Flavortone is a music commentary podcast hosted by Nick Scavo and Alec Sturgis.

Flavortone

After witnessing a TikTok “beef” between the “Mozart of Gen Z” Jacob Collier and Rick Rubin, Alec and Nick take up “des arts de boeuf” as a space to discuss the implicitly disagreeable nature of musical aesthetics. The conversation uses these two maestro’s different perspectives to inquire into the role of the audience and its relationship to creativity, musical genius and virtuosity, and the underlying political assumptions evident in their arguments. More, the two discuss the act of a “beef” or disagreement as an illuminating tension that highlights core hypocrisies, embarrassments, and ironies within our aesthetics and politics. Irony is discussed as a dominating “coin of the realm” in which true untruths are exchanged with untrue truths — a continuum that develops into political binaries of liberalism and fascism, and the nature of aesthetic and political revolution. The conversation also uses this as a foil to discuss the recent full course Beef of Drake versus Kendrick Lamar, and questions the musical “avant-garde” as a progressive medium for art or politics.

After witnessing a TikTok “beef” between the “Mozart of Gen Z” Jacob Collier and Rick Rubin, Alec and Nick take up “des arts de boeuf” as a space to discuss the implicitly disagreeable nature of musical aesthetics. The conversation uses these two maestro’s different perspectives to inquire into the role of the audience and its relationship to creativity, musical genius and virtuosity, and the underlying political assumptions evident in their arguments. More, the two discuss the act of a “beef” or disagreement as an illuminating tension that highlights core hypocrisies, embarrassments, and ironies within our aesthetics and politics. Irony is discussed as a dominating “coin of the realm” in which true untruths are exchanged with untrue truths — a continuum that develops into political binaries of liberalism and fascism, and the nature of aesthetic and political revolution. The conversation also uses this as a foil to discuss the recent full course Beef of Drake versus Kendrick Lamar, and questions the musical “avant-garde” as a progressive medium for art or politics.

After witnessing a TikTok “beef” between the “Mozart of Gen Z” Jacob Collier and Rick Rubin, Alec and Nick take up “des arts de boeuf” as a space to discuss the implicitly disagreeable nature of musical aesthetics. The conversation uses...

Episode 58: The Art of the Beef

In a novel departure from their “special relationship” to classical and experimental music, Alec and Nick take up the topic of Interpretive Dance as a discursive foil to their ongoing inquiries into music. The duo give bewildered accounts of the aesthetic experience of interpretive and experimental dance performances—and ask basic questions: are music and dance the same thing? Sibling rivals? Two towers? Or, why does interpretive dance often evoke laughter, humiliation, or come across as potentially overstated and ridiculous? How would would you choose to express yourself through dance? The conversation also recounts comfortable and joyous experiences of dancing and probes critical assumptions and entrenchments within the music/dance dichotomy. The conversation touches on John Cage and Merce Cunningham, The Club, musical theater, Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti, ethnomusicological accounts of movement and music, improvised music, ballet and classical music, music and dance’s extensions into visual culture, Kim Gordon’s new album, and more.

In a novel departure from their “special relationship” to classical and experimental music, Alec and Nick take up the topic of Interpretive Dance as a discursive foil to their ongoing inquiries into music. The duo give bewildered accounts of the aesthetic experience of interpretive and experimental dance performances—and ask basic questions: are music and dance the same thing? Sibling rivals? Two towers? Or, why does interpretive dance often evoke laughter, humiliation, or come across as potentially overstated and ridiculous? How would would you choose to express yourself through dance? The conversation also recounts comfortable and joyous experiences of dancing and probes critical assumptions and entrenchments within the music/dance dichotomy. The conversation touches on John Cage and Merce Cunningham, The Club, musical theater, Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti, ethnomusicological accounts of movement and music, improvised music, ballet and classical music, music and dance’s extensions into visual culture, Kim Gordon’s new album, and more.

In a novel departure from their “special relationship” to classical and experimental music, Alec and Nick take up the topic of Interpretive Dance as a discursive foil to their ongoing inquiries into music. The duo give bewildered accounts of the...

Episode 57: A Critique of Interpretive Dance

Listen up daddios: in this episode, Alec & Nick take out the bindle-sticks and jugs of wine for a gone reflection on the lingering cultural legacies of bohemianism in the 21st century. Jumping into the Beat generation and mid-20th-century music as a starting point, the discussion focuses on how avant-gardes and countercultures oscillate into and back out of mainstream cultural resonance; and, how the social aesthetics of online media consumption have transformed the dynamic interplay of commerce and liberatory expression. Topics include relational aesthetics, adolescent literary tastes, generational culture wars, Soundcloud’s next gen, Nietzsche, Kerouac’s “On the Road” and autofiction, the hybridity of classical and novel forms in Indie music, the Verismo Opera of Puccini, Julia Holter, Pitchfork’s integration into GQ, participatory art, recent MOMA PS1 presentations of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work, Baudelaire and distinctions between Cyber- vs. Crypto- bohemianism.

Listen up daddios: in this episode, Alec & Nick take out the bindle-sticks and jugs of wine for a gone reflection on the lingering cultural legacies of bohemianism in the 21st century. Jumping into the Beat generation and mid-20th-century music as a starting point, the discussion focuses on how avant-gardes and countercultures oscillate into and back out of mainstream cultural resonance; and, how the social aesthetics of online media consumption have transformed the dynamic interplay of commerce and liberatory expression. Topics include relational aesthetics, adolescent literary tastes, generational culture wars, Soundcloud’s next gen, Nietzsche, Kerouac’s “On the Road” and autofiction, the hybridity of classical and novel forms in Indie music, the Verismo Opera of Puccini, Julia Holter, Pitchfork’s integration into GQ, participatory art, recent MOMA PS1 presentations of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work, Baudelaire and distinctions between Cyber- vs. Crypto- bohemianism.

Listen up daddios: in this episode, Alec & Nick take out the bindle-sticks and jugs of wine for a gone reflection on the lingering cultural legacies of bohemianism in the 21st century. Jumping into the Beat generation and mid-20th-century music as a starting point, the discussion focuses on how avant-gardes and countercultures oscillate into and back out of mainstream cultural resonance; and, how the social aesthetics of online media consumption have transformed the dynamic interplay of commerce and liberatory expression. Topics include relational aesthetics, adolescent literary tastes, generational culture wars, Soundcloud’s next gen, Nietzsche, Kerouac’s “On the Road” and autofiction, the hybridity of classical and novel forms in Indie music, the Verismo Opera of Puccini, Julia Holter, Pitchfork’s integration into GQ, participatory art, recent MOMA PS1 presentations of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s work, Baudelaire and distinctions between Cyber- vs. Crypto- bohemianism.

Listen up daddios: in this episode, Alec & Nick take out the bindle-sticks and jugs of wine for a gone reflection on the lingering cultural legacies of bohemianism in the 21st century. Jumping into the Beat generation and mid-20th-century music as...

Episode 56: Angelheaded Shitposters

In this special edition, Alec and Nick open the Flavortone vault to present The Great Bar Italia Debate — a lost episode from the summer of 2023, presented here in timely coincidence with the London group’s recent Crack profile. The debate poses questions about musical style, local vs. global cultural and community dynamics and politics of taste along the well-established axis of London and NYC’s cultural exchange. Taking up discussion of “the band” as a conceptual and presentational format, rather than as a presumptive participatory vehicle,  the episode examines the alternative forms of consumption, exchange and imaginative role-play, which Bar Italia’s approach invites. Topics include the question: “Do we like this?,” the band’s 2023 quasi-residency of multiple NYC concerts, transatlantic indie rock history, Dean Blunt, and Thomas Turino’s cultural framework for “presentational” (as opposed to “participatory”) music.

In this special edition, Alec and Nick open the Flavortone vault to present The Great Bar Italia Debate — a lost episode from the summer of 2023, presented here in timely coincidence with the London group’s recent Crack profile. The debate poses questions about musical style, local vs. global cultural and community dynamics and politics of taste along the well-established axis of London and NYC’s cultural exchange. Taking up discussion of “the band” as a conceptual and presentational format, rather than as a presumptive participatory vehicle,  the episode examines the alternative forms of consumption, exchange and imaginative role-play, which Bar Italia’s approach invites. Topics include the question: “Do we like this?,” the band’s 2023 quasi-residency of multiple NYC concerts, transatlantic indie rock history, Dean Blunt, and Thomas Turino’s cultural framework for “presentational” (as opposed to “participatory”) music.

In this special edition, Alec and Nick open the Flavortone vault to present The Great Bar Italia Debate — a lost episode from the summer of 2023, presented here in timely coincidence with the London group’s recent Crack profile. The debate poses questions about musical style, local vs. global cultural and community dynamics and politics of taste along the well-established axis of London and NYC’s cultural exchange. Taking up discussion of “the band” as a conceptual and presentational format, rather than as a presumptive participatory vehicle,  the episode examines the alternative forms of consumption, exchange and imaginative role-play, which Bar Italia’s approach invites. Topics include the question: “Do we like this?,” the band’s 2023 quasi-residency of multiple NYC concerts, transatlantic indie rock history, Dean Blunt, and Thomas Turino’s cultural framework for “presentational” (as opposed to “participatory”) music.

In this special edition, Alec and Nick open the Flavortone vault to present The Great Bar Italia Debate — a lost episode from the summer of 2023, presented here in timely coincidence with the London group’s recent Crack profile. The debate poses...

Episode 55: The Great Bar Italia Debate

After a long and unanticipated hiatus from podcasting, Alec and Nick return to take a long hard look in the mirror … only to inquire why exactly they possess the impulse to use music as an aesthetic, philosophical, social, cultural, and political measure of the world. The conversation uses the metaphor of the library to chart an interrogation into where music culture, discourse, and practice is at at the dawn of 2024. The episode questions contemporary music culture’s relationship to the history of 20th century experimental music, the legacy of John Cage and Sylvere Lotringer’s view of him as “The American Philosopher,” historically “legitimatizing” the disparate internet music culture of the 2010s, music culture’s production of “reliable disappointments,” year end list-making, holy and sacred music, and more.

After a long and unanticipated hiatus from podcasting, Alec and Nick return to take a long hard look in the mirror … only to inquire why exactly they possess the impulse to use music as an aesthetic, philosophical, social, cultural, and political measure of the world. The conversation uses the metaphor of the library to chart an interrogation into where music culture, discourse, and practice is at at the dawn of 2024. The episode questions contemporary music culture’s relationship to the history of 20th century experimental music, the legacy of John Cage and Sylvere Lotringer’s view of him as “The American Philosopher,” historically “legitimatizing” the disparate internet music culture of the 2010s, music culture’s production of “reliable disappointments,” year end list-making, holy and sacred music, and more.

