Podcast
Unsung Podcast
Hosted by Unsung Podcast · EN
If there was a definitive discography of classic albums, what should be in it? Hosts Mark Fraser and Chris Cusack, plus the occasional guest, discuss and dissect perceived classic albums to decide which albums would make this list. We also interview amazing artists, do genre deep dives and throw a journalistic lens on musical topics you might not know much about.
26episodes
Episodes
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Are Cabaret Voltaire Britain's Most Pioneering Electronic Act? (Side A) with P6 from Stretchheads, Desalvo and OMO
2d ago00:57:10Tap to summarizeCabaret Voltaire are no one thing. Depending on which corner of the internet you found us from, you might know them as the caustic Sheffield noise act who preceded post-punk, the sinister electro-industrial outfit with a penchant for evangelical samples and anti-fascist agitprop, or the dancefloor-adjacent act who fetched up on Factory's Belgian satellite label and made something close to club music. You're all correct.This week, we have a guide. Phil Eaglesham — P6, former front person of Stretchheads and De Salvo, current singer in OMO, musical walking tour operator, man of broad and alarming musical learnings — is here to help us navigate one of the most complex and wilfully uncommercial bands to come out of the UK, via their transitional compilation Eight Crepuscule Tracks.We trace the band's origins in a Sheffield attic in 1973, chart their debts to dub, Black American music, and the sci-fi soundscapes that shaped a generation of working-class ears, and make the case that Cabaret Voltaire — despite their apparent difficulty — were one of the most industrious and fundamentally political bands of their era. We also get into their time at Western Works Studio, which functioned less like a recording facility and more like the gravitational centre of an entire Sheffield scene; their complicated relationship with Rough Trade; and their connections to Joy Division, Lydia Lunch, Clock DVA, and the bands that would become the Human League and ABC.Along the way, Phil brings original artefacts including a signed 1979 TG/Cab Vol/Rema Rema poster from Tottenham Court Road, and the original 12-inches the album is built from. We also ask what would have happened to Cabaret Voltaire without punk — and conclude they'd likely have ended up an academic footnote rather than a foundational text. Highlights: 00:00 Intro03:56 Meet Phil Eaglesham07:47 P6 — The Name and the Character09:29 Queer Identity in the Industrial Scene12:55 Pseudonyms and Rockism17:44 Cabaret Voltaire: The Basics22:32 Sheffield, Western Works, and the Scene25:18 Rough Trade, The Fall, and Being Prolific29:10 Working-Class Roots and Industrial Culture32:33 Sci-Fi Soundscapes and Electronic Prehistory35:11 Musique Concrète to Cab Vol: How Close Were They?36:13 Dadaism, Situationism, and Confrontational Art38:40 Punk's Effect on Audiences (Not Just Music)40:11 The Counterfactual: Cab Vol Without Punk41:43 Black Music, Funk, and the DNA Nobody Talks About43:39 New Wave, No Wave, and New York Connections46:29 Factory Records, Crépuscule, and the Belgian Connection47:49 Original Artefacts: Posters, 12-Inches, and History50:31 Why Eight Crepuscule Tracks?52:54 Looking Towards Next Week and Outro
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Did Hollywood Kill Jóhann Jóhannsson?
