Esoterica The Podcast

It is a dark time for the Esoterica. Although the Old Format has been destroyed, Chris and Aaron have driven the show from it's tried and true methods and created something less likely to make you fall asleep. Welcome to Season 4! New season, new format, same guys, still no pants. Joining us today is Marty (@OliverRedboots) from the Rod in Flagon Podcast talking to us about his podcast and helping us feel out this new format!  Be sure to check out our website for your Esoterica the Podcast merch and bonus content! Now, onto the show!

For a decade, Molly Harvey was the female voice and presence in The Residents. She gave voice to some of their most memorable and loved songs. Molly joins us to discuss her time with the mysterious band, what’s been happening in her life, and what exciting things she has coming up. We also briefly discuss the 2018 release Loss of the Lizard Lady (The Molly Harvey Collection). This is a compilation released on Bandcamp featuring songs fronted by Molly, both live and studio. From the website: A collection of songs fronted by Molly Harvey between 1994 and 2005. Includes one full-length LP of studio recordings and one full-length LP of live material. Take it all in and realize what an important and amazing addition Molly was to the ever-morphing and mysterious Residents. 20 out of 24 of these tunes have never been on vinyl. 8 of them have never even been on CD and another 8 were only on rare, limited edition CDs. So grab this wonderful tribute to a wonderful weirdo. After you check out our interview, make sure to listen to and download the album!

Today we revisit a group from way back in Season One of Esoterica the Podcast! In April 2020, we discussed Fat Boys and Little Men's self titled EP. This week, the Mansfield based band joins Aaron to discuss their newest release (dropping today!), Something Could Be Nothing.  If you missed the episode, FBLM are a Mansfield, MA based band with heavy Seattle grunge influences. You can find our discussion of it here. Make sure to check out their Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube channel, etc. for all their content. Check out their Video for a single off of this record "Sticky Situation" shot at Revelry Studios!

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the release of Einstürzende Neubauten's first official LP Kollaps. To celebrate, we are joined by none other than Blixa Bargeld. Blixa talks about the making of Kollaps, as well as some of his major influences. Einstürzende Neubauten ("Collapsing New Buildings") is a German experimental music group, originally formed in West Berlin in 1980. The group is currently composed of founder members Blixa Bargeld (lead vocals; guitar; keyboard) and NU Unruh (custom made instruments; percussion; vocals), long-time contributor Alexander Hacke (bass; vocals), plus Jochen Arbeit (guitar; vocals), and Rudolph Moser (custom-built instruments; percussion; vocals), who both joined the line-up in 1997. One of their trademarks is the use of custom-built instruments, predominantly made out of scrap metal and building tools, and noises, in addition to standard musical instruments. Their early albums were unremittingly harsh, with Bargeld's vocals shouted and screamed above a din of banging and scraping metal percussion. Subsequent recordings found the group's sound growing somewhat more conventional, yet still containing many unorthodox elements. With the release of its debut album “Kollaps” in November 1981, EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN declared war on all conventional listening habits. The album is actually an “inaudible” record; it is a frontal attack on expectations and ways of listening that has been blunted by mainstream sound. For lack of money, among other reasons, the range of instruments consisted of “found” and self-made objects, created from sheet metal and including drills, hammers, a “non-voice” that snatched shreds of German words from a text, and professional studio equipment, which was consistently used to undermine its actual technical purposes. This nonconformist mixture itself would become the foundation of a completely new understanding of music that would later influence countless artists, and would highly stylize the band’s subsequent albums into milestones of the industrial scene. Join us as we look back, listen, and discuss Kollaps.

This week take a listen to a band from the Long Island scene, Brand New. Formed in 2000, by bassist and drummer Garrett Tierney and Brian Lane from the ashes of Rookie Lot. The band consists of Jesse Lacey (vocals, guitar), Vincent Accardi (guitar, vocals), Garrett Tierney (bass guitar, vocals), and Brian Lane (drums, percussion). The band is recognized as one of the most influential within the 2000s emo scene, celebrated for making artistic statements with their music. When asked about his influences, lead singer Jesse Lacey referenced Lifetime, Foo Fighters, The Cars, and The Smiths. The band would listen to several bands while in their van, such as Saves the Day, Modest Mouse, and Green Day, among others. For this episode, we listen to Your Favorite Weapon, their debut studio album. The album was released on October 9, 2001. All of the songs on the album were written, within the band's teenage years with some songs being written two or three years before the record came out. This album was heavily influenced by a feud between Lacey and Taking Back Sunday guitarist John Nolan, specifically "Seventy Times Seven". Nolan wrote about the feud from his point of view in Taking Back Sunday's "There's No 'I' in Team". The name of the song is a reference to a Bible passage, specifically Matthew 18:22. Your Favorite Weapon was produced by a friend of the band. The whole album was re-recorded when the original recording was lost on a computer's hard drive. Check out the music video for "Jude Law and a Semester Abroad" here!