After a long and unanticipated hiatus from podcasting, Alec and Nick return to take a long hard look in the mirror … only to inquire why exactly they possess the impulse to use music as an aesthetic, philosophical, social, cultural, and political measure of the world. The conversation uses the metaphor of the library to chart an interrogation into where music culture, discourse, and practice is at at the dawn of 2024. The episode questions contemporary music culture’s relationship to the history of 20th century experimental music, the legacy of John Cage and Sylvere Lotringer’s view of him as “The American Philosopher,” historically “legitimatizing” the disparate internet music culture of the 2010s, music culture’s production of “reliable disappointments,” year end list-making, holy and sacred music, and more.

After a long and unanticipated hiatus from podcasting, Alec and Nick return to take a long hard look in the mirror … only to inquire why exactly they possess the impulse to use music as an aesthetic, philosophical, social, cultural, and political...

Episode 54: The Lost Library of Flavorphonia

Alec and Nick reconvene to discuss concepts of “tradition” and “futurity” as they relate to music. Picking up on our ceaseless cultural pull toward both the past and future, the conversation focuses on how contemporary’s music’s impulse to represent history and postulate a future for itself has developed its own kind of suspended, tense aesthetic condition. The conversation touches on Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities,” Bang on Can’s Longform Festival, Accelerationism vs. “trad” culture, neorationalist philosophy, ethical and/or relativist music appreciation, Sylvere Lotringer, The Beats, Post-Internet Art, the problems of using collapse as a vision of the future, the dubious quest for authenticity—and music as a special annex for the quandaries of what’s behind us and what’s to come.

Alec and Nick reconvene to discuss concepts of “tradition” and “futurity” as they relate to music. Picking up on our ceaseless cultural pull toward both the past and future, the conversation focuses on how contemporary’s music’s impulse to represent history and postulate a future for itself has developed its own kind of suspended, tense aesthetic condition. The conversation touches on Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities,” Bang on Can’s Longform Festival, Accelerationism vs. “trad” culture, neorationalist philosophy, ethical and/or relativist music appreciation, Sylvere Lotringer, The Beats, Post-Internet Art, the problems of using collapse as a vision of the future, the dubious quest for authenticity—and music as a special annex for the quandaries of what’s behind us and what’s to come.

Alec and Nick reconvene to discuss concepts of “tradition” and “futurity” as they relate to music. Picking up on our ceaseless cultural pull toward both the past and future, the conversation focuses on how contemporary’s music’s impulse to represent history and postulate a future for itself has developed its own kind of suspended, tense aesthetic condition. The conversation touches on Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities,” Bang on Can’s Longform Festival, Accelerationism vs. “trad” culture, neorationalist philosophy, ethical and/or relativist music appreciation, Sylvere Lotringer, The Beats, Post-Internet Art, the problems of using collapse as a vision of the future, the dubious quest for authenticity—and music as a special annex for the quandaries of what’s behind us and what’s to come.

Alec and Nick reconvene to discuss concepts of “tradition” and “futurity” as they relate to music. Picking up on our ceaseless cultural pull toward both the past and future, the conversation focuses on how contemporary’s music’s impulse to...

Episode 53: Tradition, The Future & Music, Please

In this episode Alec & Nick revisit the periodic Musician’s Friend series with a Drum Edition. Considering “drum” as an instrumental category that encompasses much of contemporary musical sound, aesthetics and cultural orientation, the episode navigates various histories and practices across a spectrum of percussive sound, recording and musical philosophy and inquires into the meanings of percussion in the 21st century. Topics include global historical reckonings with resonance, Sarah Hennies’ composition and notion of queer percussion, James Tenney’s “klang” concept, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, exoticism in Western art music, the rhythmic properties of harmony, sample packs, electronic drumming workflows and more.

In this episode Alec & Nick revisit the periodic Musician’s Friend series with a Drum Edition. Considering “drum” as an instrumental category that encompasses much of contemporary musical sound, aesthetics and cultural orientation, the episode navigates various histories and practices across a spectrum of percussive sound, recording and musical philosophy and inquires into the meanings of percussion in the 21st century. Topics include global historical reckonings with resonance, Sarah Hennies’ composition and notion of queer percussion, James Tenney’s “klang” concept, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, exoticism in Western art music, the rhythmic properties of harmony, sample packs, electronic drumming workflows and more.

In this episode Alec & Nick revisit the periodic Musician’s Friend series with a Drum Edition. Considering “drum” as an instrumental category that encompasses much of contemporary musical sound, aesthetics and cultural orientation, the...

Episode 52: Musician's Friend, Drum Edition

Alec and Nick bust out the evil eye amulets to discuss varieties of “cursed music” and what constitutes music feeling or being “cursed.” Following a line of thought from the archetypal Faustian bargain, malediction, ritual and sacrifice, the sacred and profane, and other concepts of curses, the discussion explores music’s relationship to shit talking, punk ideology, Althusser’s interpellation, Torn Hawk’s performance of “Trustfall” at Emily Harvey Foundation,” experiences with live ambient and drone music, Jack Callahan and Jeff Witscher’s new “Music Songs,” Cornelius Cardew’s political-aesthetic agony, the gospel-like quality of metal and noise communities, presumptuous futuristic music, music’s “beauty-industrial complex,” the mundanity of the curse, new music’s cursed individualism, and more.

Alec and Nick bust out the evil eye amulets to discuss varieties of “cursed music” and what constitutes music feeling or being “cursed.” Following a line of thought from the archetypal Faustian bargain, malediction, ritual and sacrifice, the sacred and profane, and other concepts of curses, the discussion explores music’s relationship to shit talking, punk ideology, Althusser’s interpellation, Torn Hawk’s performance of “Trustfall” at Emily Harvey Foundation,” experiences with live ambient and drone music, Jack Callahan and Jeff Witscher’s new “Music Songs,” Cornelius Cardew’s political-aesthetic agony, the gospel-like quality of metal and noise communities, presumptuous futuristic music, music’s “beauty-industrial complex,” the mundanity of the curse, new music’s cursed individualism, and more.

Alec and Nick bust out the evil eye amulets to discuss varieties of “cursed music” and what constitutes music feeling or being “cursed.” Following a line of thought from the archetypal Faustian bargain, malediction, ritual and sacrifice, the...

Episode 51: Cursed Be the One Who Be Listening to Music [PATREON PREVIEW]

In this 50th episode of Flavortone, Alec and Nick settle deep in cups of “earl grey, hot” from the replicator for an entry into the Star Ship Flavorphonia Captain’s Log. Citing Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the duo take this ancient maritime convention of record keeping at sea to trace various other epistemic fault-lines in the practice and theory of notation. The duo consider the “log” as a mundane account which transcends its quantitative form in generating unanticipated moral and aesthetic inventories. Branching from this analysis, the broader discussion includes consideration of a tweet by Holly Herndon on the stakes of creative work alongside AI, Deleuze & Guattari’s emphasis on expression dictating methods, the holodeck and other utopian imaginaries in Star Trek, the notation practice of Pascale Criton, the Ryan Trecartin film “center jenny” (2013), Anthony Braxton, the daily-life “logging” involved in gardening, cooking, home-improvement, and more.

In this 50th episode of Flavortone, Alec and Nick settle deep in cups of “earl grey, hot” from the replicator for an entry into the Star Ship Flavorphonia Captain’s Log. Citing Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the duo take this ancient maritime convention of record keeping at sea to trace various other epistemic fault-lines in the practice and theory of notation. The duo consider the “log” as a mundane account which transcends its quantitative form in generating unanticipated moral and aesthetic inventories. Branching from this analysis, the broader discussion includes consideration of a tweet by Holly Herndon on the stakes of creative work alongside AI, Deleuze & Guattari’s emphasis on expression dictating methods, the holodeck and other utopian imaginaries in Star Trek, the notation practice of Pascale Criton, the Ryan Trecartin film “center jenny” (2013), Anthony Braxton, the daily-life “logging” involved in gardening, cooking, home-improvement, and more.

In this 50th episode of Flavortone, Alec and Nick settle deep in cups of “earl grey, hot” from the replicator for an entry into the Star Ship Flavorphonia Captain’s Log. Citing Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the duo take this ancient maritime convention of record keeping at sea to trace various other epistemic fault-lines in the practice and theory of notation. The duo consider the “log” as a mundane account which transcends its quantitative form in generating unanticipated moral and aesthetic inventories. Branching from this analysis, the broader discussion includes consideration of a tweet by Holly Herndon on the stakes of creative work alongside AI, Deleuze & Guattari’s emphasis on expression dictating methods, the holodeck and other utopian imaginaries in Star Trek, the notation practice of Pascale Criton, the Ryan Trecartin film “center jenny” (2013), Anthony Braxton, the daily-life “logging” involved in gardening, cooking, home-improvement, and more.

In this 50th episode of Flavortone, Alec and Nick settle deep in cups of “earl grey, hot” from the replicator for an entry into the Star Ship Flavorphonia Captain’s Log. Citing Star Trek’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the duo take this ancient...

Episode 50: Captain's Log, Transcendental [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec and Nick pull back the Flavortone curtain and take up influential sitcom Frasier to discuss the decorum of Foibles as a primary engine of music. Known as a minor weakness or eccentricity in one’s character, or the weaker part of a sword blade—the conversation uses the Foible to explore wide-ranging commentary on Christianity, the trial of Socrates, sites of contested authorship in American minimalism, Rip Van Winkle sleeping through the Revolutionary War, comedy, Fluxus, the work of Torn Hawk, and more. Ultimately, the duo asks: is the foible of a blade actually the avant-garde? Are the aesthetics of experimental music actually defined and determined by the foible? And, is the foible a primary site for our social life and shared narratives of music? The discussion ends with Alec and Nick sharing anecdotes of their own personal foibles in the realm of music: including getting embarrassingly wasted at Cecil Taylor’s birthday party, abandoning one’s post as a handbell choir director in Ohio, and the foible masterclass of co-running a DIY music space in the early 2010s.

Alec and Nick pull back the Flavortone curtain and take up influential sitcom Frasier to discuss the decorum of Foibles as a primary engine of music. Known as a minor weakness or eccentricity in one’s character, or the weaker part of a sword blade—the conversation uses the Foible to explore wide-ranging commentary on Christianity, the trial of Socrates, sites of contested authorship in American minimalism, Rip Van Winkle sleeping through the Revolutionary War, comedy, Fluxus, the work of Torn Hawk, and more. Ultimately, the duo asks: is the foible of a blade actually the avant-garde? Are the aesthetics of experimental music actually defined and determined by the foible? And, is the foible a primary site for our social life and shared narratives of music? The discussion ends with Alec and Nick sharing anecdotes of their own personal foibles in the realm of music: including getting embarrassingly wasted at Cecil Taylor’s birthday party, abandoning one’s post as a handbell choir director in Ohio, and the foible masterclass of co-running a DIY music space in the early 2010s.