2w ago01:22:15Tap to summarizeWe don't often cover classical or neoclassical music, as it’s a wee bit out of our wheelhouse. But that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy it—often, our entry into that world is via film soundtracks. Jóhann Jóhannsson is a perfect example, having scored some of the most iconic films of the last 20 years.However, that’s only part of the story. Jóhannsson also released a series of acclaimed solo records; this week, we’re focusing almost exclusively on that solo output, while also providing an account of his life, his key cinematic works, and his tragic passing in 2018.We chart his path from early days in indie bands to the cross-genre think tank Kitchen Motors, and his meteoric rise as a composer for films like Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival, and The Theory of Everything (for which he won a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination). From there, we take a closer look at his solo discography, including IBM 1401: A User’s Manual (built from his father’s vintage computer recordings), Fordlandia, and the short-film soundtrack And in the Endless Pause There Came the Sound of Bees, as well as posthumous releases like Gold Dust.We cap things off with a discussion regarding his death and the question of whether the pressures of Hollywood played a role in his demise, before focusing exclusively on his 2016 masterpiece, Orphée.00:00 Intro03:56 Meet Jóhann Jóhannsson07:47 Early Life And Indie Bands09:29 Labels And Influences12:55 Chris' Hildur Guðnadóttir Facebook Scam Story17:44 Solo Albums Breakdown22:32 IBM 1401 Masterpiece25:18 Fordlandia And Later Works29:10 Film Breakthrough And Awards32:33 Blade Runner Score Rejected35:11 Blade Runner Score Shakeup36:13 Zimmer Versus Vangelis38:40 Jóhann Interview Clues40:11 Who Made The Call41:43 mother! And The Scrapped Soundtrack43:39 Experimental Sound Design46:29 Final Projects And Legacy47:49 Last And First Men50:31 Posthumous Releases52:54 Death And Tributes55:39 Did Hollywood Kill Him58:48 Orphée Album Deep Dive01:08:32 Why His Music Matters
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Rock and Roll Killing Machine by Drowningman
Apr 2001:18:39Tap to summarizeThis week, we're talking about two things we think are quite interesting. First off, we chat about the early mathcore/metalcore band Drowningman and reflect on why they never quite reached the heights of their peers, such as Converge and The Dillinger Escape Plan—bands they often found themselves touring with in the late 90s and early 00s.While that story is compelling in itself, Drowningman can also count themselves among the artists who tried to sabotage a contractual obligation to a record label. As the story goes, they hit the studio with Kurt Ballou (Converge, God City Studios) to record a very weird album, tentatively titled Best Album Ever. The record was never officially released; it was allegedly created with the sole intention of being purposefully bad in order to satisfy, and terminate, their two-album contract with Revelation Records. In the end it never saw the light of day.This got us thinking about other artists who have tried to escape their contractual obligations. We use this lens to take a wee sojourn into the annals of music history, unearthing stories of several big-name artists who tried, and sometimes succeeded, in doing something similar.We hope you enjoy! Highlights:00:00 Intro01:27 Skipping the Discourse01:56 Viral Bands Debate02:59 Patreon Pitch05:37 Awkward Party Exits06:17 Meet Drowningman08:19 Origins and Scene12:00 Early Releases Breakdown16:07 Rock and Roll Killing Machine Era21:07 Later Records and Fadeout24:47 Did They Deserve Bigger27:05 Contractual Obligation Albums35:38 Ozzy Contract Loophole36:25 Speak of the Devil Drama38:05 Ozzy Album Aftermath38:57 Neil Young vs Geffen39:49 Beach Boys Owed Album40:55 More Contract Escapes42:40 Sisters of Mercy SSV45:46 More Obligation Oddities47:43 Rolling Stones Provocation50:31 Zappa Lather Bootleg51:25 Prince vs Warner Saga57:42 Drowning Man Review59:32 Track Highlights Breakdown01:02:56 Final Verdict and Wrap01:06:21 Outro and Thanks
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FROM THE VAULT: Corollaries by Lubomyr Melnyk
Apr 1301:34:36Tap to summarizeThis week's episode is another FROM THE VAULT as we travel back to one of our (sadly) many episodes that were recorded during the pandemic. This one is actually a condensing of two episodes on the weird/genius/odd/interesting music, and personality, of pianist Lubomyr Melnyk. Enjoy!Chris has been chomping at the bit to do this Lubomyr Melnyk album for a while. In fact, some may even remember that he brought it up during our Pandemic Mixtape. Well, the time has come to finally tackle this post-classical/minimalist work and in doing so we absolutely had to cover his…interesting thoughts on musical philosophy. Which cascades into his questionable thoughts on the actual science of how sound works. Which takes us down a big old rabbit hole, as I’m sure you can imagine.All of this to say that it takes us a while to get to the album as a result. Also, the dude’s done like 20+ albums (although we don’t cover all of them) so that’s another whole thing we had to deal with.We also talk about continuous music (the genre he reckons he’s in…of which he is the only practitioner), his incredible piano playing speed and a bunch more things.Our voyage into continuous music comes to a close as we dig into Lubomyr Melnyk’s eighteenth (!) album Corollaries. For the unfamiliar, Melnyk categorises his style as being something almost beyond classical music, yet this release sees him team up with neoclassical composers Nils Frahm and Peter Broderick. This album seemed to give Melnyk a new lease of life; upon getting together with Frahm and Broderick he stated “Where were you in my thirties?”, a statement that stands in stark contrast to his general aversion to playing with other musicians in the years before.There’s a lot to be said about Melnyk’s playing, and I think we cover most of that in the episode. Once again, potato quality audio from Mark but hey, it isn’t terrible.
