Unsung Podcast

SURPRISE! Here’s a brand new thing that we hope to make into a new thing. Inspired by random nonsense found in Poundland, we’ve decided it could be entertaining to see what music we can get for exactly One Great British Pound. We will then do a slightly humorous super fast Unsung-lite review of the album in question before deciding if it’s worth keeping or heading straight for the nearest rubbish...

Whilst D’Angelo’s R&B stylings weren’t exactly traditional, or even reflected the popular sounds of the time, Kelela makes him sound positively contemporary in comparison. Indeed, on her debut release she takes the Contemporary R&B rule book and throws it right out of the window. In fact, one could argue that she barely gave the damn thing a passing glance before she hurled into the street. Kelela...

If you’re of a certain age, like your three esteemed hosts, there’s a fair chance you’ve heard the name The Eighties Matchbox B-Live Disaster. The smashed their way into the music press with this, their debut album, and a reputation for chaotic, enthralling on stage antics that captured the attention of music lovers and press alike. They also happened to pop onto the scene at the same time as a bu...

And now, for avid fans, we present part 3 of our interview with Benjamin Power/Blanck Mass. After two weeks of talking about Blanck Mass and Ben’s career, it’s now time to talk about music that Ben thinks is underrated. There’s some great, obscure, interesting choices and discussion in this episode around the album’s he’s picked, why he’s picked them and what he loves about them. We also recommend...

As is tradition for our interviews, we’ve broken it into three parts and this is no exception. On part two Ben talks about the genesis of Blanck Mass, the method behind some of the music and the boys go on a deep dive of the Blanck Mass back catalogue, taking in as much ground as they can. Ben talks about some of the stuff he says is his favourite and things that encapsulate what Blanck Mass reall...

It’s taken more than a bloody year for us to arrange our second interview, but we did it! We promise not to wait so long for the next one. Promise. This week we sit with producer and musician Benjamin John Power, best known for his work in Fuck Buttons and Blanck Mass. In part 1 we talk early life, early influences, the health of electronic music, broken washing machines and sordid rap-metal pasts...

Grindcore is what happens when hardcore punks start listening to thrash and decide to slam both together and go faster. It’s extreme, uncompromising and sometimes overwhelming. Pig Destroyer are all of these things and more. Their third album ‘Terrifyer’ is often heralded as a landmark metal album. Many say it’s one of the most important grindcore albums ever written, whilst OG grindcore fans thin...

Manchester Orchestra have been a band since high school. Which means Andy Hull has been making music, touring and selling actual goddamn records for around half his life. He’s the same age as a couple of us (not Chris) and it really does make you think about what could have been if us three music lovers hadn’t dicked about for so long and just sold out years ago. But alas, that was never in the ca...

Indie darling and savvy industry operator Santi White has been involved in music than you might think. Formerly and A&R rep for Epic Records, she’d been producing and writing songs for other artists for years (as well as kicking around in a punk band for much of the early 00s) before her debut album dropped in 2008. The result of all that time working behind the scenes meant that Santi emerged wit...

At some point, some journalist somewhere decided that “celtic fusion” was a genre, and subsequently placed the music of Martyn Bennett in it. What does it mean? Well, your guess is as good as ours. We can safely say though that Bennett’s fifth and final album ‘Grit’ is definitely a genre fusion of sorts. We’ve dedicated a fair amount of time to discussing Scottish artists and albums on this podcas...

We return to our regularly scheduled programming this week as we tackle a punk album which is difficult to categorise. A Wilhelm Scream originally started off as a skate punk band in the mid-90s, first under the name Koen before releasing two albums as Smackin’ Isaiah. As members rotated in and out the band’s sound started to change, and come the early 00s the band eschewed it’s old name and start...

This week we’re joined by friend of the pod Dr. Jason Costello, as we take a slight diversion for the usual format and discuss algorithms, Spotify and the future of music. It may come as a surprise to some people, but algorithmic music has been around in various forms since the 1950s. The first instance of computer-generated composition dates back to 1955-56, where Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Issac...

We retreat to Scandinavia again this week, this time travelling further north than ever before in order to meet Goat. Whilst the band (allegedly) come from the Arctic Circle, the music couldn’t be further from the frozen north in sound. A strange fusion of psychedelic rock and afrobeat, ‘World Music’ plays like a 60s throwback. All at once intoxicating and rousing, it’s an assured debut by a myste...