Alec and Nick pull back the Flavortone curtain and take up influential sitcom Frasier to discuss the decorum of Foibles as a primary engine of music. Known as a minor weakness or eccentricity in one’s character, or the weaker part of a sword blade—the conversation uses the Foible to explore wide-ranging commentary on Christianity, the trial of Socrates, sites of contested authorship in American minimalism, Rip Van Winkle sleeping through the Revolutionary War, comedy, Fluxus, the work of Torn Hawk, and more. Ultimately, the duo asks: is the foible of a blade actually the avant-garde? Are the aesthetics of experimental music actually defined and determined by the foible? And, is the foible a primary site for our social life and shared narratives of music? The discussion ends with Alec and Nick sharing anecdotes of their own personal foibles in the realm of music: including getting embarrassingly wasted at Cecil Taylor’s birthday party, abandoning one’s post as a handbell choir director in Ohio, and the foible masterclass of co-running a DIY music space in the early 2010s.

Alec and Nick pull back the Flavortone curtain and take up influential sitcom Frasier to discuss the decorum of Foibles as a primary engine of music. Known as a minor weakness or eccentricity in one’s character, or the weaker part of a sword...

Episode 49: Foibles and The Meaning of Tossed Salad & Scrambled Eggs

Alec & Nick take to the proverbial skies with this discussion around the dreaming and engineering feats which make possible the various metaphorical and real forms of Flight. Diverting from some of FT’s established conversations dealing with cultural and musical wreckage, this episode looks into moments of lift and inspiration, as supported by efforts of imagination, study and experimentation. The discussion ranges from a consideration of passive and active flight, the commercial airline experience, musical tuning systems and just intonation, the tensions inherent in human progress, the journals of Leonardo DaVinci, synthesis and synthesizers as instruments of belief and knowledge, Buckminster Fuller’s “Great Pirate” paradigm, Evagrius Ponticus’ “Demon Pilot,” and more.

Alec & Nick take to the proverbial skies with this discussion around the dreaming and engineering feats which make possible the various metaphorical and real forms of Flight. Diverting from some of FT’s established conversations dealing with cultural and musical wreckage, this episode looks into moments of lift and inspiration, as supported by efforts of imagination, study and experimentation. The discussion ranges from a consideration of passive and active flight, the commercial airline experience, musical tuning systems and just intonation, the tensions inherent in human progress, the journals of Leonardo DaVinci, synthesis and synthesizers as instruments of belief and knowledge, Buckminster Fuller’s “Great Pirate” paradigm, Evagrius Ponticus’ “Demon Pilot,” and more.

Alec & Nick take to the proverbial skies with this discussion around the dreaming and engineering feats which make possible the various metaphorical and real forms of Flight. Diverting from some of FT’s established conversations dealing with cultural and musical wreckage, this episode looks into moments of lift and inspiration, as supported by efforts of imagination, study and experimentation. The discussion ranges from a consideration of passive and active flight, the commercial airline experience, musical tuning systems and just intonation, the tensions inherent in human progress, the journals of Leonardo DaVinci, synthesis and synthesizers as instruments of belief and knowledge, Buckminster Fuller’s “Great Pirate” paradigm, Evagrius Ponticus’ “Demon Pilot,” and more.

Alec & Nick take to the proverbial skies with this discussion around the dreaming and engineering feats which make possible the various metaphorical and real forms of Flight. Diverting from some of FT’s established conversations dealing with...

Episode 48: Fratres In Flight

Following on from Flavortone’s previous episode exploring Excellence, Alec and Nick pick up Charles Keil & Steven Feld’s “Music Grooves” to discuss “the Groove” as a political concept that illustrates musical discrepancy and assembly. The episode continues a “back to basics” and “first principles” line of inquiry, approaching essential ethnomusicological ideas such as “Participatory Discrepancy” that describe how a simultaneity of difference can give music its power and meaning. The conversation also discusses riffs and phrases, contrasts the Groove to Attali and Nieztche’s ideas of carnival and the Dionysian, creates a comparison between “literary” and “linguistic” musical orientations, re-discusses “Agave Expressionism,” and ultimately describes how the Groove offers an alternate perspective of sound beyond the universalism of western art music and institutional major histories.

Following on from Flavortone’s previous episode exploring Excellence, Alec and Nick pick up Charles Keil & Steven Feld’s “Music Grooves” to discuss “the Groove” as a political concept that illustrates musical discrepancy and assembly. The episode continues a “back to basics” and “first principles” line of inquiry, approaching essential ethnomusicological ideas such as “Participatory Discrepancy” that describe how a simultaneity of difference can give music its power and meaning. The conversation also discusses riffs and phrases, contrasts the Groove to Attali and Nieztche’s ideas of carnival and the Dionysian, creates a comparison between “literary” and “linguistic” musical orientations, re-discusses “Agave Expressionism,” and ultimately describes how the Groove offers an alternate perspective of sound beyond the universalism of western art music and institutional major histories.

Following on from Flavortone’s previous episode exploring Excellence, Alec and Nick pick up Charles Keil & Steven Feld’s “Music Grooves” to discuss “the Groove” as a political concept that illustrates musical discrepancy and assembly. The...

Episode 47: Thus Shook Zarathustra's Groove Thing (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec and Nick kick off the new year of podcasts with a discussion of Excellence. Taking on critical histories of the composer as fodder, the episode surveys musical success paradigms and the narcissisms of small difference which feed debates over musical interpretation. Topics include Alec and Nick’s recent performances as participants in Random Gear Festival, a recent viewing of Tár, the parasite as a metaphor for interpretation, old-school classicism, Harold C. Shonberg’s book, “The Lives of the Great Composers,” musical idealism vs. counterculture, music as text, and more.

Alec and Nick kick off the new year of podcasts with a discussion of Excellence. Taking on critical histories of the composer as fodder, the episode surveys musical success paradigms and the narcissisms of small difference which feed debates over musical interpretation. Topics include Alec and Nick’s recent performances as participants in Random Gear Festival, a recent viewing of Tár, the parasite as a metaphor for interpretation, old-school classicism, Harold C. Shonberg’s book, “The Lives of the Great Composers,” musical idealism vs. counterculture, music as text, and more.

Alec and Nick kick off the new year of podcasts with a discussion of Excellence. Taking on critical histories of the composer as fodder, the episode surveys musical success paradigms and the narcissisms of small difference which feed debates over musical interpretation. Topics include Alec and Nick’s recent performances as participants in Random Gear Festival, a recent viewing of Tár, the parasite as a metaphor for interpretation, old-school classicism, Harold C. Shonberg’s book, “The Lives of the Great Composers,” musical idealism vs. counterculture, music as text, and more.

Alec and Nick kick off the new year of podcasts with a discussion of Excellence. Taking on critical histories of the composer as fodder, the episode surveys musical success paradigms and the narcissisms of small difference which feed debates over...

Episode 46: Could Not Music Be Excellent? (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

In this year end reflection, Alec and Nick discuss the folkloric figure of Pinocchio—a “constantly lying wooden marionette,” whose dual consciousness (as both an abject dummy and an aspiring human) suggests a parable for understanding musical problems of “liveness” and “deadness” and the puppetry of musical commodification. Taking up Carlo Collodi’s late 19th century series  “The Adventures of Pinocchio” as a text that precodes social and political movements in the 20th century—including local and global perspectives of artisan class-politics, Marxism, Italian unification, and fascism—the conversation follows into an analysis of the puppet-like dramaturgy of musical political economies. Matters at hand include civic responsibility, deception, education, fatalism, and the recent factions within consumer-level breakthroughs in AI technology as a tool in Gepetto’s impoverished workshop, or, as a set of masks in the commedia dell’arte of digital production. In the end, the duo prescribe the entirety of musical commodification as a Pinocchio Story that proclaims “how funny I was when I was a puppet! And how happy I am now to have become a nice-a boy!”

In this year end reflection, Alec and Nick discuss the folkloric figure of Pinocchio—a “constantly lying wooden marionette,” whose dual consciousness (as both an abject dummy and an aspiring human) suggests a parable for understanding musical problems of “liveness” and “deadness” and the puppetry of musical commodification. Taking up Carlo Collodi’s late 19th century series  “The Adventures of Pinocchio” as a text that precodes social and political movements in the 20th century—including local and global perspectives of artisan class-politics, Marxism, Italian unification, and fascism—the conversation follows into an analysis of the puppet-like dramaturgy of musical political economies. Matters at hand include civic responsibility, deception, education, fatalism, and the recent factions within consumer-level breakthroughs in AI technology as a tool in Gepetto’s impoverished workshop, or, as a set of masks in the commedia dell’arte of digital production. In the end, the duo prescribe the entirety of musical commodification as a Pinocchio Story that proclaims “how funny I was when I was a puppet! And how happy I am now to have become a nice-a boy!”

In this year end reflection, Alec and Nick discuss the folkloric figure of Pinocchio—a “constantly lying wooden marionette,” whose dual consciousness (as both an abject dummy and an aspiring human) suggests a parable for understanding musical...

Episode 45: Acting As If I’m Pinocchio

Alec and Nick continue their occasional roast series with a roast of German film score composer Hans Zimmer. The conversation surveys and critiques his work across the new wave and new age soundtrack exotica of the 80s and 90s (Rain Man, Gladiator, The Lion King), to the cinematic revelry of his Christopher Nolan-directed epochs (Inception, Dunkirk, Batman) to recent scores such as Boss Baby. The roast also probes his methods of budget-savvy musical fabrication, his management of authenticity and appropriation, and the current ubiquity of his overall sound. The episode then makes broad comparisons between Zimmer, globalist/neoliberal ideology, and the dark humanism of James Ferraro’s work—as well as Zimmer’s over-moisturized Tommy Bahama-like sensuality and uncanny resemblance to “Beans” from Evans Stevens.

Alec and Nick continue their occasional roast series with a roast of German film score composer Hans Zimmer. The conversation surveys and critiques his work across the new wave and new age soundtrack exotica of the 80s and 90s (Rain Man, Gladiator, The Lion King), to the cinematic revelry of his Christopher Nolan-directed epochs (Inception, Dunkirk, Batman) to recent scores such as Boss Baby. The roast also probes his methods of budget-savvy musical fabrication, his management of authenticity and appropriation, and the current ubiquity of his overall sound. The episode then makes broad comparisons between Zimmer, globalist/neoliberal ideology, and the dark humanism of James Ferraro’s work—as well as Zimmer’s over-moisturized Tommy Bahama-like sensuality and uncanny resemblance to “Beans” from Evans Stevens.

