David ended up in jail last week, so Mark and Chris had to concoct an entirely different episode at short notice. The result? An episode on wrestling entrance themes. Long time fans of the show have probably heard Mark and Chris talk about wrestling from time to time on the show. Turns out that they’re actually pretty big fans of Vince McMahon’s house of big sweaty men and women. However, instead of just chatting about the world of wrestling for ages, because there’s already plenty of great podc...
Sep 21, 2020•47 min•Ep. 138
Surprise! Here’s another interview for ya’ll. We’re delighted to bring you this interview with the wonderful KateJane Garside. Well known for her staggering voice and stunning stage presence, KatieJane has been involved in a number of musical projects since the late 80s, most notably the garage punk outfit Daisy Chainsaw in the early 90s and ferocious noise rockers Queenadreena from 99 to 2010. She subsequently went on to form Ruby Throat with her life partner Chris Whittingham, a much more subt...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 159
We seem to say this every time we do an electronic record, but…it’s been a while since we did an electronic record! Lord of Dance (not of the dance , although having seen him cut shapes, we can attest that this may also be somewhat accurate) David Weaver has chosen this seminal dubstep album from the influential UK garage and dubstep artist Burial. If you hear the words “dubstep” and think Skrillex, or hear UK garage and think Craig David then we got news for you folks - this ain’t like any of t...
Sep 07, 2020•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 137
Chris was ill this week so we decided that we would release of the bonus episodes we recorded for subscribers back at the end of last year. This one was a lot of fun. We talk about some of our favourite guilty pleasures. We hope you enjoy - some truly brilliant and also hideous stuff in here. Next week we return with Burial’s self titled album!1
Aug 31, 2020•41 min•Ep. 136
Why donate to our Patreon? Well, if you’re made enough to donate a Crag ($50) then we’ll make an episode on an album of your choosing. Then we’ll let folk hear it. That’s exactly what happened here. Well, kind of. Our aim with this episode was to release this to subscribers only but it turned out so damn well that we asked my Rayce Bannon, the man that asked us to talk about this album, if we could release it to the general public but to be honest, we’d already decided we were going to do it any...
Aug 24, 2020•55 min•Ep. 135
Chris picked a hip hop album. Chris. Chris Cusack. The whitest man in Scotland. He did a good job too. This is Saul Williams’ second album, but it’s the first one where he true voice begins to emerge. It’s a huge clash of styles too, equal parts punk rock, noise, industrial, spoken word and hip hop. His true eclectic style is born on this album, and what a ride it is. Saul would later go on to work with a bunch of acclaimed artists from across a variety of genres, but this album really helped pu...
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr 37 min•Ep. 134
We really did go down the rabbit hole last week, eh? Well, grab your cave diving gear cause we’re going deep on The Gray Race and The Process of Belief. Much to the complete indifference of Anna and Weaver. Anna in particular is on top form here, which results in perhaps the funniest goddamn episode we’ve ever produced. Chris and Mark go head to head on their choice of unsung BR album, and they each make an impassioned case not just for their album, but also as to why this band are important. Ag...
Aug 10, 2020•1 hr 42 min•Ep. 133
Chris and Mark have threatened Dave with a Bad Religion episode for years, so we felt it was time to put him out his misery. We decided on a head to head, as the band have so many albums that it’s quite difficult to pick just one unsung record (we fully admit that they have a few sung albums). Dave’s indifference to the band and, well, to a lot of punk music, meant that we had to get a punk in to level the playing field. Enter our good pal and frequent guest Anna Goldthorp. A true punk, but also...
Aug 03, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 132
You can hear part one here. Alright, this is where shit gets real. Like really real. This is when our guest and the concept of our podcast collide to create a thing of singular beauty. There is a meeting of minds. There are moments where agreement is reached, and unsung music appreciated. On part 2 of our interview with Steve Von Till, he goes into detail about Neurosis, Neurot Recordings, some of the records he really digs and, as true to the ethos of the show, picks an album he thinks is unsun...
Jul 30, 2020•58 min•Ep. 152
It sure took us a wee while to get around to doing another interview, eh? Well, we’re taking steps to resolve that and (hopefully) bring you more in future. The first of those steps is this two parter with the influential Steve Von Till. The truth is that we weren’t actively planning interviews - it was just one of those things where we would occasionally float the idea of doing one but would never follow it up. So when we got asked if we’d like to interview SVT, being fans of Neurosis, we thoug...
