TNT #52 - Acrassicauda - Gilgamesh

This episode takes us on a journey to an album that was nearly 15 years in the making, through a repressive regime and a war. This edition of TNT will focus on Iraqi metal band Acrassicauda, and their 2015 self-released heavy-hitting album, “Gilgamesh.” Often credited as being the first metal band from Iraq, Acrassicauda thrived as a band despite government censorship, death threats, and forced relocation. Vice magazine provides a telling preview of the album, noting that the conditions in Baghdad after the American invasion resulted in the band's music becoming "even more hate-filled and intense and fucked than ever before." Turn this one up loud and strap in.

For the first episode of the season, TNT is proud to bring you Omar Ahmad’s 2023 album “Inheritance.” The first full-length from the Palestinian-American composer, producer, and sound artist is a deeply personal one, tying together his family’s immigration story, his global community, and the love of his grandmother. This is a perfect way to kick off our 6th season, which will focus on artists and albums from countries and places thought of most typically in the context of war, conflict and social strife. By focusing on these artists and albums, TNT hopes to change the generalized narratives associated with these places and peoples by highlighting the music and art that persists in the face of tragedy, capitalism, and post-colonialism.

For our 50th episode (🤯) and last show of season 5, we have something for you by a man known as “Black Moses” to his peers and admirers alike. That’s right, for the second episode in our series on Stax Records, TNT is turning the lights down low and taking you into the ohh-so-smooth stylings of mister Issac Hayes and his second album on the Stax label, 1969’s “Hot Buttered Soul.”

For our last series of the season, we have the story of the rise and fall, the rebirth and eventual demise of the legendary Memphis R&B, soul and funk label, Stax Records. This month we’re talking about the groundbreaking album that helped kickstart what came to be known as the “Memphis sound” - the first official release on the Stax Record Label, 1962’s “Green Onions” by Booker T. & the M.G.s.

The boys at TNT are back with the second episode in our series about the dynamic Los Angeles indie label Stones Throw Records. This month, Thanh + Tim are coming to you with the sophomore release by the multi-talented LA-based violinist, singer, rapper, producer Sudan Archives, 2022's “Natural Brown Prom Queen.” Get your selfish soul to your nearest turntable and enjoy 🎧

This episode of TNT brings us to the left coast to dig into the famed LA independent label Stones Throw Records. To kick this series off, we bring you something bittersweet - 2006’s iconoclastic “Donuts” by rapper, producer, beatmaker, and record collector extraordinaire J Dilla - released on February 7, 2006, just three days before Dilla tragically passed away.

On TNT this month, we’re back with our friends at Dischord Records! Thanh + Tim dig into a record and a band that bring a little bit of youth and groove to the label: Q and Not U’s debut album, “No KIll No Beep Beep,” released in October 2000. On the bands's debut and their roots in the Washington D.C. music scene, Pitchfork noted that "few bands sound like this, and even fewer towns sound like this."

As TNT zeroes in on record labels this season, it was only a matter of time until Thanh + Tim made their way to the legendary Dischord Records. And what better to showcase the label than one of the heaviest hitting albums in all of post-hardcore, the foundational 1990 release “Repeater” by a little band named Fugazi. Enjoy this one, you ice cream eating motherfuckers! 🙃🍦

TNT is back in action and we're still dancin' 😎 April brings us across the pond from the noise of New York to the second part of our series on Soul Jazz Records. We're capping this one off with a deep dive into a collection of golden-age UK jungle, rave and hardcore tracks from the early 1990s, “Black Riot: Early Jungle, Rave and Hardcore,” released in the trenches of 2020.

The month of March kicks off TNT's deep dive into our next record label, London's own Soul Jazz Records. To start this series off, Thanh + Tim are talking about a compilation that features no wave, post-punk, mutant disco, and avant-funk all in one! Contort yourself along with us as we dig into 2003’s “New York Noise: Dance Music from the New York Underground 1978-1982.”