Alec and Nick continue their occasional roast series with a roast of German film score composer Hans Zimmer. The conversation surveys and critiques his work across the new wave and new age soundtrack exotica of the 80s and 90s (Rain Man, Gladiator, The Lion King), to the cinematic revelry of his Christopher Nolan-directed epochs (Inception, Dunkirk, Batman) to recent scores such as Boss Baby. The roast also probes his methods of budget-savvy musical fabrication, his management of authenticity and appropriation, and the current ubiquity of his overall sound. The episode then makes broad comparisons between Zimmer, globalist/neoliberal ideology, and the dark humanism of James Ferraro’s work—as well as Zimmer’s over-moisturized Tommy Bahama-like sensuality and uncanny resemblance to “Beans” from Evans Stevens.

Alec and Nick continue their occasional roast series with a roast of German film score composer Hans Zimmer. The conversation surveys and critiques his work across the new wave and new age soundtrack exotica of the 80s and 90s (Rain Man, Gladiator,...

Episode 44: The Roast of Hans Zimmer

For a Halloween special, Alec and Nick take up Søren Kierkegaard’s frightening text “Fear and Trembling” as a starting point to discuss fear as it relates to philosophy, music, film, and life. Discussing the chilling crisis of faith during Abraham’s binding of Isaac and the subsequent “Teleological suspension of the ethical”—the conversation evolves into a broader exploration of universal vs. situational fear, affects of fear vs. the motivations of fear, and the administration and control of fear in everything from the music of Scott Walker, Kubrick’s The Shining, Krzysztof Penderecki, climate protesters actions toward paintings, alien surveillance, Sasquatches on the beach, and more. Ultimately, the discussion arrives at tautologies or “degree zeros” of existential fear—from John Cage confronting his own circulatory system in an anechoic chamber, to capitalism and environmental collapse in Lars “TCF” Holdus’ new blogpost “Undoing nihilism.”

For a Halloween special, Alec and Nick take up Søren Kierkegaard’s frightening text “Fear and Trembling” as a starting point to discuss fear as it relates to philosophy, music, film, and life. Discussing the chilling crisis of faith during Abraham’s binding of Isaac and the subsequent “Teleological suspension of the ethical”—the conversation evolves into a broader exploration of universal vs. situational fear, affects of fear vs. the motivations of fear, and the administration and control of fear in everything from the music of Scott Walker, Kubrick’s The Shining, Krzysztof Penderecki, climate protesters actions toward paintings, alien surveillance, Sasquatches on the beach, and more. Ultimately, the discussion arrives at tautologies or “degree zeros” of existential fear—from John Cage confronting his own circulatory system in an anechoic chamber, to capitalism and environmental collapse in Lars “TCF” Holdus’ new blogpost “Undoing nihilism.”

For a Halloween special, Alec and Nick take up Søren Kierkegaard’s frightening text “Fear and Trembling” as a starting point to discuss fear as it relates to philosophy, music, film, and life. Discussing the chilling crisis of faith during Abraham’s binding of Isaac and the subsequent “Teleological suspension of the ethical”—the conversation evolves into a broader exploration of universal vs. situational fear, affects of fear vs. the motivations of fear, and the administration and control of fear in everything from the music of Scott Walker, Kubrick’s The Shining, Krzysztof Penderecki, climate protesters actions toward paintings, alien surveillance, Sasquatches on the beach, and more. Ultimately, the discussion arrives at tautologies or “degree zeros” of existential fear—from John Cage confronting his own circulatory system in an anechoic chamber, to capitalism and environmental collapse in Lars “TCF” Holdus’ new blogpost “Undoing nihilism.”

For a Halloween special, Alec and Nick take up Søren Kierkegaard’s frightening text “Fear and Trembling” as a starting point to discuss fear as it relates to philosophy, music, film, and life. Discussing the chilling crisis of faith during...

Episode 43: Fear and Being Interested in Many Different Things (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Blue, 42. Hut. In this 42nd episode of Flavortone, Alec and Nick delve into the analytic imaginaries of Fantasy Football. Having recently joined a friendly fantasy league, they reflect on recent W’s and L’s and the characteristic fantasy sport experience of a speculative, detemporized form of spectatorship. The discussion revives a favorite Flavortone question — “How are sports NOT like music?” — in considering the role of chance, ephemerality and stochastic models of probability in the aesthetic experience and in the forms of sport and avant-garde music. Discussion includes gestalt psychology, James Tenney’s “Meta+Hodos,” the stochastic compositions of Iannis Xenakis, the debate between Cage and Feldman over indeterminacy vs. ephemerality, narrative contingency in Dungeons and Dragons, Jacques Attali’s notion of Ritual, the new Alex G record and more.

Blue, 42. Hut. In this 42nd episode of Flavortone, Alec and Nick delve into the analytic imaginaries of Fantasy Football. Having recently joined a friendly fantasy league, they reflect on recent W’s and L’s and the characteristic fantasy sport experience of a speculative, detemporized form of spectatorship. The discussion revives a favorite Flavortone question — “How are sports NOT like music?” — in considering the role of chance, ephemerality and stochastic models of probability in the aesthetic experience and in the forms of sport and avant-garde music. Discussion includes gestalt psychology, James Tenney’s “Meta+Hodos,” the stochastic compositions of Iannis Xenakis, the debate between Cage and Feldman over indeterminacy vs. ephemerality, narrative contingency in Dungeons and Dragons, Jacques Attali’s notion of Ritual, the new Alex G record and more.

Blue, 42. Hut. In this 42nd episode of Flavortone, Alec and Nick delve into the analytic imaginaries of Fantasy Football. Having recently joined a friendly fantasy league, they reflect on recent W’s and L’s and the characteristic fantasy sport experience of a speculative, detemporized form of spectatorship. The discussion revives a favorite Flavortone question — “How are sports NOT like music?” — in considering the role of chance, ephemerality and stochastic models of probability in the aesthetic experience and in the forms of sport and avant-garde music. Discussion includes gestalt psychology, James Tenney’s “Meta+Hodos,” the stochastic compositions of Iannis Xenakis, the debate between Cage and Feldman over indeterminacy vs. ephemerality, narrative contingency in Dungeons and Dragons, Jacques Attali’s notion of Ritual, the new Alex G record and more.

Blue, 42. Hut. In this 42nd episode of Flavortone, Alec and Nick delve into the analytic imaginaries of Fantasy Football. Having recently joined a friendly fantasy league, they reflect on recent W’s and L’s and the characteristic fantasy sport...

Episode 42: Phenomenology of Fantasy Football

Alec and Nick discuss the implications of American and European musical avant-gardes as participating in militaristic and nationalist rhetorics that precode our contemporary “culture war” discourse. The conversation explores how aesthetic “war-games” — in their varyingly diplomatic and contentious outcomes — are imbricated in the broader colonial trajectory of 20th and 21st century institutions. Topics include the correspondences of Cage and Boulez, Julius Eastman’s controversial performance of Cage, Alvin Lucier, the American hotdog, Charles Ives, Hamilton, anti-Italian Twitter, the US Open, John Adams’ “Nixon in China,” the Cold War-era military funding for abstract expressionism, Henry Flynt and Tony Conrad’s anti-Stockhausen demonstration and more.

Alec and Nick discuss the implications of American and European musical avant-gardes as participating in militaristic and nationalist rhetorics that precode our contemporary “culture war” discourse. The conversation explores how aesthetic “war-games” — in their varyingly diplomatic and contentious outcomes — are imbricated in the broader colonial trajectory of 20th and 21st century institutions. Topics include the correspondences of Cage and Boulez, Julius Eastman’s controversial performance of Cage, Alvin Lucier, the American hotdog, Charles Ives, Hamilton, anti-Italian Twitter, the US Open, John Adams’ “Nixon in China,” the Cold War-era military funding for abstract expressionism, Henry Flynt and Tony Conrad’s anti-Stockhausen demonstration and more.

Alec and Nick discuss the implications of American and European musical avant-gardes as participating in militaristic and nationalist rhetorics that precode our contemporary “culture war” discourse. The conversation explores how aesthetic...

Episode 41: Come On Feel the Avant-Garde (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec and Nick discuss the concept of craft and craftsmanship as a paradigm that dictates behavior in cultural production and art. The conversation explores differences between the utility of craft and the performativity or representation of craft as an aesthetic repertoire. Topics include regionality and nostalgia in everything from indie rock and country music to experimental music that references 20th century composition, as well as recording techniques, artisanal food culture, Aristotle’s “Nichomachean Ethics” which distinguishes between “Episteme” and “Techne,” Plato’s Republic, refinement culture, reissue culture, gentrification, and the industrial and material conditions that surround craftsmanship. Ultimately, a continuum between abstraction and interpretation and practice is set up, provoking further discussion about objects, an analysis of craft in a digital context, Instagram’s merchant culture, and the new highfalutin antique store “Tihngs” on Catalpa Avenue.

Alec and Nick discuss the concept of craft and craftsmanship as a paradigm that dictates behavior in cultural production and art. The conversation explores differences between the utility of craft and the performativity or representation of craft as an aesthetic repertoire. Topics include regionality and nostalgia in everything from indie rock and country music to experimental music that references 20th century composition, as well as recording techniques, artisanal food culture, Aristotle’s “Nichomachean Ethics” which distinguishes between “Episteme” and “Techne,” Plato’s Republic, refinement culture, reissue culture, gentrification, and the industrial and material conditions that surround craftsmanship. Ultimately, a continuum between abstraction and interpretation and practice is set up, provoking further discussion about objects, an analysis of craft in a digital context, Instagram’s merchant culture, and the new highfalutin antique store “Tihngs” on Catalpa Avenue.

Alec and Nick discuss the concept of craft and craftsmanship as a paradigm that dictates behavior in cultural production and art. The conversation explores differences between the utility of craft and the performativity or representation of craft as an aesthetic repertoire. Topics include regionality and nostalgia in everything from indie rock and country music to experimental music that references 20th century composition, as well as recording techniques, artisanal food culture, Aristotle’s “Nichomachean Ethics” which distinguishes between “Episteme” and “Techne,” Plato’s Republic, refinement culture, reissue culture, gentrification, and the industrial and material conditions that surround craftsmanship. Ultimately, a continuum between abstraction and interpretation and practice is set up, provoking further discussion about objects, an analysis of craft in a digital context, Instagram’s merchant culture, and the new highfalutin antique store “Tihngs” on Catalpa Avenue.

Alec and Nick discuss the concept of craft and craftsmanship as a paradigm that dictates behavior in cultural production and art. The conversation explores differences between the utility of craft and the performativity or representation of craft as...

