Woodhouse Interviews

Dumbasses, gimmick peddlers, conmen coned by their own bosses dot Famous Lunch. Chris Acker isn’t depressed, he’s just disappointed. And his sighing country tunes, tasteful pedal steel and all, just need a nap. From the surprisingly pretty letdown “Shit Surprise,” to the deeply confused self-reflection “Don't You Know (Who I Think I Am),” Acker uses a rouges gallery as a mirror, a warped perspecti...

Singing at the edge of the world. Staring into the cold Atlantic, watching the waves crash all around, and seeing only the pale blue of the horizon must be sublime. And sublime in its original meaning, something that invokes awe with a touch of terror. There are few moments that remind humans of their smallness like staring into the void of the sea. Sangre de Muerdago aims to grasp that feeling wi...

Is “crushing joy” a thing? That’s the only way I can describe And So I Watch You From Afar and, especially, their newest album Megafauna. There are few bands as loud as the Belfast boys, but the chords that fall down like an Everest avalanche are all major, the electrifying guitar lines soar and crunch with equal ferocity. Megafauna is getting punched in the face and smiling. But that’s what ASIWY...

“I wondered lonely as a cloud.” Emphasis on lonely. Troubadour, vagabond, carpenter, folk-singer Peter Oren broke out in 2017 with his mythological heavy Anthropocene, with themes as crushing as his rumbling bass-baritone voice. Seven years on, Cloud Song finds him wrangling with both physical troubles and existential dread. In his view, the old Wordsworth poem can be played as an individual brief...

And So I Watch You From Afar are as joyous as their name is ridiculous. Like an energy drink being shoved into your soul. Like the world’s happiest mosh-pit. Like punching god in the face after climbing Mt. Everest. The ebullient drubbing produced by ASIWYFA has no musical comparison, just impossible physical feats that barely glimpse the improbability of this color-strewn noise. Math-rock, post-r...

There are glitches in the system. And Kill Bill’s one of them. The southern rapper is a founding member of the internet label/collective EXO music, popping up in the early 2010s with his gravelly, Lil Ugly Mane-esque flow. But simple nerd-rap this ain’t. Using a kaleidoscoping mish-mash of references from N64 heydays to Matrix breakdowns, Bill explores mental illness, self-identity and the larger...

“ Dumbfounded, downtrodden and dejected/Crestfallen, grief-stricken and exhausted.” All hail the king of anxiety. Pop-punk legend Jeff Rosenstock mutated his career for the…at least third time with a wallop of hyper-catchy, hyper-depressing albums. Anthemic to the core, POST- was the grandest of them all, a personal and political dissection in the wake of Trump’s election. No one gets out unscathe...

A darkness lingers in the electronics The stuttering hi-hats, bubbling synths and cascading keyboards all made for something beautiful, but tinged, at all moments, with an abyssal sorrow. Canadian trio Braids set out to explore the warped worlds of Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada through their own rock background and crafted the gorgeous Flourish // Perish. But being locked up in a harsh Montreal...

“Listen to it at night, by the sea.” These were Neige’s parting words to me. After a discussion of the colors, emotions and seasons that Alcest’s glorious Écailles De Lune runs through, his advice was to experience it in its natural habitat. Metal has always been beautiful. Metallica’s “Fade to Black,” Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan,” Emperor’s “Into the Infinity of Thoughts,” metal has found glo...

Before we even hit record, Siyabonga Mthembu is telling me a story. It involves, in no particular order, a run in with London based jazz-wizard Shakaba Hutchings, a near clairvoyant café owner and a subway train filled with musicians, their instruments taking up more room than their bodies. Mthembu’s stories are like the music creates, sly, captivating and always on the edge. Alongside composer Th...

Somewhere in our conversation, Rob Mazurek mentions he wants listeners to “levitate” to his music. And, impossibly, I think he can pull it off.  The trumpet player, composer, synth-master, mole maker is also the leader of the Exploding Star Orchestra, a jazzy bunch of rabble rousers who’s most recent album, Dimensional Stardust , is as baffling as it is beautiful. It’s like looking into an ever tu...

If you’re gonna get in a bar fight, better know who’s got your back. Man fights self, god, society and whiskey on Good Looks’ debut Bummer Year . The Austin, Texas outfit are a cobbled together quartet of dudes from across the Lone Star State, each with stories of small towns filled with late-capitalism rot. Lead singer Tyler Jordan looks over his shoulder constantly, both to his past and trying t...

