Mike Shiflet and Nicholas Rombes On Their ” Lisa 2, v​.​1​.​0″ Collaboration

Lisa 2, v​.​1​.​0 cover

This December brings with it the release of two different works titled Lisa 2, v​.​1​.​0. The first is a novel by Nicholas Rombes about a playwright working on a new project, the a possibly haunted computer she begins working on, and the surreal occupation of the playwright’s husband. The other is an album by Mike Shiflet designed to act as a soundtrack and companion piece to the book in question. Shiflet and Rombes conversed about their respective works, their collaboration, and — as the saying goes — What It All Means.

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Notes On Caroline Davis & Wendy Eisenberg’s “Accept When”

Caroline Davis & Wendy Eisenberg

I mute the sound on the ballgame and start listening to Accept When by Caroline Davis and Wendy Eisenberg. With my turntable in the repair shop, I have to settle for listening to the album on my laptop. I sink into the couch and the music flows. A light rain starts to fall outside the window and drops are visible at the game, though not enough to pause the action.

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The Soil As Collaborator: An Interview With Erland Cooper

Erland Cooper

Composer Erland Cooper did something unexpected with the recordings that would become his new album Carve the Runes Then Be Content With Silence: he buried them. For several years, in fact, until they were discovered by someone who’d followed the clues Cooper had left to the master tapes’ location. The result is a gorgous, melancholic array of music, interspersed with poetry and given a more textured quality from their time underground. I spoke with Cooper about this unusual process and the role of collaboration in his work.

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Notes On Black Joe Lewis

Black Joe Lewis

“He pitches as though he’s double parked.”
-Pitcher Bob Gibson as described by announcer Vin Scully

***

Singer and guitarist Black Joe Lewis opens the show with the briefest of introductions: 

“We’ve been playing like this for a while. Hope you like it. We’re not going to stop for a while.” 

Moments later, he is torching the joint, soaring through an extended instrumental break, not fast or flashy, but somehow making it feel as if he’s propelled us to the middle of the set, skipping the warm up songs that bands and audiences use to acclimate, suss each other out. Lewis and his band, the Honeybears, get to the flow so quickly I lose track of conventional markers such as time and lyrics and song structures. Are they purposefully steering away from those elements in order to generate a different kind of energy? Or are they simply ready to roll, like Bob Gibson? 

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Collages, Calvino, and Catchy Pop Songs: Chatting with Smug Brothers

Smug Brothers

I’m not sure when I first picked up In the Book of Bad Ideas, the 2023 album from Ohio’s Smug Brothers, but the album made a huge impression on me from the outset. It abounds with the sort of off-kilter indie rock that’s both viscerally satisfying and singularly compelling.  In advance of a tour that will bring them to Brooklyn (Young Ethel’s on November 9!), I spoke with singer-guitarist Kyle Melton about the band’s new EP, Another Bar Behind the Night, their penchant for collage, and the works of Italo Calvino.

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Bizhiki On the Making of Their Stunning Debut “Unbound”

Bizhiki

Unbound, the debut album from Bizhiki, brings together a trio of talented musicians with some high-profile guests to create one of the most immersive, compelling, and wide-ranging albums you’ll hear in 2024. The group, comprised of Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings, Joe Rainey Sr., and S. Carey, have done terrific work on their own; seriously, if you haven’t listened to Rainey’s 2022 album Niineta, you’re in for a treat. I talked with with Bizhikiins Jennings about the making of Unbound and the challenges of collaboration.

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It’s All In the Timing: An Interview With Paddan

Paddan

Sigtryggur Baldursson and Birgir Mogensen have been making music for a very long time. They first played together in the group KUKL along with future members of the Sugarcubes; the music the duo makes now as Paddan, though, takes them in a very different direction. Their debut Fluid Time is a hypnotic collection of songs, both propulsive and willing to linger and explore unexpected sonic corridors. I spoke with Baldursson about their debut, their approach to collaboration, and the subgenre they’ve coined to describe their sound

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How to Dress Well on the Visual Side of ” I Am Toward You”

How to Dress Well

This year brought with it a new album from How to Dress Well — I Am Toward You, the first album from Tom Krell’s musical project since 2018’s The Anteroom. (In the meantime, Krell’s earned his doctorate in philosophy.) With the new album out in the world for about a month, I chatted with Krell about the visual side of things, the artwork by Joshua James Clancy, and his thoughts on AI and generative technology.

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