Episode 40: Remembrance of Things Craft

Alec & Nick engage the music of American iconoclast and life-long amateur composer, Charles Ives (1874-1954). The episode traces Ives' experimental aesthetics in relation to his transcendentalist-inspired notion that music is comprised of Substance and Manner (described in his “Essays Before a Sonata”). The discussion situates Ives’ compositional techniques, historical positionality and unique perspective around popular and folk song in American culture to pursue questions within the geneology of experimental music in the U.S. Topics include John Cage, Henry Cowell, the musical quotation vs. the sample, Emerson, Thoreau, American pragmatism, European and American nationalisms and the role of musical practice in regards to notions of democracy.

Alec & Nick engage the music of American iconoclast and life-long amateur composer, Charles Ives (1874-1954). The episode traces Ives' experimental aesthetics in relation to his transcendentalist-inspired notion that music is comprised of Substance and Manner (described in his “Essays Before a Sonata”). The discussion situates Ives’ compositional techniques, historical positionality and unique perspective around popular and folk song in American culture to pursue questions within the geneology of experimental music in the U.S. Topics include John Cage, Henry Cowell, the musical quotation vs. the sample, Emerson, Thoreau, American pragmatism, European and American nationalisms and the role of musical practice in regards to notions of democracy.

Alec & Nick engage the music of American iconoclast and life-long amateur composer, Charles Ives (1874-1954). The episode traces Ives' experimental aesthetics in relation to his transcendentalist-inspired notion that music is comprised of Substance and Manner (described in his “Essays Before a Sonata”). The discussion situates Ives’ compositional techniques, historical positionality and unique perspective around popular and folk song in American culture to pursue questions within the geneology of experimental music in the U.S. Topics include John Cage, Henry Cowell, the musical quotation vs. the sample, Emerson, Thoreau, American pragmatism, European and American nationalisms and the role of musical practice in regards to notions of democracy.

Alec & Nick engage the music of American iconoclast and life-long amateur composer, Charles Ives (1874-1954). The episode traces Ives' experimental aesthetics in relation to his transcendentalist-inspired notion that music is comprised of Substance...

Episode 39: Charles Ives, Sunday Composer

Alec and Nick discuss the politics and poetry of Jar Jar Binks as a fraught, irredeemable, and complicated figuration of online media culture. Christening summer 2022 as a “Weesa In Big Doo Doo Summer,” the duo discuss a “Binksian paradigm” as an imagistic cultural impasse and toxicity meter that encodes a variety of recent contemporary cultural tropes: the re-emergence of everything from caricature and Catholicism to ambiguous political discourse, Nu Metal, rabid fan culture, and aughts humor. The conversation opens up into an examination of the tensions between archetype and stereotype, models of insufficiency and fiction found in the thought of Francois Laruelle, structural racism in America, as well as the development of auto-fiction, AI Image generators, new field recording practices and more as signaling toward a simultaneous ambivalence and obsession toward representation and symbolism in contemporary culture.

Alec and Nick discuss the politics and poetry of Jar Jar Binks as a fraught, irredeemable, and complicated figuration of online media culture. Christening summer 2022 as a “Weesa In Big Doo Doo Summer,” the duo discuss a “Binksian paradigm” as an imagistic cultural impasse and toxicity meter that encodes a variety of recent contemporary cultural tropes: the re-emergence of everything from caricature and Catholicism to ambiguous political discourse, Nu Metal, rabid fan culture, and aughts humor. The conversation opens up into an examination of the tensions between archetype and stereotype, models of insufficiency and fiction found in the thought of Francois Laruelle, structural racism in America, as well as the development of auto-fiction, AI Image generators, new field recording practices and more as signaling toward a simultaneous ambivalence and obsession toward representation and symbolism in contemporary culture.

Alec and Nick discuss the politics and poetry of Jar Jar Binks as a fraught, irredeemable, and complicated figuration of online media culture. Christening summer 2022 as a “Weesa In Big Doo Doo Summer,” the duo discuss a “Binksian paradigm” as...

Episode 38: Weesa In Big Doo Doo Summer (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Presto! In this episode, Alec & Nick discuss the legendary illusion arts of Harry Houdini as an analogical frame for considering artistic strategies and aesthetics of escape. Discussing the work of Mattin and Pascale Criton in particular, the episode accounts for performance, audience and spectacle as planes of musical consistency in which the illusion of “escape” is realized — as the risk of conceptual or interpretive failure is leveraged towards thrilling feats of musical cogency and enjoyment. Topics include Mattin’s “Social Dissonance,” the conducting of Pierre Boulez, Deleuze & Guattari’s “Lines of Flight,” the solo computer set as spectacle, the athleticism of interpretation and affects of risk in music.

Presto! In this episode, Alec & Nick discuss the legendary illusion arts of Harry Houdini as an analogical frame for considering artistic strategies and aesthetics of escape. Discussing the work of Mattin and Pascale Criton in particular, the episode accounts for performance, audience and spectacle as planes of musical consistency in which the illusion of “escape” is realized — as the risk of conceptual or interpretive failure is leveraged towards thrilling feats of musical cogency and enjoyment. Topics include Mattin’s “Social Dissonance,” the conducting of Pierre Boulez, Deleuze & Guattari’s “Lines of Flight,” the solo computer set as spectacle, the athleticism of interpretation and affects of risk in music.

Presto! In this episode, Alec & Nick discuss the legendary illusion arts of Harry Houdini as an analogical frame for considering artistic strategies and aesthetics of escape. Discussing the work of Mattin and Pascale Criton in particular, the episode accounts for performance, audience and spectacle as planes of musical consistency in which the illusion of “escape” is realized — as the risk of conceptual or interpretive failure is leveraged towards thrilling feats of musical cogency and enjoyment. Topics include Mattin’s “Social Dissonance,” the conducting of Pierre Boulez, Deleuze & Guattari’s “Lines of Flight,” the solo computer set as spectacle, the athleticism of interpretation and affects of risk in music.

Presto! In this episode, Alec & Nick discuss the legendary illusion arts of Harry Houdini as an analogical frame for considering artistic strategies and aesthetics of escape. Discussing the work of Mattin and Pascale Criton in particular, the episode...

Episode 37: The Way of Houdini

The Flavortone Study Group sub-series continues with Alec & Nick discussing Friedrich Nietzsche’s text “The Case of Wagner: A Musician’s Problem,” his last work completed only days before his mental collapse in 1888. The conversation delves into the historical context for both Nietzsche’s thought and Wagner’s music and delves into the text’s themes of decadence, exhaustion, sickness, philosophical affect—analyzing Wagner’s work as a possible litmus test for the role of music in philosophy, and, in broader terms, in ideology.

The Flavortone Study Group sub-series continues with Alec & Nick discussing Friedrich Nietzsche’s text “The Case of Wagner: A Musician’s Problem,” his last work completed only days before his mental collapse in 1888. The conversation delves into the historical context for both Nietzsche’s thought and Wagner’s music and delves into the text’s themes of decadence, exhaustion, sickness, philosophical affect—analyzing Wagner’s work as a possible litmus test for the role of music in philosophy, and, in broader terms, in ideology.

The Flavortone Study Group sub-series continues with Alec & Nick discussing Friedrich Nietzsche’s text “The Case of Wagner: A Musician’s Problem,” his last work completed only days before his mental collapse in 1888. The conversation delves...

Episode 36: Friedrich Nietzsche’s "The Case of Wagner" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec & Nick conduct a first meeting of the “Neo-Feudalist Captive Music Society,” an invented club that takes shape around how contemporary musicians are obliged to live on  borrowed land and provide homage, labor, and shares of their “produce.” The discussion describes how local music networks often exist outside the castle walls of the various abstract systems they operate within. Attempting to trace the limits of political economy, music scenes as liberatory associations, and the critiques of late capitalism from theorists like Franco “Bifo” Berardi & Christian Marrazi, the conversation arrives at the production of a “Captive Music”—an embodied, local, entrapped, but warrior-like music. Other topics include the machineries of irony and sincerity, musical “guilds,” auto-surveillance, american politics, loyalty, colonization, the club, Keiji Haino, and more.

Alec & Nick conduct a first meeting of the “Neo-Feudalist Captive Music Society,” an invented club that takes shape around how contemporary musicians are obliged to live on  borrowed land and provide homage, labor, and shares of their “produce.” The discussion describes how local music networks often exist outside the castle walls of the various abstract systems they operate within. Attempting to trace the limits of political economy, music scenes as liberatory associations, and the critiques of late capitalism from theorists like Franco “Bifo” Berardi & Christian Marrazi, the conversation arrives at the production of a “Captive Music”—an embodied, local, entrapped, but warrior-like music. Other topics include the machineries of irony and sincerity, musical “guilds,” auto-surveillance, american politics, loyalty, colonization, the club, Keiji Haino, and more.

Alec & Nick conduct a first meeting of the “Neo-Feudalist Captive Music Society,” an invented club that takes shape around how contemporary musicians are obliged to live on  borrowed land and provide homage, labor, and shares of their “produce.” The discussion describes how local music networks often exist outside the castle walls of the various abstract systems they operate within. Attempting to trace the limits of political economy, music scenes as liberatory associations, and the critiques of late capitalism from theorists like Franco “Bifo” Berardi & Christian Marrazi, the conversation arrives at the production of a “Captive Music”—an embodied, local, entrapped, but warrior-like music. Other topics include the machineries of irony and sincerity, musical “guilds,” auto-surveillance, american politics, loyalty, colonization, the club, Keiji Haino, and more.

Alec & Nick conduct a first meeting of the “Neo-Feudalist Captive Music Society,” an invented club that takes shape around how contemporary musicians are obliged to live on  borrowed land and provide homage, labor, and shares of their...

Episode 35: The Neo-Feudalist Captive Music Society

Teasing their forthcoming music writing website (TBA), Alec and Nick delve the epistemic guts of music and the written word. The episode traces broad historical discussions of music criticism in relation to current trends in publication and music production. Topics include Substack, The Village Voice, the "critic-as-artist" the Schumann-founded journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, genre discourse, Alan Licht, Greg Tate, Tiny Mix Tapes and more.

Teasing their forthcoming music writing website (TBA), Alec and Nick delve the epistemic guts of music and the written word. The episode traces broad historical discussions of music criticism in relation to current trends in publication and music...

Episode 34: You Must Stay Drunk on Writing So Reality Cannot Destroy You (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec and Nick consider the music and cultural impact of Frank Sinatra through a discussion of his album, “Sinatra At The Sands” — recorded in 1966 at the famous Las Vegas hotel and casino. Drawing from observations about Sinatra’s iconicity as a stylist of American popular song, a persisting contemporary signifier of celebration and kitchen-sink comfort and a high water mark of traditional masculinity and coolness, the conversation explores broad cultural dynamics of authenticity and “normalcy” as an aesthetics of traumatic, reparative coping. Topics include the Lindy effect, the old Hollywood/New York divide, PC Music, Jean Baudrillard’s 1996 headlining appearance at the Chance Event (organized by Chris Kraus), and more.

