Dec 14, 2017
Between 1967 and 1975, the Firesign Theatre put out nine albums that carved out a new space somewhere between comedy, sound art, literature, and rock and roll. The music critic Robert Christgau called them “a comedy group that uses the recording studio at least as brilliantly as any rock group.”
In this episode, we...
Nov 30, 2017
After King Kreon condemns her brother, a traitor, to rot on the battlefield, Antigone defies him, risking her own life, to give her brother a proper burial. This week, we present poet Anne Carson’s experimental translation of Sophocles’ play, an adaptation that incorporates within it 2,500 years of the play’s...
Nov 9, 2017
In the early 90s, when Meshell Ndegeocello released Plantation Lullabies, her first album, she helped to usher in the era of neo-soul. Her debut inspired a slew of artists such as Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, and Lauryn Hill. On later albums, Ndegeocello went on to experiment with silky jazz ballads, staccato rapping, quiet...
Oct 18, 2017
This week, we’re sharing a highly subjective journey through one narrow, eccentric, corridor of radio advertising, as heard through the ears of one man. His name is Clive Desmond. Clive is a radio advertising producer, writer, and composer. He’s been doing it for more than thirty years, and he’s won...
Oct 5, 2017
This week, we pull out the stops and go full-Organist with an episode about Ákos Rózmann, an organist serving a Catholic church in Stockholm who played hymns during the day and by night invented unearthly electronic music in the recording studio he’d built in the church basement (where he often slept). It was there...