Happy Holidays. While we're on break, we'd love to share with you a recent addition to the Talkhouse Podcast Network, Noble Champions with Santigold.

This episode originally aired on Nov. 7, 2022, and is titled "Questlove, Angela Yee and Tunde Adebimpe." Subscribe to Noble Champions with Santigold. 
In this episode, Santi rallies her longtime friends Questlove, Angela Yee, and Tunde Adebimpe, who are fellow artists, industry insiders, and cultural critics, to try to tackle the question, 'What exactly is Black Music?'. They discuss complex issues like what happens when you step out of the genre box - specifically when Black artists are making music that’s left outside the 'Black Music' box, who built the box, and what’s the bigger impact of caging in or boxing out music and the artists that make it? All this while geeking out about some of their favorite seminal recording artists like Bad Brains, Nina Simone, Fela Kuti, The Last Poets and more.

Preview: Noble Champions with Santigold

Your favorite musicians, filmmakers, and other creative minds one-on-one. No moderator, no script, no typical questions. The Talkhouse Podcast offers unique insights into creative work from all genres and generations. Explore more illuminating shows on the Talkhouse Podcast Network.

Arts

Literature

Performing Arts

Design

Food

Fashion & Beauty

Visual Arts

TV & Film

Music

Music Interviews

Film Interviews

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a favorite repeat guest alongside a newer name you perhaps haven’t heard yet: Amelia Meath and Fabi Reyna. 
Meath is half of the duo Sylvan Esso, which has been crafting gorgeous electro-pop for the past decade. It’s been amazing to watch Meath and her partner Nick Sanborn grow over the years, building a catalog and fanbase with songs that are equally enjoyable on headphones and in front of massive crowds. Speaking of massive crowds, Sylvan Esso has been trying to figure out for years how to play to all the people that want to see them in their adopted hometown of Durham, North Carolina, and this weekend marks their inaugural Good Moon Festival at a minor-league stadium. They’ll be joined by other great bands including co-headliner Fleet Foxes, plus a lineup of hand-picked bands including today’s other guest, Fabi Reyna. 
Reyna is the driving force behind Reyna Tropical, whose debut album Malegria was recently released on the Psychic Hotline label, which is run by none other than… Sylvan Esso. Reyna has long been an advocate for women in music; she’s not only a musician herself but also founder and editor of She Shreds Media. It’s a fantastic, bouncing album that plucks influences from all over the world: Reyna is Mexican-American, and she pulls sounds from all over the Southern Hemisphere as well as West Africa and sultry pop. Check out “Cartagena” from Malegria right here. 
In this great chat, Meath and Reyna talk about the upcoming Good Moon festival, about how playing in front of unfriendly audiences can sometimes be helpful, about the loss of Reyna’s musical partner Nectali Diaz, aka Sumohair, the just-released tenth anniversary reissue of Sylvan Esso’s great debut album and much more. Enjoy. 
0:00 - Intro 
2:14 - Start of the chat 
3:42 - Anxiety, a constant companion. 
5:58 - What to do when the audience isn't there for you. 
12:26 - On naming the Good Moon festival. 
15:20 - On Amelia's favorite part of a festival. 
25:48 - On overcoming imposter syndrome. 
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Amelia Meath and Fabi Reyna for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso) with Fabi Reyna (Reyna Tropical)

Greetings, Talkhouse friends. Instead of a Talkhouse episode this week, I wanted to share another episode of my pal Craig Finn’s show, That’s How I Remember It, which is just starting its third season. Craig has an incredible array of guests lined up, and he’s switching to a new schedule where he’ll have new episodes every other week without a break. That means more amazing chats for you, including this one with Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck. Craig and Matt chat about the philosophy behind That’s How I Remember It—it’s a podcast about creativity and memory—as well as an early meeting between the two, Phosphorescent’s mighty “Song For Zula” and much more. I’ll be back next week with your regularly scheduled programming, but for now, give That’s How I Remember It your attention. See you next week! 
0:00 - Intro
2:41 - "Do you think you have a good memory?" 
3:58 - The origins of That's How I Remember It 
8:43 - Craig vs. Matt's approach to songwriting 
13:14 - "Do you have a first memory of music? 
23:00 - "Do you connect music with seasons?" 
35:53 - Craig and Matt first meeting at SXSW 2010 
36:52 - "Did the Full Moon Project ... affect your own songwriting?" 
43:30 - "Song For Zula" - "Did it surprise you?"
46:45 - "Has traveling/moving changed your music?" 
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

Craig Finn with Matthew Houck (Phosphorescent)