Alec and Nick consider the music and cultural impact of Frank Sinatra through a discussion of his album, “Sinatra At The Sands” — recorded in 1966 at the famous Las Vegas hotel and casino. Drawing from observations about Sinatra’s iconicity as a stylist of American popular song, a persisting contemporary signifier of celebration and kitchen-sink comfort and a high water mark of traditional masculinity and coolness, the conversation explores broad cultural dynamics of authenticity and “normalcy” as an aesthetics of traumatic, reparative coping. Topics include the Lindy effect, the old Hollywood/New York divide, PC Music, Jean Baudrillard’s 1996 headlining appearance at the Chance Event (organized by Chris Kraus), and more.

Alec and Nick consider the music and cultural impact of Frank Sinatra through a discussion of his album, “Sinatra At The Sands” — recorded in 1966 at the famous Las Vegas hotel and casino. Drawing from observations about Sinatra’s iconicity as a stylist of American popular song, a persisting contemporary signifier of celebration and kitchen-sink comfort and a high water mark of traditional masculinity and coolness, the conversation explores broad cultural dynamics of authenticity and “normalcy” as an aesthetics of traumatic, reparative coping. Topics include the Lindy effect, the old Hollywood/New York divide, PC Music, Jean Baudrillard’s 1996 headlining appearance at the Chance Event (organized by Chris Kraus), and more.

Alec and Nick consider the music and cultural impact of Frank Sinatra through a discussion of his album, “Sinatra At The Sands” — recorded in 1966 at the famous Las Vegas hotel and casino. Drawing from observations about Sinatra’s iconicity as...

Episode 33: Sinatra At The Sands

Alec and Nick discuss the poetry and politics of the experimental music festival. At first exploring the history and economy of music festivals such as Big Ears, Moogfest, Hopscotch, Red Bull Music Academy, and the European Festival circuit—the conversation then launches into a  personal discussion probing Nick’s curatorial role at ISSUE Project Room and Alec’s curatorial role in the Neo-Pastiche: Changes In American Music Festival. Notions of community, consumption, and audience take shape around anecdotes of  DIY organizing, non-profit culture, Dick Higgins, Black Mountain College, Alvin Lucier, George Lewis, and more.

Alec and Nick discuss the poetry and politics of the experimental music festival. At first exploring the history and economy of music festivals such as Big Ears, Moogfest, Hopscotch, Red Bull Music Academy, and the European Festival circuit—the conversation then launches into a  personal discussion probing Nick’s curatorial role at ISSUE Project Room and Alec’s curatorial role in the Neo-Pastiche: Changes In American Music Festival. Notions of community, consumption, and audience take shape around anecdotes of  DIY organizing, non-profit culture, Dick Higgins, Black Mountain College, Alvin Lucier, George Lewis, and more.

Alec and Nick discuss the poetry and politics of the experimental music festival. At first exploring the history and economy of music festivals such as Big Ears, Moogfest, Hopscotch, Red Bull Music Academy, and the European Festival circuit—the conversation then launches into a  personal discussion probing Nick’s curatorial role at ISSUE Project Room and Alec’s curatorial role in the Neo-Pastiche: Changes In American Music Festival. Notions of community, consumption, and audience take shape around anecdotes of  DIY organizing, non-profit culture, Dick Higgins, Black Mountain College, Alvin Lucier, George Lewis, and more.

Alec and Nick discuss the poetry and politics of the experimental music festival. At first exploring the history and economy of music festivals such as Big Ears, Moogfest, Hopscotch, Red Bull Music Academy, and the European Festival circuit—the...

Episode 32: Why This Experimental Music Festival? (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec & Nick delve into the lore and mechanics of the video game Elden Ring, drawing a layered comparison between “The Tarnished” and our plight as musicians, cultural participants, and social media users. The discussion takes Nick’s recently pseudo-viral tweet proclaiming that “a truly new insane and unforeseen music can and has yet to be made” as a point of departure to discuss anti-communication, Jeff Witscher & Jack Callahan’s recent performance of “Futility 2022” at Union Pool, Morton Subotnick, Godrick The Grafted, decadence, and the dismembered dynamics of media.

Alec & Nick delve into the lore and mechanics of the video game Elden Ring, drawing a layered comparison between “The Tarnished” and our plight as musicians, cultural participants, and social media users. The discussion takes Nick’s recently pseudo-viral tweet proclaiming that “a truly new insane and unforeseen music can and has yet to be made” as a point of departure to discuss anti-communication, Jeff Witscher & Jack Callahan’s recent performance of “Futility 2022” at Union Pool, Morton Subotnick, Godrick The Grafted, decadence, and the dismembered dynamics of media.

Alec & Nick delve into the lore and mechanics of the video game Elden Ring, drawing a layered comparison between “The Tarnished” and our plight as musicians, cultural participants, and social media users. The discussion takes Nick’s recently...

Episode 31: Tarnished by the Tweet

In this 30th episode of Flavortone, Alec & Nick talk through the recent acquisition of Bandcamp by the massively successful creator of Fortnite and Unreal Engine — Epic Games. Examining the broader indie music scene’s antagonism towards this merger, the conversation interrogates the microtransactional status of digital media economies shared by both music and video games. Topics include music distribution, video game chat rooms, the NYC experimental music Fortnite contingent and the state of avant-garde discourse in light of the proliferation of metaverses.

In this 30th episode of Flavortone, Alec & Nick talk through the recent acquisition of Bandcamp by the massively successful creator of Fortnite and Unreal Engine — Epic Games. Examining the broader indie music scene’s antagonism towards this merger, the conversation interrogates the microtransactional status of digital media economies shared by both music and video games. Topics include music distribution, video game chat rooms, the NYC experimental music Fortnite contingent and the state of avant-garde discourse in light of the proliferation of metaverses.

In this 30th episode of Flavortone, Alec & Nick talk through the recent acquisition of Bandcamp by the massively successful creator of Fortnite and Unreal Engine — Epic Games. Examining the broader indie music scene’s antagonism towards this merger, the conversation interrogates the microtransactional status of digital media economies shared by both music and video games. Topics include music distribution, video game chat rooms, the NYC experimental music Fortnite contingent and the state of avant-garde discourse in light of the proliferation of metaverses.

In this 30th episode of Flavortone, Alec & Nick talk through the recent acquisition of Bandcamp by the massively successful creator of Fortnite and Unreal Engine — Epic Games. Examining the broader indie music scene’s antagonism towards this...

Episode 30: Tomato Town Composer’s Workshop (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Returning from a trip to the sunny coast of Sayulita, Mexico, Alec & Nick reflect on their recent ocean fishing excursion and drop a line into the psychogeographies of the fish, the fishermen and the high seas. The episode considers aquatic ecologies as networks of geo-political power and discourse as well as sites of leisure and solitude. Topics include  Annea Lockwood, Donna Harraway, Bruce Sterling's "Pirate Utopia," Temporary Autonomous Zones, Buckminster Fuller, and more.

Returning from a trip to the sunny coast of Sayulita, Mexico, Alec & Nick reflect on their recent ocean fishing excursion and drop a line into the psychogeographies of the fish, the fishermen and the high seas. The episode considers aquatic ecologies as networks of geo-political power and discourse as well as sites of leisure and solitude. Topics include  Annea Lockwood, Donna Harraway, Bruce Sterling's "Pirate Utopia," Temporary Autonomous Zones, Buckminster Fuller, and more.

Returning from a trip to the sunny coast of Sayulita, Mexico, Alec & Nick reflect on their recent ocean fishing excursion and drop a line into the psychogeographies of the fish, the fishermen and the high seas. The episode considers aquatic ecologies...

Episode 29: A Bad Day of Fishing is Better Than a Good Day of Podcasting

The Flavortone Study Group sub-series continues with Alec & Nick progressing in their reading of Jacques Attali's "Noise: The Political Economy of Music." Discussing the book's second chapter, “Sacrificing,” this episode gives a deep reading and commentary on Attali's position that the earliest essential social role of music was to serve as a substitute or simulacrum of sacrifice—and was a way of controlling and vanquishing noise by creating a harmonious order that legitimizes a social order.

The Flavortone Study Group sub-series continues with Alec & Nick progressing in their reading of Jacques Attali's "Noise: The Political Economy of Music." Discussing the book's second chapter, “Sacrificing,” this episode gives a deep reading and commentary on Attali's position that the earliest essential social role of music was to serve as a substitute or simulacrum of sacrifice—and was a way of controlling and vanquishing noise by creating a harmonious order that legitimizes a social order.

The Flavortone Study Group sub-series continues with Alec & Nick progressing in their reading of Jacques Attali's "Noise: The Political Economy of Music." Discussing the book's second chapter, “Sacrificing,” this episode gives a deep reading and...

Episode 28: Jacques Attali's "Noise" Part 2 - "Sacrificing" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec and Nick meditate on the Valentine's holiday with a consideration of musical romance and romanticism. Charting a history of musical thought regarding topics of love, collectivity and intimacy, the episode investigates deeper foundations of romance as well as its contemporary commercial and social constructions in sound. Topics include Edgard Varèse, Johannes Brahms, João Gilberto, Éliane Radigue, Roland Barthes, Michael Franks and more.

Alec and Nick meditate on the Valentine's holiday with a consideration of musical romance and romanticism. Charting a history of musical thought regarding topics of love, collectivity and intimacy, the episode investigates deeper foundations of romance as well as its contemporary commercial and social constructions in sound. Topics include Edgard Varèse, Johannes Brahms, João Gilberto, Éliane Radigue, Roland Barthes, Michael Franks and more.

Alec and Nick meditate on the Valentine's holiday with a consideration of musical romance and romanticism. Charting a history of musical thought regarding topics of love, collectivity and intimacy, the episode investigates deeper foundations of...

Episode 27: Flavor of Love

Alec & Nick inaugurate the new patron-exclusive Politics & Poetry sub-series with a deep dive into the politics, poetry, and music of 17-year-old country music / emo-rap star Kidd G. The discussion touches on trans-american rural aesthetics, reciprocities of youth and aging, binaristic partisan politics, and the postmodern synthesis of “country-rap” as it plays out in Harmony Korine, Ryan Trecartin & contemporary life. The duo also discusses how the politics of populism flow into recent dramas such the Neil Young & Joe Rogan Spotify stand-off, independent music Twitter’s recent meltdown on NFT music “scam” HitPiece, and more.

