Last Things

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.