Episodes

The literary historian joins us to discuss ‘Everything Is Everything,’ his book on how the Waco-born producer Tom Wilson took Bob Dylan electric, signed Frank Zappa, and stood by Nico through her exit from the Velvet Underground.

Koen Holtkamp set aside the loops of his work with Mountains, spent a year and a half coaxing plucked strings from his modular synth, and gave every player on ‘Nightlife’ a space of their own.

The AACM veteran joins us to discuss 'Constellations and Hemispheres,' a record he built like a dub producer from four ensembles, and the color research he asks of every player, kept secret from the rest of the band.

The Berlin composer and pianist joins us to discuss ‘The Juniper Tree,’ her new score for Nietzchka Keene’s 1990 film starring Björk, written without the original soundtrack in her ears and pared back by the Japanese idea of ma.

The Brooklyn saxophonist, composer, and singer joins us to discuss 'Waterbodies,' her tenth album, which brings '80s power ballads, an orchestra, and a choir back to the one long saxophone tone where all her music starts.

The Marin-born author and former WFMU host joins us to discuss 'Morning in Marin,' his history of how Alan Watts, the Grateful Dead, George Lucas, and Philip K. Dick turned one county north of the Golden Gate into a center of postwar American culture.

The Grammy-winning trumpeter and film composer joins us to discuss 'At the Carousel Club,' his first solo album in 15 years, built from a wall of vintage analog synthesizers and a band featuring Nels Cline and Vinnie Colaiuta.

From Alice Cooper to the Jayhawks, Bob Ezrin explains why artists keep coming back to him and why he asks permission to hold them to the best work they have ever done.

The reggae historian joins us to discuss 'Dub Revolution,' his account of how King Tubby, Prince Jammy, and Scientist pulled reggae records apart at the mixing desk and sent the pieces back out.

Seven players, four cities, and no rehearsals: Fling ii's Brad Gowland and Richard Murphy describe a recording method that turns a weekend of continuous tape into a six-track album.

The acclaimed music producer joins Lawrence Peryer to explain why he has worked out of one Gowanus building since 1979, what the rezoning is displacing, and why he thinks genres behave like social movements, with their own looks, uniforms, and language.

The saxophonist joins us to discuss 'Turn the Music Up,' the friendship with Pharoah Sanders behind its central tribute, and why he refuses to think of the jazz lineage as something outside himself.

The Florida sound artist joins us to discuss 'Kicking A Dark Horse,' a modular album bound into a hardcover book, with each half composed to fill the silences left by the other.

The NEA Jazz Master and four-time Grammy winner joins us to discuss 'Trip the Night Fantastic,' the second album from Terri Lyne Carrington + Social Science, which sets deportation, prison abolition, and climate collapse to music for the dance floor.

The pop-chart analyst and 'Hit Parade' host joins us to discuss what better data revealed about hit songs, the slow end of the monoculture, and the cultural rules that keep outsiders off country radio.

On his debut solo album, 'Teleportations,' the synthesist, producer, and founding member of The Comet Is Coming turns grief and upheaval into a science-fictional voyage built entirely from analog machines.

The electronic music pioneer joins the podcast to discuss 'CIANI/ORKEST,' her live album pairing the Buchla synthesizer with the 50-piece Metropole Orkest, and why she has always heard the instrument as orchestral.

The veteran trumpeter and arranger joins the podcast to discuss the twin albums 'ResoNation Trio' and 'Ultra Resonance,' Laurie Anderson's lesson that you never need permission to make art, and why this music dies if it stays in a museum.

Trained in the Jackie McLean tradition and later mentored by Herbie Hancock, Hellmuth explains how 'Tether' turns trust between bandmates into the record's actual structure.

Trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas discusses his album Transcend, the Jack Whitten retrospective that reshaped his thinking about raw material, and why Booker Little gave an entire generation of players permission to keep scrambling.

Ora Cogan on the politics of 'Hard Hearted Woman,' the hollowing-out of folk tradition, and why her forties have been the best time of her life to be playing music.

From the Black Ark tapes buried in Lee Perry's yard to unreleased Dennis Brown sessions, Billy Polo on the forensic pleasures and urgent stakes of reggae's analog archive.

The Dutch composer joins Lawrence Peryer to discuss 'Asymmetrical Dot,' the album shaped by his mother's death, a grandson's birth, and four decades of learning which clichés to reject.

George Grella joins the podcast to discuss his book Minimalist Music and argue that the genre has nothing to do with sparse materials and everything to do with time.