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FROM THE VAULT: Never Better by P.O.S
Apr 601:01:28Tap to summarizeTHIS WEEK ON FROM THE VAULT we revisit episode 25 and our dive into Never Better by P.O.S. It's a great example of what this podcast does best, and we hope you dig this episode if you haven't heard it before. In the intro Mark talks a little about what's happened to P.O.S since too, specifically around the allegations made against him in 2020, his apology, and where he is now. Original shownotes follow:Folks, we did it. We managed to find a hip hop record that Chris Cusack enjoyed. We're fairly sure that this is one of the signs of the apocalypse so we're probably just going to end the podcast here. Thanks to everyone who listened.Joking aside though, this is a screamer of an album. People have been drawing comparisons between punk and hip hop since...well, forever. The line between the two is drawn pretty clearly on this album. P.O.S himself was a punk kid, but growing up in the cultural and musical melting pot that is Minneapolis meant that there was a great deal of other influential music lurking just around the corner. Indeed, the diversity of the artists that come from the city is telling of the city's cultural and creative landscape. And did we mention that it was the home of Prince, perhaps one of the masters of genre-hopping?This is P.O.S third album, and like every album before or since, it's a singular musical, tonal entity in his oeuvre. He's artist that never wants to cover the same ground twice, and whilst we all couldn't necessarily agree on if each of his records are successful at melding together as many disparate influences as this one, we all certainly agreed that this is his best work. And we all agreed that this should indeed make it into our discography of unsung classics.
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The Band That Made One Album About the End of the World (Then Disappeared)
Mar 3101:13:57Tap to summarizeYou may be shocked to hear that Lift to Experience made one album. One. A ninety-minute double CD concept record about the apocalypse, set entirely in Texas, written by three boys from Pentecostal and Baptist backgrounds who genuinely believed they had something to say to God. And then, more or less, they vanished.In this episode we cover the Texas Jerusalem Crossroads in full — the vision behind it, the religious fervour that powered it, and the question of whether you need to share any of that fervour to find the record genuinely moving. We'd argue you don't, and the band themselves seemed fairly relaxed about that.We also get into the wider story, which turns out to be just as compelling as the music. The album that couldn't be bought in its home country for years. The label that mixed it without the band present and broke their hearts. The tour that never happened. The beard competition. The sandwich grill.Along the way we ask a question that feels increasingly relevant right now — what does it actually mean when Americans start singing about Texas as the site of the final battle between good and evil? In 2001 it seemed like a grand artistic conceit. In 2025 it feels a little different.Is the Texas Jerusalem Crossroads the unsung post rock record with actual things to say? We think so. But it's a ninety-minute album, so you've got time to make up your own mind.Highlights:00:00 Intro and Whether We’re Actually Living in the End Times03:11 Album Introduction04:46 Millennium Anxiety09:17 Band Origins11:19 Sound and Influences12:22 Post Rock With Vocals?!17:33 Name and Release19:48 Religion and Meaning25:46 Art Versus Belief29:46 Lyrics and Apocalypse32:00 Track Highlights33:51 Shoegaze Favourite Track34:50 Dynamics of Cloud Nine36:27 Maximalist Texas Vibes37:03 Album Art Joke Explained38:56 Religion and Tech Rants40:53 UK Success US Absence44:22 Recording Struggles and SXSW Myth49:19 Bad Mix and Band Fallout53:17 Aftermath and Cult Legacy56:02 Reunion and 2017 Reissue59:41 Remix Reviews and Changes01:02:42 Apocalypse Talk and Final Thoughts01:07:45 Outro
