This week on our weekly talk show, Transmissions: Joe Casey of Protomartyr. One of the most exciting rock bands of the last decade, the Detroit-based post punk band will release its fifth album, Ultimate Success Today July 17th. The word prophetic isn’t a stretch. With its references to disease, institutional brutality, and gross inequality—symptoms of “a cosmic grief, beyond all comprehension”—the new record matches the apocalyptic mood of the US, and much of the world, in 2020. But it also speaks to the continued growth of the Protomartyr aesthetic, pairing contributions by players associated with free jazz and experimental music with post-punk rhythms.
Category: Podcast
Transmissions :: Modern Nature
We’re back. This week, we’re featuring Jesse Locke’s interview with Jack Cooper of Modern Nature. Formerly of Ultimate Painting, Cooper has expanded outward with his new project. The band’s new mini-album, Annual, is the follow up to the band’s debut, 2019’s How to Live. Inspired by the group’s time on the road in support of that album, this new one demonstrates the way live performance and improvisation has informed Cooper’s continually more expansive approach to Modern Nature.
Transmissions :: Lisa E. Harris on EarthSeed
Our guest this week is Lisa E. Harris, whose new album with Nicole Mitchell is called EarthSeed. Inspired by the works of science fiction author Octavia Butler, it was recorded live at Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago and features the Black Earth Ensemble—an all-star collection of Chicago improvisers and free jazz artists—including Julian Otis, Zara Zaharieva, Ben LaMar Gay, Tomeka Reid, and Avreeayl Ra—backing up the two composers.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With David Crosby
This week on Transmissions: counter culture icon David Crosby. Anyone familiar with his Twitter feed knows Croz is a fount of opinions and insight, capable of immense warmth and good humor, but never one to pull punches. On July 31st, he’s reissuing the catalog of CPR, his cheekily named late ’90s and early 2000s supergroup with guitarist Jeff Pevar and Crosby’s son, keyboardist James Raymond, offering an overview of the group that set Crosby off on a late career renaissance that continues with recent albums like 2018’s Here If You Listen.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With Ami Dang
This week on Transmissions: a conversation with sitarist and ambient composer Ami Dang, whose new ep of sacred music is called Meditations Mixtape, Vol. 1. We reached her in Baltimore to discuss her particular fusion of sounds and the way she explores the middle ground between what’s considered sacred—and what isn’t.
Transmissions :: 15 Years of Aquarium Drunkard (Live on The Tonight Zone)
And we’re back. Welcome to another installment of Transmissions. For this episode, we’re bringing you one from the Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard’s archives: a live conversation with Ben Kramer and our founder Justin Gage, discussing 15 years of Aquarium Drunkard. Though RFAD is on pause, keep your eyes open for the eventual return of the Tonight Zone, Kramer’s late night call-in show. For now, tune in and drift as Kramer and Gage discuss the evolution and vision behind Aquarium Drunkard.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With Luke Schneider
Our guest this week on Transmissions is pedal steel player Luke Schneider. Best known as a sideman for Margo Price, he’s back with a New Age album, Altar of Harmony, released by the venerable Third Man Records. Schneider takes the pedal steel for a cosmic ride on his new album, conjuring up uncanny sounds that seem to bend the ear—and the heart.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With Steve Gunn
We’re joined by Steve Gunn for this episode of the Transmissions podcast—completing our round of talks with the participants of the Gunn/Lattimore/Tyler canceled tour. But there’s much more to hear here than another pandemic rap. Topics of conversation include the new Livin’ In Between EP, which pairs Gunn’s last Lagniappe Session with a brand-new cover of Neil Young’s “Motion Pictures,” Steve’s hardcore youth, immersion in the experimental Philadelphia scene, and his longstanding creative partnership with drummer John Trucinski.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With Buck Curran
On this episode, your Transmissions co-host Jason P. Woodbury caught up with guitarist and songwriter Buck Curran. Formerly one half of the psychedelic duo Arborea, Buck is currently situated in Bergamo, Italy, in one of the areas hit hardest by COVID-19. Though he’s quarantining with his family, he decided now was the right time to release his third solo album, No Love is Sorrow.
Transmissions :: UFOria (1985)—An Appreciation
A digital screening of UFOria, the 1985 science fiction comedy starring Cindy Williams, Fred Ward, and Harry Dean Stanton. At once sweet, earnest, silly, and wry, Jason P. Woodbury and Chad DePasquale suggest it’s perfect quarantine viewing. Tune in.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With Jesse Jarnow
For this episode of Transmissions, we’re joined by author, WFMU DJ, and historian of all things “heady,” Jesse Jarnow. With society in a state of monumental flux, it felt like the perfect time to ring Jesse up to discuss the radical possibilities of the current moment, science fiction, various dystopian and utopian happenings and jam culture’s ahead of the curve embrace of live streaming tech.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With Mary Lattimore
The music of Mary Lattimore is at once intimate and cosmic—her unfolding and widening harp epics connect outer expanses to inner realms. No matter the context, Lattimore’s musical voice resounds as a calming and clear one. Which is why, as the pandemic blues really kick in, Transmissions hosts Justin Gage and Jason P. Woodbury rang her up to discuss adjusting creative practices, dealing with daily anxieties, and narrow down which Succession character is least despicable.
Transmissions :: A Conversation With Patterson Hood
And we’re back with a check in with songwriter, bandleader, and longtime Aquarium Drunkard supporter Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers. Earlier this year, the Truckers released their 12th lp, The Unraveling, a righteously pissed off record about gun violence, white supremacy, and the possibility of reincarnation. We rang up Hood to talk about quarantining in Portland, Oregon, the ins and outs of modern America, the new Bob Dylan song, and his early, formative experience seeing the great John Martyn.
Transmissions: A Conversation With William Tyler
For the last decade, William Tyler’s widescreen guitar epics have told wordless stories, about forgotten histories, American myths, backroads, and mystic visions. On this episode of Transmissions he discusses traveling to Nashville as the pandemic spread and the art he’s been enjoying while hunkered down.
Transmissions :: Strange Days—A Conversation
Social distance dispatching. Some background, to start. In recent weeks, we’ve been assembling elements—interviews, readings, scripts, segments—for the next season of the Transmissions podcast. But the onset of global pandemic has caused us to consider: What feels important right now? Would discussing it help? To that end, we’re taking the Transmissions podcast weekly for now, and featuring check-ins between AD founder Justin Gage and editor Jason P. Woodbury. We have a lot of plans for the podcast in the coming weeks, from guest interviews to audio collages, but expect it to be loose. Stay in, wash your hands, reach out to those who need you. Remember you need them too.