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...
pop
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...
“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...
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...
OneTwoThree’s strange bass songs
This trio of women from Zurich make an unusual chorus of bass guitars. Madlaina Peer, Sara Schär, Klaudia Schifferle on Kill...
Chenaux’s Say Laura is tender confections
Pleased to see Eric Chenaux play in Glasgow recently at the Glad Café with Ailbhe nic Oireachtaigh. Chenaux’s new album Say...
Tiger is Coming: complexity and dance
So complex and dripping with a precise energy of what it is. Four traditionally trained pansori singers, two bassists, a drummer,...
Punkish w/ Martin Arnold and Jaye Kovach
In this episode Josh and Martin listen to Lemon Kittens, Shaggs, Junko, and the Kyoto Imperial Court Orchestra. After the break...
We love trippy: Listening with Renée Lear
This episode is with video artist Renée Lear, who has taken an unusual interest in unusual music. We listen to and...
“Sin Guia, No” by Juana Molina
Juana Molina makes some of the strangest and most beautiful pop music we have heard. The layered subtly de-tuned harmony here...
Number Seven by Dos
Mike Watt and Kira Roessler’s project Dos scratches an itch I didn’t know I had. Two bass guitars with weird riffs...
Unusual tuning in Ariana Grande’s “Make Up”
It’s unusual to hear deviations from standard tuning in popular music. Ariana Grande and her group do it so sweetly here....
An hour of Unusual on Clyde Built Radio
An eclectic radio show on Glasgow’s Clyde Built Radio. We listen to a song of mine, Sonic Youth, composer Allison Cameron,...
James LeBaigue’s micromusic
LeBaigue’s strange pitch-shifty pop songs are one minute long and only available on his Instagram for now. View this post on...
Deerhoof’s Future Teenage Cave Artists
Deerhoof’s new album on Joyful Noise Recordings is strange and ecstatic pop music. Unusual production, guitar sounds, lyrics, song structure… Deerhoof...
Big Joanie
Unusual punk band from London, Big Joanie coming out soon on Kill Rock Stars. Nice cover of Solange’s “Cranes in the...
“Loveroom” by Frank Harris & Maria Marquez
Frank Harris and Maria Marquez’s “Loveroom” on Echoes (1985) is a slow dreamy pop song with shades of Sade. Available at...
“Bassackwards” by Kurt Vile
Kurt Vile’s “Bassackwards” from Bottle It In. Strange song, one of those songs where only one thing happens.