Alec & Nick inaugurate the new patron-exclusive Politics & Poetry sub-series with a deep dive into the politics, poetry, and music of 17-year-old country music / emo-rap star Kidd G. The discussion touches on trans-american rural aesthetics, reciprocities of youth and aging, binaristic partisan politics, and the postmodern synthesis of “country-rap” as it plays out in Harmony Korine, Ryan Trecartin & contemporary life. The duo also discusses how the politics of populism flow into recent dramas such the Neil Young & Joe Rogan Spotify stand-off, independent music Twitter’s recent meltdown on NFT music “scam” HitPiece, and more.

Alec & Nick inaugurate the new patron-exclusive Politics & Poetry sub-series with a deep dive into the politics, poetry, and music of 17-year-old country music / emo-rap star Kidd G. The discussion touches on trans-american rural aesthetics,...

Episode 26: Down The Road, Where The Blacktop Ends (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec and Nick discursively cross the river Styx that is Web3 and NFT culture. Charting a recent history of music’s own volatile and speculative economies, this episode tracks analogical implications within sound and blockchain technologies. The duo borrow the crypto degen epithet “we like the art” and speak about the visualization and tokenization of music as its transpired within the industrial conditions of Web2 as an audible musical imprint. The conversation touches on recent music distribution protocol Nina, the upcoming Tiny Mix Tapes DAO, the rise and fall of SoundCloud, Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, Simon Reynold’s Conceptronica essay, Reza Negarastani & Generative Aesthetics, Dostoevsky & God, and more.

Alec and Nick discursively cross the river Styx that is Web3 and NFT culture. Charting a recent history of music’s own volatile and speculative economies, this episode tracks analogical implications within sound and blockchain technologies. The duo borrow the crypto degen epithet “we like the art” and speak about the visualization and tokenization of music as its transpired within the industrial conditions of Web2 as an audible musical imprint. The conversation touches on recent music distribution protocol Nina, the upcoming Tiny Mix Tapes DAO, the rise and fall of SoundCloud, Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty, Simon Reynold’s Conceptronica essay, Reza Negarastani & Generative Aesthetics, Dostoevsky & God, and more.

Alec and Nick discursively cross the river Styx that is Web3 and NFT culture. Charting a recent history of music’s own volatile and speculative economies, this episode tracks analogical implications within sound and blockchain technologies. The duo...

Episode 25: We Like The Art

In this first podcast of the Flavortone Study Group sub-series, Alec & Nick begin their reading of Jacques Attali's "Noise: The Political Economy of Music." Discussing the book's first chapter, "Listening," this episode offers introduction and commentary on Attali's central theme of music as a prophetic social force and as a mirror of political and economic circumstances.

In this first podcast of the Flavortone Study Group sub-series, Alec & Nick begin their reading of Jacques Attali's "Noise: The Political Economy of Music." Discussing the book's first chapter, "Listening," this episode offers introduction and commentary on Attali's central theme of music as a prophetic social force and as a mirror of political and economic circumstances.

In this first podcast of the Flavortone Study Group sub-series, Alec & Nick begin their reading of Jacques Attali's "Noise: The Political Economy of Music." Discussing the book's first chapter, "Listening," this episode offers introduction and commentary on Attali's central theme of music as a prophetic social force and as a mirror of political and economic circumstances.

In this first podcast of the Flavortone Study Group sub-series, Alec & Nick begin their reading of Jacques Attali's "Noise: The Political Economy of Music." Discussing the book's first chapter, "Listening," this episode offers introduction and...

Episode 24: Jacques Attali's "Noise" Part 1 - "Listening" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Alec and Nick continue their “Musician’s Friend” sub-series, dedicating an episode to discuss a selection of father & son musical relationships including: Mark Fell & Rian Treanor, Terry & Gyan Riley, Thom & Noah Yorke, La Monte Young, as wells as The Hank Williams & Bach musical dynasties. The conversation touches on topics such as uncanny music industry alliances, simple family jamming, notions of the original and the copy, Jacques Lacan’s “Nom du Pere,” patriarchal political economies of music, and the fragmentation of American familial structure.

Alec and Nick continue their “Musician’s Friend” sub-series, dedicating an episode to discuss a selection of father & son musical relationships including: Mark Fell & Rian Treanor, Terry & Gyan Riley, Thom & Noah Yorke, La Monte Young, as wells as The Hank Williams & Bach musical dynasties. The conversation touches on topics such as uncanny music industry alliances, simple family jamming, notions of the original and the copy, Jacques Lacan’s “Nom du Pere,” patriarchal political economies of music, and the fragmentation of American familial structure.

Musical Fathers & Sons 

Episode 23: Musician's Friend 2 (Father & Son Edition)

Alec & Nick inaugurate the new patron-exclusive Editorials and Opinions sub-series with a sportsmanly report on music they did not listen to in 2021. Topics include The Wire Magazine, the live music show, Coldplay, Fuerza Regida, Klein, aesthetics of failure and participatory discrepancy.

Alec & Nick inaugurate the new patron-exclusive Editorials and Opinions sub-series with a sportsmanly report on music they did not listen to in 2021. Topics include The Wire Magazine, the live music show, Coldplay, Fuerza Regida, Klein, aesthetics of failure and participatory discrepancy.

Alec & Nick inaugurate the new patron-exclusive Editorials and Opinions sub-series with a sportsmanly report on music they did not listen to in 2021. Topics include The Wire Magazine, the live music show, Coldplay, Fuerza Regida, Klein, aesthetics of...

Episode 22: I Did Not Listen to That Music (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

In this final episode of 2021, Alec and Nick wrap up the year by revisiting an early concept from the Flavortone archive: the Cochlear Wind. The Cochlear Wind is a figurative mascot, intended to both cheer and taunt the way composers bamboozle listeners (and often, themselves) through flurries of tactical language, technological posturing and evocations of site-specificity. Poking fun at platitudes found in sound art and phenomenology, this idea is a parody of "the mystery of sound," where sonority and noise disorient the always beleaguered, insufficient Ear as it attempts to understand an audible world. Topics include: the Trap Card of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Jeff Witscher, Oda speaker company, Alvin Lucier, François Bonnet, Pascale Criton and more!  Art by Char Esme, www.charesme.info.

In this final episode of 2021, Alec and Nick wrap up the year by revisiting an early concept from the Flavortone archive: the Cochlear Wind. The Cochlear Wind is a figurative mascot, intended to both cheer and taunt the way composers bamboozle listeners (and often, themselves) through flurries of tactical language, technological posturing and evocations of site-specificity. Poking fun at platitudes found in sound art and phenomenology, this idea is a parody of "the mystery of sound," where sonority and noise disorient the always beleaguered, insufficient Ear as it attempts to understand an audible world. Topics include: the Trap Card of Yu-Gi-Oh!, Jeff Witscher, Oda speaker company, Alvin Lucier, François Bonnet, Pascale Criton and more! 
 Art by Char Esme, www.charesme.info.

The Ear, Deception and Transcendence

Episode 21: The Cochlear Wind

Inaugurating the launch of their Patreon and merch projects, Alec and Nick discuss their ambitious “mise en place” for a new year of podcasts, guest appearances and exclusive publications. “Mise en place”—the french culinary term for "putting in place" or "gathering” an array of ingredients—serves as a way of framing these new Patron benefits. On the menu: The “Editorials & Opinions” sub-series, focusing on hot takes on the topical music issues of our times; The “Politics & Poetry” sub-series, focusing on kitchen sink discussions of current events and various subjects of human interest in music; and, the “Study Group” sub-series, focusing on close readings of classic musical texts & works. Patrons will also receive The Flavortone Review: monthly assembled PDF documents surveying the materials discussed in the episodes. Additional benefits include annual free merch gifts, supper club invitations & more. Bon appetite, arrivederci, and happy new year! <a href= "https://www.patreon.com/flavortonepodcast">https://www.patreon.com/flavortonepodcast</a> <a href= "https://www.flavortonemerch.com/">https://www.flavortonemerch.com/</a>

Inaugurating the launch of their Patreon and merch projects, Alec and Nick discuss their ambitious “mise en place” for a new year of podcasts, guest appearances and exclusive publications. “Mise en place”—the french culinary term for "putting in place" or "gathering” an array of ingredients—serves as a way of framing these new Patron benefits. On the menu: The “Editorials & Opinions” sub-series, focusing on hot takes on the topical music issues of our times; The “Politics & Poetry” sub-series, focusing on kitchen sink discussions of current events and various subjects of human interest in music; and, the “Study Group” sub-series, focusing on close readings of classic musical texts & works. Patrons will also receive The Flavortone Review: monthly assembled PDF documents surveying the materials discussed in the episodes. Additional benefits include annual free merch gifts, supper club invitations & more. Bon appetite, arrivederci, and happy new year!
 https://www.patreon.com/flavortonepodcast
 https://www.flavortonemerch.com/

Alec & Nick Launch Patreon & Merch

Episode 20: Mise En Place [PATREON PREVIEW]

In preparation of cooking their own turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, Alec and Nick make a broad comparison of the venerable bird to the production of music albums and the heights and depths of American culture. Topics include tensions around suspicion and comfort, the trauma of American capitalist and familial ritual, obsessive indexing and preparation tactics, gratitude as radical subjectivity, and the carnal reveries of desiring-production. Referencing everything Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom" to Fernando Zalamea's "American—An Integral Weave: Transversality, Borders, and Abysses in 19th & 20th Century American Culture," the discussion ends up staging a culinary conversation that hybridizes wet and dry brine turkey cooking methods.  Opening mix: "The Splendid Table Theme Song" performed by Rachel Solomon (Piano), Chris Autry (Bass) & Brett Byars (Drums). Opening theme music: Xander Seren Closing music: "The Splendid Table Theme Song" performed by Rachel Solomon (Piano), Chris Autry (Bass) & Brett Byars (Drums).

In preparation of cooking their own turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, Alec and Nick make a broad comparison of the venerable bird to the production of music albums and the heights and depths of American culture. Topics include tensions around suspicion and comfort, the trauma of American capitalist and familial ritual, obsessive indexing and preparation tactics, gratitude as radical subjectivity, and the carnal reveries of desiring-production. Referencing everything Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom" to Fernando Zalamea's "American—An Integral Weave: Transversality, Borders, and Abysses in 19th & 20th Century American Culture," the discussion ends up staging a culinary conversation that hybridizes wet and dry brine turkey cooking methods. 
 Opening mix: "The Splendid Table Theme Song" performed by Rachel Solomon (Piano), Chris Autry (Bass) & Brett Byars (Drums).
 Opening theme music: Xander Seren
 Closing music: "The Splendid Table Theme Song" performed by Rachel Solomon (Piano), Chris Autry (Bass) & Brett Byars (Drums).