Recorded in the cellar of Prairie Sun Recording Studios, in an area described as “just a cement floor and a water heater,” Bone Machine is Tom Waits‘ eleventh studio album. It was released in September of 1992. Bone Machine was recorded and produced entirely at the Prairie Sun Recording Studios in Cotati, California, in a room of Studio C known as “the Waits Room”, located in the old cement hatchery rooms of the cellar of the buildings. Prairie Sun’s studio head Mark “Mooka” Rennick said, “[Waits] gravitated toward these ‘echo’ rooms and created the Bone Machine aural landscape. […] What we like about Tom is that he is a musicologist. And he has a tremendous ear. His talent is a national treasure.” Waits said of the bare-bones studio, “I found a great room to work in, it’s just a cement floor and a hot water heater. Okay, we’ll do it here. It’s got some good echo.” Bone Machine was the first Waits album on which he played drums and percussion extensively. In 1992, Waits stated: “I like to play drums when I’m angry. At home I have a metal instrument called a conundrum with a lot of things hanging off it that I’ve found – metal objects – and I like playing it with a hammer. I love it. Drumming is therapeutic. I wish I’d found it when I was younger.” If you’re not familiar with Waits, this is as good as any place to remedy that. Enjoy!

This week we cross the pond to check out Welsh band Catfish and the Bottlemen. Formed in 2007, the band formed in Llandudno, North Wales. Their musical style can best be described as indie or alt rock. For this episode, we listen to The Balcony, their debut studio album. It was released on 15 September 2014 in the United Kingdom and 15 January 2015 in the United States. On 20 March 2015, The Balcony was awarded a Gold certification from the British Phonographic Industry. The album cover depicts outlines of two headless people pleasuring each other's genitals. The illustration is by New York artist Tim Lahan who originally posted it to his Flickr account in 2009 and was subsequently contacted by the band. Join us for a listen. If you're listening while you drive, please wear clothes. That's all we ask.

We're back, and this week we're heading back to the mid-'80s to check out some proto-grunge. This week's album is Dry as a Bone, the second EP by  Green River. It was released in July 1987 through Sub Pop Records. Green River formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984. Although the band had very little commercial success outside their native Seattle, Green River were pioneers of the grunge music genre. The grunge style was featured both in Green River's own music and the music its members would create in future bands, including Mudhoney, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog, and Pearl Jam. Steve Huey of Allmusic has called Dry As a Bone Green River's "strongest individual release...perfecting their sleazy, raucous fusion of '70s hard rock and post-hardcore punk."

This week finds out checking out French artist Gautier Serre, known by his stage name, Igorrr. Initially influenced by the likes of Meshuggah, Chopin, Cannibal Corpse, Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Taraf de Haidouks, and Aphex Twin, traces of these artists can be found littered across Igorrr’s discography, but Serre has never been interested in remaining static or merely recycling ideas, and his work has dramatically evolved accordingly. It deeply explains how Igorrr’s music is such an explosion of creativity while keeping a cohesive universe records after records. In recent years, Igorrr has also become a collective, rather than the work of one man alone, which has brought a new level of intensity into the group live representations. Savage Sinusoid is the third album by Gautier Serre, under his alias Igorrr, released on Metal Blade Records on June 16, 2017. This album was named "Batshit Crazy Album of the Year" by Metal Injection. They had this to say about the album: "Igorrr is a project with no boundaries, and the personal belief of creating the art one wants to. In a world where we argue from the mainstream radio to the underground scene, Igorrr is a breath of fresh air. Savage Sinusoid isn’t just a breath of fresh air in musical technicality and emotion though, but an excellent reminder to just enjoy music." Serre combines a variety of disparate genres, including black metal, baroque music, breakcore, and trip-hop, into something unique. Check it out. You won't be disappointed. Check out the music video for "ieuD" here!

We’re back with yet another album from LA-based Dead Poet Society, and again one of our favorite guests, vocalist/guitarist Jack Underkofler joins us as well! Released less than a week ago on March 12, 2021, -!- is their first full-length album released through Spinefarm Records. Jack joins us to discuss the genesis of the album and a track-by-track discussion of the record. Dead Poet Society formed while attending college in Boston and have already amassed a dedicated following with millions of streams. Insanely catchy and unable to be pigeonholed by genre, Dead Poet Society‘s musical landscape runs from heavy, riff-driven songs to stunningly beautiful ballads. With fretless guitars and the extraordinary vocals of lead singer Jack Underkofler at the forefront, they have cultivated a signature sound that’s distinct as a fingerprint. Buy or Stream the new album "-!-" on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and more! Be sure to purchase a -!- release bundle here! Check out Jack Collins' .swvrm. instructional video with Guitar World Magazine here, and be sure to check out the comments! Check out the music video for .intoodeep. here!