Discologist

On her new album Lake Accontink , Marian McLaughlin invites the listener along on her quest to try and make sense of the many ways in which we impact and are impacted by the environment, and what it all may mean in the long run. We’re sitting down with the Baltimore-based musician to talk about what inspired her self-described “music for the Anthropocene Epoch,” the perils of capitalism in the mod...

To call Chicago’s Makaya McCraven, just a drummer would be doing the multi-talented musical truth seeker a grave disservice. Over the past few years, McCraven has been refining a production technique that mixes live jam sessions and impromptu performances with radically creative editing to produce some of the most exciting jazz of the modern day. On Universal Beings , an album recorded in four dif...

Just in time for Halloween, we're talking about the music of one of the most revered cult films in history:The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Joining in the fun as we celebrate this culture-shifting masterpiece are our good friends Sean Barna, Philip Basnight, and very special guest, DC drag queen extraordinaire, DONNA SLASH! So come up to the lab, see what's on the slab, and always remember: Don’t dr...

In 2016 Chicago rapper Noname (Fatimah Warner) stepped out of the shadows of her collaborators to deliver Telefone , one of the best albums of 2016, and easily one of the best hip-hop debuts in recent memory. One move to L.A. and a good bit of growing up later, Noname is BACK with her first “official” album, Room 25. Self-produced and self-released, Room 25 is an ambitious step forward for one of...

With over eight million copies sold worldwide, four Top 10 hits, a “unique” reputation in cinematic history, and more, it is no wonder that the “heart of rock and roll” beats strong with Huey Lewis and The News bar room masterpiece thirty-five years after its release. Sports wasn’t just the sound of a band finally arriving on the scene, it encapsulated everything that was important to being goddam...

In 2017, a longtime friend of the podcast Seán Barna was living in New York City and wrestling with some serious life questions. How could he survive as an artist? Did he even WANT to make music anymore? Moreover, did he have anything left to say? In 2018 he found some of those answers through a fateful friendship and a handful of spontaneous studio sessions from which his latest EP, Cissy , was b...

Over the past few years, Israel Nash has been building a solid catalog of cosmic folk and country from his home-base in Dripping Springs, Texas, and now he’s taking the show on the road. We sat down with Nash before his recent stop in Washington DC to talk about his most recent album Lifted, the power of recognizing the beauty of nature, and how our connection to each other is the key to building...

Artist/poet/father/musician Lonnie Holley has experienced the best and worst of modern American life in his 68 years on the planet, and on his latest project MITH , he pours all of that and more into a powerful meditation on blackness, our humanity, and how to survive in our darkest of nights. Join us as Kevin and special guest Wes Covey try to unpack some of what makes MITH, not just the best and...

Morphine’s Cure For Pain is an album that revels in finding hope in the darkest nights of our souls. For twenty-five years the weird magic conjured by Mark Sandman (2-string bass/vocals), Dana Colley (sax), and Jerome Deupree (drums) has remained singular in its sound and remains (oddly) peerless to this day. This week we’re celebrating their remarkable achievement by taking a deep dive into one o...

PJ Sykes is a man of many talents - Photographer, political activist, cat-dad, musician - these are but a few of the many hats he wears. But this week we’re talking with him about a role he’s filled for over seventeen years now - label head. Founded in 2001, Cherub records has been the home of not just PJ’s music, but eccentric releases from the Richmond, Virginia scene and beyond. Tune in as we t...

Shooter Jennings is a man of many moods and talents, but on his new album Shooter , he's returning to his Country roots. A celebration of the Hank Williams Jr, and all of the troublemakers and rabble-rousers that came before and after,  Shooter  is bursting with debauchery, heartache, and something sorely missing from today's Country music: fun. PLUS! We're sitting down with the tru...

Hailing from Dallas, Texas, this group of rock and roll veterans (between them they've recorded and toured with the likes of St. Vincent, The Apples in Stereo, The War on Drugs, The Deathray Davies, Baboon, Daniel Johnston, and more) got together and decided to form "greatest band in the world. Maybe." and so it was that Motorcade was born. Armed with an ear for the past and a heart for writi...