Jul 27, 2020•43 min
Hey folks. We’ve been away preparing for a series of really cool episodes we’ve got coming, and we thought we’d take a small break from our regular recording schedule to do some research. But fear not - we’ve decided we’d drop one of our exclusive subscriber bonus episodes for all you non-subscribers. Our Split 7” series is when we take a listener suggested topic and wax lyrical on it. We recorded this back in September last year, and is a great example of the kinda of freewheeling shit we throw...
Jul 20, 2020•47 min•Ep. 131
Many say that alongside Meshuggah, SikTH are one of the forebearers of djent music. A brief listen to this album will suggest that this may be somewhat true, but the influence is probably more apparent on their second album Death of a Dead Day, than this, their debut. The Trees Are Dead & Dried Out, Wait for Something Wilde by SikTH is not a djent album. The elements of the sound are there for sure, but this record incorporates a lot of nu-metal, emo, math and prog. Amongst a lot of other we...
Jul 13, 2020•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 130
What do Pearl Jam, Marilyn Manson and Miles Davis have in common? Absolutely nothing at all, except that they’re nominated together for our first live album mixtape. Our three live albums actually showcase some of the different kinds of live record we spoke about on the last episode: Neil Young’s ‘Mirrorball’ is not a concert album, but was recorded entirely live, and you can hear that in the recording as you will often hear them talking before and after takes. Marilyn Manson’s ‘The Last Tour on...
Jul 06, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 129
Ah, the fabled live album. It takes guts to do one, and it takes true talent to choose a single gig as opposed to throwing together a compilation of tracks recorded over the course of a tour. On this episode we put the live album into some distinct categories, and from there each of us talk about some of our favourites. We discuss the history of the live album, what it means, why there are so few and a bunch more stuff. What’s some of your favourite live albums? We reckon we’ll probably cover mo...
Jun 29, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 128
Our voyage into continuous music comes to a close as we dig into Lubomyr Melnyk’s eighteenth (!) album Corollaries. For the unfamiliar, Melnyk categorises his style as being something almost beyond classical music, yet this release sees him team up with neoclassical composers Nils Frahm and Peter Broderick. This album seemed to give Melnyk a new lease of life; upon getting together with Frahm and Broderick he stated “Where were you in my thirties?”, a statement that stands in stark contrast to h...
Jun 22, 2020•53 min•Ep. 127
OH GOOD LORD IT’S ANOTHER TWO PARTER. Maybe we should get better at planning these things… Anyway. Chris has been chomping at the bit to do this Lubomyr Melnyk album for a while. In fact, some may even remember that he brought it up during our Pandemic Mixtape. Well, the time has come to finally tackle this post-classical/minimalist work and in doing so we absolutely had to cover his…interesting thoughts on musical philosophy. Which cascades into his questionable thoughts on the actual science o...
Jun 15, 2020•55 min•Ep. 126
Finally, after the extensive preamble, we’re now down to talking about J Dilla’s third album Donuts. Because of the nature of this record, we didn’t break it down track by track as the whole thing flows as a kind of suite, so we do a little bit of track analysis and talk more extensively about the composition of the album, the techniques and technology used to create it, the samples used, the message of the record and a whole lot more. Is this an unsung classic? Vote on our facebook page. Black ...
Jun 08, 2020•49 min•Ep. 125
Rarely do we go into an episode thinking it’ll be a two parter. It certainly wasn’t the intention with this one. Yet it turns out there’s rather a lot to say about J Dilla. He was a truly gifted producer and musician, who created an incredible amount of music in his short term here on Earth. Donuts was his second (or third) full length album, and was released a mere 3 days before his untimely death at 32 years old from a heart attack. But as a producer and beatmaker, he’d created and contributed...
Jun 01, 2020•55 min•Ep. 124
It’s time for another emergency mixtape, folks! Due to unforeseen circumstances Weaver wasn’t available this week, so as something of a response to what seems like a deluge of people live streaming acoustic gigs from their bedrooms, Mark and Chris decided to rustle up this little number about singer-songwriters. It goes without saying that we’re mostly focusing on solo artists in this episode, and it’s by no means an exhaustive list of the ones we think are good. In fact, we’ll probably revisit ...
May 25, 2020•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 123
Doing these two Dillinger Escape Plan episodes was a blast. You can hear part one here , where we spoke about the band’s history, live shows, touring and all of the other albums we’re not covering on this episode. It’s a good deep dive into one of metal and hardcore’s most influential acts. On part two we each make that case as to why the DEP album of our choice is the correct one. Chris has backed Calculating Infinity, Weaver’s fighting in the corner of Miss Machine and Mark thinks One of Us is...
