Lamniformes Radio

Calder Hannan is the host of the YouTube Channel 'Metal Music Theory', where he analyzes riffs from cutting edge metal bands with equally cutting edge music theory concepts. He also plays some really gnarly death metal of his own in the band Florid Ekstasis, and is working on a PhD from Columbia in music theory, so he really knows what he's talking about! I've loved watched Hannah's videos on YouT...

This is the audio version of my latest newsletter, which you can find here: https://lamniformes.substack.com/p/throat-clearinginput-update

Today I am joined by Derek Allen, the singer and guitarist of Lower Automation, a high energy math core band from Chicago. Lower Automation are about to release their self titled debut full length on Zegema Beach on July 12th. Recorded in a five day stretch during the summer of 2020, the album is a blistering and nerve-racking listen. Allen and I have crossed paths a few times in both the Chicago...

Today I am joined by drummer and guitarist Stephen Schwegler. I first became aware of Steve through his drumming in the band Pyrrhon, a chaotic and cutting edge death metal band from Philly. Pyrrhon are something of a scene unto themselves, as each of the band’s members extend into similarly mind bending projects. Steve’s project along these lines is Seputus, a collaboration with Pyrrhon vocalist...

This episode is the audio version of an article that I wrote earlier this year about how a heady concept about the nature of sound from the producer SOPHIE could be applied to how I think about the drums. If you'd like to read the text version, you can find that here: https://lamniformes.substack.com/p/the-monophonic-ear

Last Friday I dropped my first music video, for the song "Hypothermia (Saint Thrillah Mix) so I thought it'd be cool to have my good friend Richard Gin, who directed the video, on the podcast to talk about his experience shooting DIY shows in the NY DIY scene over the last decade and a half, his recent work photographing birds, and of course the process of making a music video during a pandemic. Y...

Frank Meadows rejoins the podcast to talk about the one and only Steely Dan, patron saints of the studio project. For the last five years I've watched Steely Dan's popularity sky rocket among deeply online millennials and music nerds at large. In the summer of 2019 I caught the bug myself, encouraged by Cat Jones, host of the Hot Blooded podcast. As a music school grade and child of boomers I have...

Today I am joined by Dave Reminick of the band Paper Mice. Paper Mice are a three piece math rock band from Chicago who write songs based on bizarre and hilarious stories ripped directly from news stories. They just released their first album in eight years called "1-800-Mondays", which expands their sound into more melodic and deftly arranged chamber pop. As it so happens, Dave was also my entry...

Today's guest is drummer and audio engineer Emmett Ceglia. In his second appearance on the podcast, I spoke to Ceglia about his musical biography starting with drumming competitions in Long Island, studying drums at Berklee College of Music, and moving to Brooklyn to become a drummer for hire. Along the way we use a lot of sports metaphors, discuss "white whale" fills, breakdown the busiest stretc...

Today I am joined by musician and writer Ivan Belcic. Ivan is the vocalist and drum programmer for Kosmogyr, a black metal band he formed with guitarist Xander Cheng while living in Shanghai. When he isn’t writing his own music Ivan also writes about other up and coming metal bands for the blog Invisible Oranges, which is where I first met him. I was delighted to have Ivan on to talk about his exp...

I put out a record on Friday called "You Can't Do This Alone" so I figured I should talk about how and why. https://lamniformes.bandcamp.com/album/you-cant-do-this-alone

Today I am joined by writer Ryo Miyauchi who runs the blog and newsletter This Side of Japan, where he reviews and catalogs the best in new Japanese music. Ryo and I first met when we wrote for the website Unrecorded in the mid-2010s. I’ve always been impressed with Ryo’s voracious appetite for new music, as well as his prolific output as a writer. Those qualities have carried over to This Side of...

Today I am joined by Randall Taylor who makes music under the name Amulets. Taylor’s music sits at the edge of a few genres, ambient, drone, post rock, and noise, but what interests me most about Amulets is his process. Taylor repurposes old cassettes and tape players, tinkering with their circuitry and using them to create haunting looping drones. He also details this process extensively on his Y...

