Unsung Podcast

This week we talk about something positively wintery indeed, as we explore the foreboding sounds of Swedish sonic sorceress Anna von Hausswolff. Tracing influences from baroque pop storytellers like Tori Amos through to the cavernous industrial churn of Swans, we chart Anna's evolution across a series of bold studio works and her new live album. While early piano-led efforts drifted into listless...

We're back! After over a month away due to technical issues, the Unsung Podcast has returned with an explosive new episode on metalcore pioneers Poison the Well and their 2003 album 'You Come Before You.' Joining Chris and Mark for the first time in many months is Dave, who chose Poison the Well as his band for the episode. Hailing from Florida, Poison the Well helped define the metalcore genre in...

We have no new episode this week due to Chris' ransomware calamity. However, we do have something to share. A wee while ago Chris was on the excellent Sh*t You May Not Have Seen podcast talking all about the Bobcat Goldthwait film God Bless America. Enjoy! We'll be back in a few weeks.

Good news, folks! Chris has managed to recover the audio files needed to get our interview with Jan Alkema, drummer from The Drum, out the door! The quality might not be up to the usual standard, but we're so happy to share this with you. Just over a year ago, we did an episode on The Drum's only album/China Drum's third album, "Diskin." As a result, a few members of the band reached out to us on...

Let's get down to brass tacks here, folks, there is no episode this week. Last week, Chris was subject to a randsomware attack which has unfortunately resulted in a complete loss of data from his laptop. In fact, it has rendered his entire laptop unusable. Not only that, but they gained access to all his accounts, and even our shared Dropbox folder, where the hackers also ruined all the files on i...

This week we get into the meat of Spotify streaming manipulation. We’ve already discussed the history, but how did Spotify become so influential? And why? The advent of music streaming opened new avenues for questionable promotion tactics to thrive. While piracy dealt a blow to record sales in the 1990s and 2000s, streaming's growth led to playlists becoming hugely influential. Getting on a top Sp...

Everybody wants to get famous. Or so they say. Fact is, for many emerging artists these days there’s a direct correlation between fame and the number of streams your tracks have on Spotify. As with anything online though, streaming figures can be manipulated. So over the next two weeks we’re going to tell you all about the phenomenon of playola, why it exists, how it works and the ways it has chan...

This week’s episode is a very special interview with the legendary Eugene S. Robinson. Perhaps best known as the vocalist of the experimental rock band Oxbow, Eugene has not only played in various projects over the years, but has worn various different hats outside of music too. A renowned writer and journalist, he’s just about to release his memoir A Walk Across Dirty Water and Straight into Murd...

It comes down to this, really - is Incesticide an unsung classic? We’ve added to the discourse around Nirvana’s back catalogue, with the exception of this album. Hopefully we’ve said something different, or offered a new, enlightening perspective. Or maybe we’re just talking unlimited rubbish. Either way, on the face of it it seems quite unthinkable to call anything by Nirvana unsung. It’s hard to...

The sheer volume of ink spilled on Nirvana could reach the sun – that’s why a nuanced view is needed when re-examining their discography. So in part two of our Incesticide three parter, we’re going to do just that. If you missed it, part one can be found here. Rarely do appraisals both lionize a band yet conclude “I can’t listen anymore.” But Nirvana inspires this relationship. Their impact was su...

Who would have thought that there would be a lot to say about one of the biggest bands in the history of music? This week, and for the following two weeks, we’ll be talking all about Nirvana. Our discussion has been brought on by Chris picking Incesticide by Nirvana. He thinks its an unsung classic, of course, but before we get into the band’s discography, there’s the small matter of their history...

We're back and we're talking about The Armed. But not just The Armed, we're also talking about anonymous bands/pseudo-anonymous bands, speculating about who has been in/played with/responsible for The Armed and, of course, the marketing campaigns that have accompanied all of their releases. 