Taste, Transversality & Teleology of the American Turkey 

Episode 19: Let's Talk Turkey

Alec and Nick discuss a concept of the miniature in this one. Touching upon music from the onkyo, wandelweiser and microsound genres, the discussion approaches various methods of compositional and improvisatory reduction. Topics include Gaston Bachelard's "The Poetics of Space," Participatory vs. Presentational music, the Time-Image of Gilles Deleuze as well as Marvel's Ant Man.

Alec and Nick discuss a concept of the miniature in this one. Touching upon music from the onkyo, wandelweiser and microsound genres, the discussion approaches various methods of compositional and improvisatory reduction. Topics include Gaston Bachelard's "The Poetics of Space," Participatory vs. Presentational music, the Time-Image of Gilles Deleuze as well as Marvel's Ant Man.

Miniatures: onkyo, wandelweiser, microsound

Episode 18: Honey I Shrunk The Sounds

Alec and Nick inaugurate a BBQ Roast sub-series of the podcast, where a guest of honor is subjected to jokes and analysis at their expense. The series begins with a roast of British singer, songwriter, and producer James Blake as a relatively “neutral” starting point for these juicy, sizzling take downs. The conversation discusses the cringe-to-cool and UK Bass continuums, hauntology and paradoxes of post-modernity, personal expression and songwriting, adolescent listening experiences with spatialization, silence, and transparency + more.

Alec and Nick inaugurate a BBQ Roast sub-series of the podcast, where a guest of honor is subjected to jokes and analysis at their expense. The series begins with a roast of British singer, songwriter, and producer James Blake as a relatively “neutral” starting point for these juicy, sizzling take downs. The conversation discusses the cringe-to-cool and UK Bass continuums, hauntology and paradoxes of post-modernity, personal expression and songwriting, adolescent listening experiences with spatialization, silence, and transparency + more.

Alec and Nick inaugurate a BBQ Roast sub-series of the podcast, where a guest of honor is subjected to jokes and analysis at their expense. The series begins with a roast of British singer, songwriter, and producer James Blake as a relatively “neutral” starting point for these juicy, sizzling take downs. The conversation discusses the cringe-to-cool and UK Bass continuums, hauntology and paradoxes of post-modernity, personal expression and songwriting, adolescent listening experiences with spatialization, silence, and transparency + more.

The First In A Series of "BBQ" Roasts

Episode 17: The Roast of James Blake

Reprising the "flavor-phonic," "gastro-acoustic" discussion charted in Flavortone Episode 4: Tasting Menu 1 (Dégustation), Alec and Nick step into the kitchen once again in this second edition to the Tasting Menu series, as they articulate a concept of the Stinky.  Considering a range of malodorous musical and culinary selections, this episode takes up the olfactory sense as reference for how perceptions of the repugnant vs. the delicious are embodied in nuanced discourses on cultural value. Topics include: steamed broccoli, ranch dressing, fish as well as the dubstep producer Stenchman, the Pulitzer Prize winning music of composer Caroline Shaw and the media/music theory antics of the barefoot wünderkind, Jacob Collier. Opening mix: Caroline Shaw: Partita for Eight Singers, No. 1: Allemande, performed by Roomful of Teeth; Stenchman, 80Fitz. Opening theme music: Xander Seren Closing music: “Uh Oh Stinky but It’s a Soft Lofi Beat” by LLusion, EGG

Reprising the "flavor-phonic," "gastro-acoustic" discussion charted in Flavortone Episode 4: Tasting Menu 1 (Dégustation), Alec and Nick step into the kitchen once again in this second edition to the Tasting Menu series, as they articulate a concept of the Stinky.  Considering a range of malodorous musical and culinary selections, this episode takes up the olfactory sense as reference for how perceptions of the repugnant vs. the delicious are embodied in nuanced discourses on cultural value. Topics include: steamed broccoli, ranch dressing, fish as well as the dubstep producer Stenchman, the Pulitzer Prize winning music of composer Caroline Shaw and the media/music theory antics of the barefoot wünderkind, Jacob Collier.
 Opening mix: Caroline Shaw: Partita for Eight Singers, No. 1: Allemande, performed by Roomful of Teeth; Stenchman, 80Fitz.
 Opening theme music: Xander Seren
 Closing music: “Uh Oh Stinky but It’s a Soft Lofi Beat” by LLusion, EGG

A Gastro-acoustic, Audio-culinary, Flavor-phonic Approach to Music

Episode 16: Tasting Menu 2 (Stinky Edition)

Flavortone has produced a mini episode for Edition Erich Schmid on Montez Press Radio. Alec  & Nick articulate “The Fudd-Flynt Complex” which charts a Fuddsian analysis of the work of Henry Flynt as splicing the species war between Math & Language (Rabbit & Duck Season) into the world of Elmer Season—where Flynt’s ideas of “Meta-Technology,” “Concept Art,” “Veramusement,” “Brend,” and “Acognitive Culture” turn the hunt inward & beyond. The work was presented alongside other work by Benjamin Scott and Matt Voor.

Flavortone has produced a mini episode for Edition Erich Schmid on Montez Press Radio. Alec  & Nick articulate “The Fudd-Flynt Complex” which charts a Fuddsian analysis of the work of Henry Flynt as splicing the species war between Math & Language (Rabbit & Duck Season) into the world of Elmer Season—where Flynt’s ideas of “Meta-Technology,” “Concept Art,” “Veramusement,” “Brend,” and “Acognitive Culture” turn the hunt inward & beyond. The work was presented alongside other work by Benjamin Scott and Matt Voor.

Henry Flynt & Elmer Season

Episode 15: The Fudd-Flynt Complex for Editions Eric Schmid (Montez Press Radio)

Fresh from a visit to the Billie-Jean King National Tennis Center for the U.S. Open Grand Slam tournament, Alec & Nick consider a comparison between the sport of tennis and music. The episode charts out three conceptual spaces shared by sports and arts: the cultural production of iconic figures, an emphasis on the management of time, and political economies of Winning and Losing. Discussion of amateurism vs. professionalism, Jacques Attali's book, "Noise," and the Marvel cinematic universe all feature in this deliberation on constitutive elements in sport and music. Opening theme music: Xander Seren Closing music: John McEnroe with Patty Smyth & Scandal, "Rocking in the Free World," live at The Canyon Club Agoura 7/28/2018

Fresh from a visit to the Billie-Jean King National Tennis Center for the U.S. Open Grand Slam tournament, Alec & Nick consider a comparison between the sport of tennis and music. The episode charts out three conceptual spaces shared by sports and arts: the cultural production of iconic figures, an emphasis on the management of time, and political economies of Winning and Losing. Discussion of amateurism vs. professionalism, Jacques Attali's book, "Noise," and the Marvel cinematic universe all feature in this deliberation on constitutive elements in sport and music. Opening theme music: Xander Seren Closing music: John McEnroe with Patty Smyth & Scandal, "Rocking in the Free World," live at The Canyon Club Agoura 7/28/2018

Fresh from a visit to the Billie-Jean King National Tennis Center for the U.S. Open Grand Slam tournament, Alec & Nick consider a comparison between the sport of tennis and music. The episode charts out three conceptual spaces shared by sports and arts: the cultural production of iconic figures, an emphasis on the management of time, and political economies of Winning and Losing. Discussion of amateurism vs. professionalism, Jacques Attali's book, "Noise," and the Marvel cinematic universe all feature in this deliberation on constitutive elements in sport and music.
 Opening theme music: Xander Seren
 Closing music: John McEnroe with Patty Smyth & Scandal, "Rocking in the Free World," live at The Canyon Club Agoura 7/28/2018

Flavortone Podcast

Episode 58: The Art of the Beef

Episode 57: A Critique of Interpretive Dance

Episode 56: Angelheaded Shitposters

Episode 55: The Great Bar Italia Debate

Episode 54: The Lost Library of Flavorphonia

Episode 53: Tradition, The Future & Music, Please

Episode 52: Musician's Friend, Drum Edition

Episode 51: Cursed Be the One Who Be Listening to Music [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 50: Captain's Log, Transcendental [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 49: Foibles and The Meaning of Tossed Salad & Scrambled Eggs

Episode 48: Fratres In Flight

Episode 47: Thus Shook Zarathustra's Groove Thing (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 46: Could Not Music Be Excellent? (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 45: Acting As If I’m Pinocchio

Episode 44: The Roast of Hans Zimmer

Episode 43: Fear and Being Interested in Many Different Things (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 42: Phenomenology of Fantasy Football

Episode 41: Come On Feel the Avant-Garde (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 40: Remembrance of Things Craft

Episode 39: Charles Ives, Sunday Composer

Episode 38: Weesa In Big Doo Doo Summer (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 37: The Way of Houdini

Episode 36: Friedrich Nietzsche’s "The Case of Wagner" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 35: The Neo-Feudalist Captive Music Society

Episode 34: You Must Stay Drunk on Writing So Reality Cannot Destroy You (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 33: Sinatra At The Sands

Episode 32: Why This Experimental Music Festival? (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 31: Tarnished by the Tweet

Episode 30: Tomato Town Composer’s Workshop (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 29: A Bad Day of Fishing is Better Than a Good Day of Podcasting

Episode 28: Jacques Attali's "Noise" Part 2 - "Sacrificing" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 27: Flavor of Love

Episode 26: Down The Road, Where The Blacktop Ends (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 25: We Like The Art

Episode 24: Jacques Attali's "Noise" Part 1 - "Listening" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 23: Musician's Friend 2 (Father & Son Edition)

Episode 22: I Did Not Listen to That Music (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 21: The Cochlear Wind

Episode 20: Mise En Place [PATREON PREVIEW]

Episode 19: Let's Talk Turkey

Episode 18: Honey I Shrunk The Sounds

Episode 17: The Roast of James Blake

Episode 16: Tasting Menu 2 (Stinky Edition)

Episode 15: The Fudd-Flynt Complex for Editions Eric Schmid (Montez Press Radio)

Episode 14: Music Is Not Like Tennis

Episode 13: What Is An Experiment? feat. Ying Liu

Episode 12: A Tale of Two Computers

Episode 11: It's Not a Skill, It's a Curse feat. Theodore Cale Schafer

Episode 10: In Defense of Blighttown

Episode 9: Just When I Thought I Was Out ... They Pull Me Back In

Episode 8: Bloomin' Onion Brain

Episode 7: Slapping Narcissus

Episode 6: Musician's Friend 1 (Guitar)

Episode 5: A Theory of the Byoing Sound

Episode 4: Tasting Menu 1 (Dégustation)

Episode 3: Opus Dino

Episode 2: A Conservatory of Dunces

Episode 1: Yugiology of Music