The first noise we hear on Christine is a bird, chirping merrily away, like it’s warming up its voice. It’s apropos, considering the five tunes of naturalist meditation we’re about to embark on. The EP from Portland-based songwriter Canary Room, aka Maddy Heide, is one of 2021’s small joys. Heide’s dexterous guitar work and fluttering voice puts her alongside the bare musings of Linda Perhacs or S...

Focus your rage.  Alonzo Demetrius certainly has. Tempered by his skill, genius and fiery trumpet playing, his righteous anger at the sprawling, cruel prison system of the United States has created a remarkable document. Live from the Prison Nation is an at turns, beautiful, eerie, disturbing, but always a powerful piece of activism. Drawing from the memories of his Uncle and Cousin who both serve...

“We have mad beef with the other four seasons”  Fuubutsushi have officially declared war on Vivaldi. The classical composer’s Four Seasons suite towers above most seasonal music as the foundational sonic document for spring, summer, fall and winter. But the jazz quartet, all speaking from different parts of the country seem assured, if not without a few giggles, that they’ll take over the pop cult...

Peace. Freedom. Self-discovery. These are the underlying themes of Nafs at Peace . Without a single word spoken on the album, it’s remarkably self-assured and self-evident in its truths. Created by Pakistani improvisational jazz outfit Jaubi, Nafs at Peace is one of the year’s most revelatory releases. Weaving together the threads of Hindustani classical music, hip-hop beats and spiritual jazz, th...

We don’t use the word “luster” enough. We’ve pretty much relegated it to the shimmer of a pearl. But, from the album cover to the final track, Alexia Avina’s A Little Older , does shine with the luster of a pearl; beautiful, transfixing and harkening to nature. The ever traveling musician has crafted one of the most propulsive ambient releases in recent memory, deftly combining indie-rock hooks wi...

To make proper pastiche, it takes true love for what you’re taking the piss out of. Anyone can rip off, it takes a disciple to poke fun and ascend simultaneously. And, miraculously, Australian pop prince Kirin J Callinan pilfered from EDM, country and ‘80s pop to create the silliest love letter of the 2010s. But, in the dark, beautiful corners of Bravado there is a wondrous vulnerability that cast...

Evolve or die. Any rock band who’s had more than one successful album knows this. But the choice paralysis of just how many directions you could go often proves the death-kneel for many metalheads. Elder, when presented with this quandary, simply said “oh we’ll do all of it.” From their early days of slab-like doom metal, there was always a mischievous quality to their music, just waiting to burst...

Life bubbles up beneath death. The emergence of spring might have a sound for you. The rustling of robins, hushed winds blowing over freshly sprouting clover fields, but as winter’s grip loosens, something more elemental burbles. Composer Elori Saxl heard it from the shores of Lake Superior, the growing sounds of water flowing beneath thick sheets of ice. Under a surface of sheer stillness, life f...

Disasterpeace has a claim to being one of the most influential artists of the decade; in a quiet, chameleonic way. Though Rich Vreeland doesn’t usually do things quietly. His best known work is awash in digital decay and thumping kick drums. The horror sensibilities of John Carpenter fed through a Super Nintendo. His industrial by way of chip tune aesthetic gained him praise in the blissful to ter...

Every Supergiant Games release is an event. But it’s not just from the gamers and critics who adore the video games’ rich stories, immaculate art style or addictive game play. It’s the music nerds that also wait with bated breath on Darren Korb’s newest score.  As Supergiant’s in-house composer and audio head, Korb has become a fixture unto himself with his compositions, from the Lead Belly meets...

Every Supergiant Games release is an event. But it’s not just from the gamers and critics who adore the video games’ rich stories, immaculate art style or addictive game play. It’s the music nerds that also wait with bated breath on Darren Korb’s newest score.  As Supergiant’s in-house composer and audio head, Korb has become a fixture unto himself with his compositions, from the Lead Belly meets...

“Everything about that record is cursed.” Will Wiesenfeld says that with a laugh, but it’s not really a joke. Obsidian , his second album under the name Baths, set off a brutal run of shows with a new collaborator, Morgan Greenwood, and electronic failures that seemed to have come from a witch’s hex. But you could have gotten the cursed feeling just from the music. Obsidian is at once a dancy, ele...

When I first saw Yeasayer, it was at an outdoor music festival in Houston—-in June. If you’re from Texas, you know how horrific this is. It was 107 degrees when the Brooklyn boys took the stage. Front man Chris Keating sweated through every article of clothing he had, making the foot around him a salty splash zone. But it all made some sort of humid sense. Yeasayer, fresh off of the hallucinatory...