On their debut LP Peace Will Grind You Down, Washington, DC-based quartet Luna Honey - a band formed seemingly on a whim - the doooooom is front and center, but so is an undeniable heart. Join us in a frank and hilarious discussion of, how feeling bad is a part of life, why you, yes you, should hurry up and start a band already, how your nerdy past always serves your future, and much, much more.&n...

U2's finest hour wasn't lifting us up singing about MLK , a spiritual celebration of the history of American music , or even future pop from the edges of our imagination : It was an insistent, eccentric, and infinitely prescient project that almost wasn't, named  Zooropa. This week, we're revisiting the "biggest band in the world's" most powerful statement about us all, twenty-five years afte...

Over the past few years, Israel Nash has been building a solid catalog of cosmic folk and country from his home-base in Dripping Springs, Texas, and his, ahem, uplifting new LP Lifted  is the latest product of his time in the proverbial desert. Built on found sounds, universal vibes, and an unfaltering believe that what will save us is our connection to each other, Nash is a new "hippie" gosp...

Recorded in a monastery in Appleton, Wisconsin, Erin Rae's Putting On Airs , is a delicious slice of folk/country goodness that explores the varied roles that empathy plays in our modern lives. On a recent tour stop in DC, Erin dropped by the basement to talk about her sophomore release, the story behind the single "Bad Mind" and much more. PLUS! Kevin is chatting with The Good Grace's Kim Ware ab...

If Kamasi Washington’s work on Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly put Kamasi squarely in the public eye, his double LP The Epic that came a mere two months later launched him into the stratosphere. Washington followed up the audacious Brainfeeder debut with a succinct, and decidedly shorter work entitled The Harmony Of Difference (one of 2017’s very best albums), and now the mas...

HYPE has always been a part of the music/entertainment industry, but in 2018, have we gone too far? Increasingly, it's not enough anymore that an artist delivers a few great hooks. To succeed they have to be the greatest of all time, the savior of the music industry, or, even worse, the voice of a generation, all often without even having a single album under their belts. On our latest episode, ou...

Washington, DC's Flasher made minor waves with their self-titled debut in 2016, and now the trio is back with a new label (Domino) and a fun-as-hell new LP,  Constant Image.  Recalling the late 80's heyday of gothic synthpop,  Constant Image's  outta time, place, and, most importantly, outta sight sound is the new hotness arriving just in time to save us all from another dreary...

On our latest podcast, soul/jazz polymath Kadhja Bonet is back with the follow up to her remarkable 2016 debut,  The Visitor , and the more things have changed, the more they have stayed the same. Bursting with the uniquely impossible smoothness and impeccable sophistication that defined  The Visitor ,  Childqueen  is a singular that mood feels as fresh as it does timeless...

Over the course of her almost twenty-five-year career, Neko Case has proven time and time again that she is a fierce force of nature to be reckoned with, which makes it a little weird to say that Hell-On  is her most powerful work to date. Built on the literal ashes of a recent personal tragedy (her Vermont home/studio burned to the ground) and bursting with love over the joy found in even th...

Barely a year after releasing his apocalyptic magnum opus  Pure Comedy , Father John Misty (aka Josh Tillman) is back with another sonic journey into depravity.  God's Favorite Customer  finds the embattled monarch of the "poem zone" taking a break from battling the evils of modern times to engaging in bloody combat with his greatest enemy and nemesis: himself. Special guests Lindsa...

On his 2015 solo debut  Southland Mission,  Phil Cook dove deep into his unparalleled love of Americana and Gospel and came back with a timeless, illuminating masterclass in countrified-soul that was one of the best albums of that year, or any. Now Phil is BACK with People Are My Drug , his stunner of a follow-up and this time he’s aiming to save the universe…with love. On our lates...

Known to most of the world as a political playground, Washington, D.C. is a city where decisions that shape the course of, not just American, but HUMAN history, are made every day. More than that though, D.C. is a city where cultures collide resulting in a creative class that produces some of the most compelling and diverse art in the world. Built on the legacy of jazz and go-go, D.C. is on the cu...

Before, "indie-rock," before "alternative," there was "college rock" and four arty dudes from Athens, GA were its KINGS. On our latest episode, we're looking back at R.E.M.'s  Murmur, one of the most influential "rock-and-roll" albums of all time, thirty-five years after it changed the music forever.  Show Notes Incidental music courtesy of Aquatic Gardener. Hear more/buy it HERE . Suppo...