Hard to pin down with Ailie Ormston
Glasgow composer and performer Aillie Ormston makes music that’s beautiful and strange. The music is very detailed and specific, yet feels effortless. We listen to and discuss two works...
A nice kluge of ideas, sounds, images, practices
Feathers and energy with Matana Roberts
In this interview Matana Roberts and host Josh Thorpe, we discuss and listen to some excerpts of Roberts’ new release on Constellation Records… it’s Coin Coin Chapter 5 (as...
Horse harps, games, and Rhodri Davies
Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies speaks with host Josh Thorpe about the telyn rawn, a horse-hair harp Davies made and performs with. We listen to a short work on this...
A Great Mess with Linda Catlin Smith
Josh Thorpe and composer Linda Catlin Smith listen to and discuss unusual music. We hear two of Smith’s recent works for piano quintet (piano and string quartet) as well...
Groove and multiplicity with Semay Wu
Cellist, improviser, and composer Semay Wu makes exciting sounds with her cello and amplified objects. We listen to three of her wonderful short pieces, plus work from Homelife, Rex...
Music like weather with Eric Chenaux
Josh revisits ideas and sounds from Canadian/Swiss guitarist, songwriter and composer Eric Chenaux. These include Eric’s own fried balladry, Richard Youngs‘ freaked out concertinism, the extended quasi-country of Nashville...
Strange sounds from Counterflows Glasgow
This episode Josh Thorpe listens to a few recordings from musicians and artists discovered at Glasgow’s Counterflows festival. Artists include an English-Ugandan collaboration w/ Rian Treanor and Ocen James;...
Honey by Josh Thorpe
Unusual Music editor Josh Thorpe launches his new album with Toronto’s Ur Audiovisual. Honey, Thorpe’s 5th album, is DIY pop with a taste for unusual sounds. Honey by Josh...
Asad Raza on Dan Graham, the religion of rock, comedy, the body, and untidiness
Josh Thorpe and Asad Raza discuss Dan Graham, a radical American artist who died last year around this time. We listen to some of the music Dan loved and...
Chris Newman’s strange parlour music makes me happy
Chris Newman’s weird parlour songs first came to via a friend at York University during postgraduate study. At first they didn’t read to me; I expected an amount of...
Powerdove: humpbacks, tap shoes, and ancient Greece w/ Lewandowski and Bonvalet
Josh Thorpe speaks with Annie Lewandowski and Thomas Bonvalet. We listen to their unusual duet Powerdove, which combines austere melodic singing with cosmic rattles and bursts of machinic joy…...
Blank out w/ Eric Chenaux
In this episode Josh Thorpe interviews Eric Chenaux, a composer, songwriter, guitarist living in France. Eric makes strange and lovely long songs that interweave the ghosts of many types...
“Hello, How and Hey” by Eric Chenaux
This track, this whole album, is a psychedelic space of warmth. Sink into it like a mud bath that doesn’t smell of sulfur but rather frankincense. Eric will be...
Guayaveras in the winter
This episode we take a break from chat. Instead we listen to almost an hour of quiet music. It’s Ryan Driver and Eric Chenaux and their sweet and gentle...
What is the world? Nobody knows.
This month editor Josh Thorpe’s How Things Happen launched with Canadian / French imprint Rat-drifting. Eric Chenaux writes: “Thorpe’s How Things Happen inhabits detailed fields of time stretched beyond...
Interview w/ viola player Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh
Ailbhe joins me to listen to the viola, the violin, some guitars, a horse-hair harp, some outside jazz and a sewing machine. Ailbhe’s great to speak with and her...
Brodie West Quintet’s Fortress
The interplay here, particularly between West’s saxophone and Tania Gill’s piano, has me seeing a malleable object, a bright children’s toy or heavy paper, folded inside out and back...
Martin Arnold on subtle arts
New radio show with ResonanceFM. First episode is a collage of previous exchanges with Martin Arnold on the Codex Chantilly, Sublime Frequencies, jaipongen, and more…
Martin Arnold: Stain Ballads
Strange meandering lines that I wish would go forever. They kinda do. Arnold says: “I’ve always maintained that all the music I make is in some sense dance music...
Step into sound w/ Liu and Martin-Gray
These two tracks called Socks and Sandals are lovely buzzing and crackling things. A ticklish kind of sound in the ear that travels to the back of the head...