May 18, 2020•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 122
Aye so at the start of the year we thought we were absolutely capable of make our episodes a bit more concise. We were wrong. Sorta. One of the few good things to come out of lockdown is that we can spend more time researching and then talking about artists. PJ Harvey is a good example of that, and we expand upon that idea with our Dillinger Escape Plan threesome. The idea was to pit three DEP albums against one another, with Christ vouching for Calculating Infinity, Weaver backing Miss Machine ...
May 11, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 121
It’s part two of our PJ Harvey episode, and this week we talk about her fourth album Is This Desire? in full. We get into the flow of the album, how it differs from her other work, and do our usual track by track breakdown. Weaver also drops in via voice mail to give us his thoughts. Plus we have the usual nexus shenanigans too as we look to try and connect PJ Harvey with the bloody Peperami mascot, The Animal. So, the question we pose to you is this: Do you think Is This Desire? is the definiti...
May 04, 2020•55 min•Ep. 120
Chris has been deliberating on which PJ Harvey to pick since before this whole podcast even started. It was a choice so difficult, that he’s had to call in back up in friend of the pod, and resident PJ Harvey expert, Vicki. Weaver couldn’t join us in full this week due to a myriad of technical issues (seriously, we tried for like half an hour to find a work around), which further proves we’ve yet to come up with a foolproof remote recording method that takes into account women who make tarot car...
Apr 27, 2020•53 min•Ep. 119
Weaver’s taking us back to France this week, as he gives us the lowdown on 90s house music and we give Daft Punk a good analysis. It’s difficult to imagine a time when Daft Punk were not one of the biggest electronic artists in the world. Everyone’s heard them. In fact, there’s a pretty high chance that you’ve heard “Around the World”, which was taken from this very album! The story goes that Daft Punk only wanted to put out singles, but after writing a lot they decided they had enough tunes for...
Apr 20, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 118
After last week’s vote ended in 100% of people agreeing that Mule Variations should go into the discography, we thought we’d return to punk and cover Sing Sing Death House by The Distillers. We also welcome back Anna Goldthorp! The Distillers only released 3 albums in their career, and people generally tend to look more favourably on their 3rd (and to date, final) album Coral Fang. But this week Anna and Mark are here to argue Sing Sing Death House is not only unsung but also the band’s best rec...
Apr 13, 2020•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 117
It’s difficult to imagine a world without Tom Waits. You may not be a fan, or even at all familiar with his music, but he’s been such a well known cult musical figure for so long that he’s taken on an almost mythical air. And mystical. And mythological. Basically, anything that starts with m and ends in al. That’s largely because he remains something of an enigma. An intensely private person, fans only really know him through his music, and his music is weird . This week Chris brings his 12th st...
Apr 06, 2020•1 hr 36 min•Ep. 116
We may very well be doubling down on the post-apocalyptic vibes this week, but it’s apt. So sue us. This week, we get back on track with Ausserwelt by French post-metal sextet, Year of No Light. Weaver’s back in the game, although as we’re now in lockdown, we recorded this one remotely. Which seems like it’ll be the story for the foreseeable future. We do a bit of a deep dive on Year of No Light, and touch upon some of the other projects their members have been involved in. An unsung band for su...
Mar 30, 2020•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 115
Well, it happened. We knew the day would come. We knew there would inevitably be a point where we wouldn’t be able to get into the same room together and it’s taken a goddamn pandemic to make that happen. So here we are. Our first ever remote episode. And almost certainly not our last. As fans will know, we were originally scheduled to do Ausserwelt by Year of No Light this week. However, Dave was feeling a little poorly so we decided to do something else. Chris and Mark sat down to have a wee c...
Mar 23, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 114
Almost lost to the sands of time (well, in an official sense), Static Age was the first album the Misfits ever recorded, before being ditched save for a few singles and the occasional re-recording of some songs by primary (at the time) songwriter Glenn Danzig. The album lived on though in what seemed like an endless tape copy circle amongst fans. They would later go onto double down on the horror gimmick to record and release a “proper” debut album in 1982 called Walk Among Us, and for years fan...
Mar 16, 2020•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 113
The perfect antidote to SHOUTY ANGRY MUSIC is to do something a little more…melodic. And iconic. Which is why we’re doing Pod, the debut album by The Breeders. Something of a supergroup, The Breeders were formed when Kim Deal, feeling unfulfilled by her role in The Pixies, decided to put a band together to showcase the material she’d written. After sending a demo tape to 4AD, the rest is history. Recorded by Steve Albini at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh, it’s a stunningly consisted, and assured...
Mar 09, 2020•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 112
