Episode 135 – Holy Music In America

My dog Winona died yesterday. This episode has nothing to do with that aside from the fact that I needed to do something to keep my mind off things.   00:00:00 Christopher Marlowe, with Frank...

This episode is about women being powerful, women being assaulted, women being outspoken, and women being silenced.

All of these songs came out this year. Most of this is non-traditional black metal. The rest is other non-traditional metal that can barely even contain that wide genre. 00:00:00 RLYR – Head Womb...

I tried to keep a broad enough definition of "holy" to include a variety of music beyond just the obvious gospel and hymns. This is A Thick Mist so I made sure to inject some black metal, hip hop, and drone.

I think Hindustani tends to be the more popular style of classical Indian music in the west (see: Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, Chatur Lal, Dagar Brothers, etc) so I figured I'd shed some light on the Carnatic side.

I thought it would be fun to highlight the wide variety rolling down the mountains: everything from the banjo instrumentals of Hobart Smith to the lone black lung vocals of Nimrod Workman. I've always been a sucker for banjos, a cappella, and grim vibes, so naturally Appalachian music is 100% my jam.

This episode is super explicit and not safe for work (unless you're a sex worker I guess). 99% of the spoken word is people talking about sex stuff like blowjob instructions.

I thought I'd try something new. A new process that might fit into my life and a new approach to curation that might appeal to more people.

New Fluisteraars, Yemeni folk, new Sarah Davachi, Godzilla sound effects, ionosphere recordings, Margaret Walker poetry, Cambodian ballads...

Got some good shit on this one. I start out with two of my favorite records this year, mix in some Bahamian folk, Bengali spirituals, Japanese weirdness, Greek hymns, Easter Island chants, and of course some killer black metal.