lyrics.
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr 53 min
Improviser/composer Jeremiah Cymerman is a New York fixture, working primarily with clarinet, electronics, and the studio. He's also the man behind the 5049 Podcast, which has been quite influential within experimental music circles. He joins me to talk about the fabled New York "Downtown Scene", radical Jewish culture, and our near future as musicians under COVID-19.
Feb 12, 2021•1 hr 40 min
Txgen Meyer is a brilliant young theorist and artist. We talk about Sun Ra, Afro-pessimism, Afro-futurism, numerology, as well as Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of the Refrain and trans-coding.
Feb 11, 2021•1 hr 39 min
Barrett Avner is a very serious political theory head, wholly unusual personality and thinker, and the host of the Contain podcast. We talk about faith, dis-identity, Alexandr Dugin, trolling, and the figure of the dandy.
Feb 11, 2021•1 hr 39 min
Jamie Stewart, the incomparable mastermind behind the legendary experimental post-punk band Xiu Xiu, graces the livestream with a lovely chat about the ethics of telling other people's stories, a drama-filled tour we did together years ago, and power dynamics in homoerotic contexts.
Feb 09, 2021•1 hr 14 min