Once we’d finished our lengthy diversion into the Satanic territory of black metal, we thought we’d change direction entirely and cover another hip hop album. Cue Chris’ mild bemusement at such an alien genre. We briefly touched upon Danny Brown in our El-P episode, as he’d appeared on a Run the Jewels song, thus giving Mark his usual lazy nexus link. The truth is though, whilst David and Mark bot...

Last week we gave you the history. This week we give you the music. Specifically, our own unsung black metal albums. We run the gaumt from OG trve kvlt Black Circle made Norwegian Black Metal, to the more recent third wave hipster fare. Along the way we touch on other stuff from different periods too. It’s quite a journey. Look, we can’t pretend the albums we picked aren’t problematic. There are o...

Praise be to The Dark Lord himself, for this week we take on the most unholiest of unholy music, and we do it in the only way we know how - with our now patented combination of cynicism, amazement and mild disdain. We’ve promised this for a while and a few people have been asking us for it, so here it is. It’s dark. Super dark. But it’s also fun. Maybe? This is going to offend people. Not because...

After doing something new and splitting dear Tori Amos into two parts, we decided that we’d do another new thing. It just so happens that this new thing coincides with the 20th anniversary of …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead’s second album ‘Madonna’. So to celebrate this occasion Chris decided that we should do a head to head between ‘Madonna’ and ‘Source Tags & Codes’. Weaver dutifully...

And so here we are, episode 59. Part two of our two part Tori Amos sorta kinda semi special. We never intended for this episode to expand into a two parter but as fans of the pod know, when Chris does his research he does his research so when it comes to an artist with a vast catalogue well…you get what you pay for. If what you pay for is a thorough discussion on the fourth Tori Amos album. Yes, t...

Every time we sit down to talk about an artist with a rather extensive back catalogue things end up escalating into a mammoth career retrospective. Yet, despite being fully aware of this we decided to try to talk about Tori Amos’ career in a brief, but thorough way, only to find that, by the time we had finished recording, the whole bloody thing ended up being a rather unwieldy 2 hours long. So, t...

It’s hard to believe it’s taken us this long to get to a post-metal record, but here we are. Alongside Traindodge this is one of the more “obscure” records we’ve covered. *shels are a Trans-Atlantic project that comes from the minds of singer and guitarist Mehdi Safa and drummer Tom Harriman. If you’re even remotely familiar with the post-hardcore scene in the south of England you’ll know that thi...

The mystery at the end of last week’s episode is a mystery no more. And Weaver didn’t even pick it, it was Mark in the end. We lied to you. We lied and we’re sorry. Instead of trying to reckon with some hot button sociopolitical issues like we did last week, this week we’re actually talking about The Bronx. A lot. We cover their entire discography (note: we did NOT cover Mariachi El Bronx, but the...

  If you expected the mystery record, our first of 2019, to be a neo-soul album then kudos, you clearly read our minds. And if you did actually read our minds, good God was that a mistake. This week we’re a man down as David attends to some family business, but that’s ok! Not only do Chris and Mark talk about D’Angelo’s inventive third album ‘Black Messiah’, but they cover all the topics you love:...

Happy new year folks! If you’re still with us after last week’s debacle then welcome back! This episode is a much more upbeat affair. It’s also 50% drunker. If you didn’t listen to part one, we highly recommend that you do. Nevertheless, the format is as follows: we answer questions you guys put to us and have a jolly good time disappearing up own arses. This week we’re talking about albums we can...

In the immortal words of Noddy Holder - it’s Christmas. As it’s the end of our first year we thought it was time to start a new tradition, using the final two weeks of the year to reflect on the last 52 weeks and answer a few fan questions in the process. That’s right, it's part one of the Unsung 2018 Xmas Xtravaganza. On this week’s episode we get a little drunk, a little lary and very self-aggra...

Well folks, we did it. We made it through 52 consecutive weeks without killing each other. Also, we didn’t miss an episode. Please send us high fives. We left last week’s episode on a bit of a cliffhanger as Chris hadn’t quite decided which Helmet record he was going to do, but when it came down to it there was only one choice - ‘Meantime’. The band’s second record, their major label debut and the...