Today I am joined by composer, percussionist and drummer, Clara Warnaar. If you’ve listened to Episode 38 of this podcast, you might already know Warnaar as the drummer of the instrumental trio Infinity Shred, but she is also an accomplished classic percussionist who makes a living performing with chamber ensembles. For the last two years she has also curated a series of compilations called A New...

Going off script today to talk about why I spent the last year putting together a remix album, featuring former Lamniformes Radio guests like Noumenah, Saint Thrillah, Frank Meadows, Adam Holmes, and Zain Alam. Long story short: live music died, I had steady income and wanted to keep my friends busy. Also, it was time to put the "Sisyphean" era to rest. Hence, "You Can't Do This Alone" an album th...

Today's guest is one that will be familiar to anyone who has looked at the art for an episode of Lamniformes Radio. I am joined by Joseph Klomes, who in addition to being a professional graphic designer, plays in the bands Droughts, Mush, and his new solo project unprdctv. I've always enjoyed working with Joseph, so I was psyched to talk to him about his origins in the pop punk scene of Chicago's...

Taking a break from my interview format this week to instead give you a taste of another project that I've been working on. Earlier this year I teamed up with my friend and former Lamniformes Radio guest Joseph Schafer to launch The Human Instrumentality Podcast, a re-cap and analysis podcast about the classic 90s anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion. The secret's out! Your boy is a certified nerd...

Today I am joined by Damon Hardjowirogo of Infinity Shred, an instrumental trio with roots in the chip tune scene of the late 2000s, that have since evolved to incorporate post rock, heavy metal, and cutting edge electronic production. Last Friday Infinity Shred released EP 002: Recovery through 3Dot Recordings. I was psyched to have Damon on the podcast to talk about this latest EP, as well as th...

Today I am joined by Mike Schleibaum, the guitarist of Darkest Hour and Be Well. For the last 25 years Darkest Hour have played a high energy mix of hardcore punk and heavy metal. After releasing nine studio albums through labels like Victory, E-One, Sumerian, and Southern Lord, the band have decided to go independent for album number ten. While working on that record, the band have also launched...

Today I am joined by Zain Alam, who performs music under the name Humeysha. Humeysha are a difficult band to in down, Alam mixes shoegaze inspired guitar, booming 808s, and samples recorded during a year long stay in India to study the effects of the partition of 1947. The end result is like very little else out there. I've had the honor of playing drums in the live version of Humeysha for two yea...

Today I am joined by Amalia Soto, better known as the web artist Molly Soda. I wanted to have Molly on the show because of her most recent project, Keeping Tabs where she attempts to break out of the web’s social media hegemony and surf towards less visited parts of the internet. One of the key themes to the series is the way that the mobile phone has completely changed the way that the internet w...

This week I'm joined by Gary Suarez. In addition to writing freelance for Rolling Stone, Vice, Vibe, NPR, The Guardian, The Quietus, The Pit, and more publications than I could list here, Suarez also runs the hip-hop newsletter Cabbages, where he highlights the best in new independent hip-hop. Suarez also just started the second season of the Cabbages podcast, where he talks to rappers and writers...

Today I am joined by Dan Barrett, the singer of internet cult heroes Have A Nice Life. In December Barrett released his second album as Black Wing, a solo project where he limits himself strictly to electronic instruments, titled "No Moon." In our conversation we talk about the process for "No Moon," Barrett's acoustic project Giles Corey, the intersections of his business and artistic life, Puffi...

On this episode I am joined by writer Langdon Hickman, to talk about his massive Rush retrospective project for Treble. Over the last year, Langdon has written about every studio album that the legendary Canadian progressive rock band Rush released in their 40 year career. Langdon and I went deep to cover the band's musical and personal evolution, tracing the changes in their influences as well as...

Jay Kohler, the guitarist and composer behind the band Juan Bond came on the podcast to talk about the long path that led him to the release of the band's debut album "Womb", out now on Dark Trail Records. Along the way we cover everything from his middle school experiments with hip-hop, playing in rap rock bands, studying music in college, private lessons with the members of Sleepytime Gorilla Mu...