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two incredible singer-songwriters who sprung from the same fertile late '80s/early '90s scene, and who are still doing it right all these years later: Joe Pernice and Bill Janovitz. 
Joe Pernice first found notice in the country-ish pop band Scud Mountain Boys, whose home-recorded songs landed them a deal with Sub Pop in the mid-1990s. The Scuds weren’t around super long, but their end was the beginning of the Pernice Brothers, Joe’s long-running band that continues to put out excellent, often melancholy songs. The latest Pernice Brothers album—and by the way, he’s really the only constant member at this point—is called Who Will You Believe, and it stands up there with his incredibly durable catalog. In addition to writing and playing songs, Pernice wrote a great novel a while back called It Feels So Good When I Stop, and he even had a short stint writing for TV. But for now, he’s concentrating on music. Check out “December in Her Eyes” from Who Will You Believe. 
The other half of today’s conversation, Bill Janovitz, has been the singer and guitar player for the band Buffalo Tom since their inception back in 1986, and while there have been quieter periods in there, they’ve consistently released records, including the new Jump Rope, which comes out on May 31. Buffalo Tom came out of the same incredible Boston/Amherst music scene that birthed Pernice Brothers, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, and many more, and these guys dive right into reminiscing about those fertile days. In addition to making music, Janovitz is also something of a rock historian, having written the comprehensive Leon Russell book in recent years, as well as a volume on The Rolling Stones. His next book is about The Cars, which these guys talk about during this chat as well. Check out “Helmet” from the upcoming album Jump Rope right here. 
Like I said, these guys dive back into the Boston days, talking about mutual friends and collaborators like J Mascis and David Berman of Silver Jews. They also try to remember their first encounters, one of which involves Pernice being a little ornery, and they talk about selecting songs for records—and how they never know which ones people are going to react to. Enjoy. 
0:00 - Intro
2:46 - Start of the chat
7:37 - Joe's legendary cousin
12:15 - Joe walks out of college and has "a mild nervous breakdown"
18:20 - "When did you meet [David] Berman?"
23:58 - "My first album was made for $60."
31:01 - Berman wants to hear Joe say the word "cocksucker."
42:12 - Craft versus hack, and writing for TV and film
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Joe Pernice and Bill Janovitz for chatting. If you like what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and make sure to check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! 
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom) with Joe Pernice (Pernice Brothers)

This week's Talkhouse Podcast brings together two important figures from the ‘90s shoegaze movement—and beyond—Miki Berenyi and Debbie Googe. 
Berenyi was one of the two women at the front of Lush, the powerhouse band that burned very bright from the late ‘80s to a difficult end in 1996. Their fascinating story—and much more—is told in Berenyi’s recent autobiography, the excellent Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me From Success. The book details everything from Berenyi’s childhood through a no-holds-barred look at her band’s successes and failures, from management woes to in-fighting to a stage dive on Lollapalooza that left her in literal stitches. Berenyi is about to launch a U.S. tour, her first in a while, that also marks the beginnings of a new band, the Miki Berenyi Trio. Details can be found at mikistuff.com. 
The other half of this conversation is Debbie Googe, best known as the bassist for My Bloody Valentine, perhaps the most legendary of the shoegaze bands. Googe was there almost from the volatile band’s start, both in their early, more rocking days—which you’ll hear a bit about in this chat—to its ongoing reunion. In the long stretches between My Bloody Valentine tours, Googe has played in other interesting bands, including Thurston Moore’s solo lineups and with Brix Smith of the Fall. Googe also recently started performing and recording more experimental music as da Googie, including a recent collaborative single with Too Many Things. 
As you’ll hear, Berenyi and Googe know each other from way back—from the days when their bands were small enough to be playing shows in squats, in fact. In this chat, they talk about what touring is like in Europe versus their UK home—better food in Europe—as well as Berenyi’s bandmate and partner Moose losing his passport recently. Googe tells the hilarious story of her My Bloody Valentine bandmate Bilinda Butcher auditioning for the band, which involves accidentally being interviewed for another, entirely different, job. Enjoy. 
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Miki Berenyi and Debbie Googe for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

Miki Berenyi (Lush) with Debbie Googe (My Bloody Valentine)

This week's Talkhouse Podcast came together in a fun way, when a new-ish artist referenced the work of a more established band in a song, and the head of a legendary indie label thought they should meet. That sounds complicated, but don’t worry I’ll explain. Our guests are Claire Rousay and Kevin Drew. 
Kevin Drew is best known as one of the founders of Broken Social Scene, the influential Canadian band slash collective that’s been around for 25 years now. The band has amassed an incredible catalog that broke out with 2002’s unstoppable You Forgot It In People but all of its records reward a deep dive—as does the solo work that Drew has also released over the years. Last year he released a moving record about loss—among other things—called Aging, and as you’ll hear in this conversation, he hopes to reignite Broken Social Scene for one more run that includes some of the collective’s members that have gone on to big careers outside the band, like Leslie Feist and Emily Haines. I personally would love to see it. 
I imagine the other half of today’s conversation, Claire Rousay, would as well. The impetus for this conversation is her song “Lover’s Spit Plays in the Background.” In case you’re not familiar with the aforementioned Broken Social Scene album, You Forgot It In People, it features a song called “Lover’s Spit.” Rousay’s song is from her fantastic new album Sentiment, just out on Thrill Jockey Records, on which she leans more into song structure than on past releases, which have been tagged “emo ambient.” Rousay uses found sounds, hazy atmospherics, and Auto-Tune to tell sometimes crushingly depressing stories in a way that somehow turns out gorgeous. Check out “Lover’s Spit Plays in the Background” right here. 
This conversation ended up happening because Thrill Jockey’s Bettina Richards reached out to Drew to let him know about the nod on Rousay’s song, and the rest is history: As you’ll hear, they connected pretty quickly, and they chat about blackout curtains, influential record labels, the death of Kevin’s mom, and what Drew dubs Claire’s “beautiful, vulnerable, shadowy womb/sleeping bag of a record.” Enjoy. 
0:00 - Intro
2:29 - Start of the chat
4:49 - On Claire's unusual introduction to Broken Social Scene's music
9:24 - On music as a lifesaver
13:47 - On the future of Broken Social Scene
17:35 - On being jealous of your peers
21:42 - On blackout curtains
31:27 - On signing to Thrill Jockey
36:46 - On negativity and career expectations
Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Claire Rousay and Kevin Drew for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! 
This episode is brought to you by DistroKid. DistroKid makes music distribution fun and easy with unlimited uploads and artists keep 100% of their royalties and earnings. To learn more and get 30% off your first year's membership, visit: distrokid.com/vip/talkhouse

Preview: Noble Champions with Santigold

Download our free app to listen on your phone