At the mercy of poor train WiFi so keeping this brief. Still on holiday. Back this week, when normal service will be resumed. This is a Patreon bonus episode. To hear more like it join us at www.patreon.com/unsungpod

Chris and I are on holiday this week (and possibly next week too). We aimed to have something done this week and next week but we’ve actually been quite busy working on a couple of really interesting episodes. One’s an interview with a noise rock legend, and the other is a detailed journalistic episode about Spotify. So to make up the short fall, we’ve reached deep back into the catalogue of bonus...

Let’s take a trip back to 1994, when Chris was 13 (Mark was 7), and he was busy creating custom Headswim t-shirts around Stirling while discovering the brilliance of that band's debut album. The album in question was "Flood," and it left a profound impression on Chris. While we often discuss the albums that have influenced us, it's uncommon for us to bring one of these into the Unsung spotlight. S...

What’s this? A regular episode? LIKE THE OLD DAYS?! Yes folks, it’s been a little while since we did a regular, one album one band episode, and this week Chris has chosen the odd choice of Give You the Ghost by POLIÇA. Why odd? Well, it’s a bit of a spoiler I guess, but after this album the band’s star started to fade. Pretty rapidly. Even the reviews of every subsequent album after this agree. Th...

This week, we're fulfilling a promise we made when we started the Unsung Record Club - featuring episodes on the albums we've included in the club. We're excited to discuss four records available to record club members - two digital and two vinyl. From the digital selection, we have The Burnt Tapes' "Never Better" and Adam Stafford's "Imaginary Walls Collapse." These albums are a true delight, sho...

This week we have our longest episode yet as we take a deep dive into the work of Rick Froberg, the singer of Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu and Obits who sadly passed away in June 2023. Enlisting the help of post-punk encyclopaedia, and literal Doctor in punk music, our friend Ferruccio Quercetti, we take a real good look at the work of Nick Froberg through the lens of Hot Snakes. With work on their...

We conlcude our one album wonder mixtape by diving headlong into four of our own personal favourite one album wonders, and also by exploring two of the catagories we set out in the last episode. As a reminder, we're talking about bands that have had only had one album. We’re not talking about bands that are on their debut album, but acts that were one and done. The categories are: Bands that seeme...

Now that we’ve set music festivals to rights (for this year) we thought we’d follow up on our White Town episode - a true one hit wonder - with a one album wonder mixtape. Which, as is our wont, turned into a two parter. So the remit is simple here - bands that have had only had one album. We’re not talking about bands that are on their debut album, but acts that were one and done. To bring some o...

You may have noticed but England’s biggest festival, Glastonbury, took place recently. You know the score already - for a weekend a bunch of farmland in Somerset gets turned into a pseudo-city where people pay an crazy amount of money for a ticket to go and see some good, and some shit, bands. This year was the biggest (and probably most expensive) yet, with Guns n Roses, Elton John and Arctic Mon...

This week we're doing another UNSONG because Chris has very much wanted to talk about this song for a while.  You're no doubt familiar with it, but the story around it is fascinating. A one hit wonder for sure, White Town - the long running project of Jyoti Prakash Mishra - has reflected a lot on his brief stint on a major label, whilst also being thankful of the fact he had a one hit wonder. A tr...

In part two of our Lankum special we dedicate some time to talking about the band’s entire back catalogue before getting torn into their 2019 album The Livelong Day. Up until this record, the band had only really toyed with taking their sound in a darker, more extreme direction. Of course, both of those adjectives are relative - Lankum are not Pig Destroyer - but in the context of traditional musi...

This week we've decided to tackle a genre we've yet to tackle - folk. Or traditional. Or traditional folk? Irish folk music? Irish folk  drone ? Who knows what to label it, really. All we know is that it's traditional music and it's folk music. Yes, we're talking about Lankum. We've been trying to get this episode in the bag for freaking ages but after interviewing the band, we struggled to land a...

We’ve been working on trying to pull together a very special episode which contains both an interview with a band, a special guest, and seeing us tackle a genre that we’ve yet to cover. We came so close to nailing one of these things but last week we were thwarted by illness. Which left us without an episode for this week. So we’re rolling out some bonus content for you and it’s episode FIVE of UN...