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FROM THE VAULT: Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Mar 2301:30:48Tap to summarizeThis week we're throwing back to June 2018, when this pod was only six months old. Things were simpler - the research was less onerous, episodes were shorter (this would easily be a two parter these days), Dave was still part of the crew and the world wasn't ending...Godspeed You! Black Emperor don't really do brevity. They do epic, sweeping, often joyous, always elaborate, suites of music that are designed to move you. They're thorough, crafting songs with painstaking attention to detail.In keeping with the spirit of the band, we thought we'd do the same, so we present to your our longest episode yet. But trust us when we say that it's probably up there with our most interesting listens.We dive deep into the band's back catalogue, stopping along the way to talk about the politics of the band and yes, we do offer a take on some thorny subjects. With this band it's something that can often be inseparable from the way their music, and image, is presented, so it had to happen.The Foo Fighters Nexus also returns (jingle pending) and Chris has a full on GY!BE superfan nerdgasm, while Weaver whacks his politics degree on the table and Mark takes issue with the label "post-rock".This is a fun and captivating listen.We understand that the title of "best Godspeed album" is a contentious one, so we're intrigued to see if people agree with our decision to include this in our canon Unsung classics.
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When Artists Aren't What They Seem - Ghost Bath Musical Catfishing and Hoax Bands - 380
Mar 1601:08:02Tap to summarizeYou may be shocked to hear that musicians sometimes lie about who they are. Some may say this is not shocking at all - it's almost a tradition. But there's a meaningful difference between Ziggy Stardust and a band from North Dakota claiming to be a Chinese black metal act to game the press.In this episode we try to map that difference. We spend a healthy portion of time on what we're not talking about - aliases, concept bands, anonymity for anonymity's sake - before getting into the genuinely murky territory of bands that have used fabricated identities for commercial advantage. We cover the fake Zombies that toured America simultaneously in 1969, The Masked Marauders and the elaborate Rolling Stone prank that accidentally became a real album, Silibil n Brains, Dundee rappers who got signed to Island Records on the strength of their American accents, before discussing Ghost Bath, the project that brought this whole phenomenon into focus for us.Along the way we also get into AI-generated music, Milli Vanilli (and why what they did is arguably less dishonest than what plenty of current pop stars do routinely, and a genuinely unresolved case involving a supposedly Iraqi black metal band that may or may not have put its members in real danger.The question running through all of it: does context change how we hear music? And if it does — what does that say about us?Highlights:00:00 Introduction01:24 Catfish and Hoax Bands Explained02:11 Patreon05:10 Famous Death Hoaxes05:42 Mystique Versus Scams09:02 Not Aliases or Roleplay10:43 Anonymity and Masks13:23 Fake Touring Lineups19:03 Concept Bands and Bits24:28 AI Bands and Deception27:54 Outright Music Scams30:13 Milli Vanilli Then and Now30:53 Pop Star Fraud Culture33:39 Mask Marauders Hoax35:20 Orion Elvis Impostor38:50 Platinum Weird Backstory40:25 Syllable American Rap Ruse43:38 Jana Mystery Metal Band46:06 Velvet Cocoon Troll Scam48:36 Ghost Bath Identity Debate54:40 Context and Cultural Relativism58:10 Ghost Bath Fallout and Ethics01:02:53 Outro
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FROM THE VAULT: ПАСХА (Paskha) by Shortparis w/ Rebecca Yurivna
Mar 1002:01:30Tap to summarizeWELCOME BACK TO FROM THE VAULT. That's right, on our off weeks we'll be pulling an episode from our extensive vault that we love and we think is somewhat relevant to goings on in the modern era.And our latest episode is about Pashka by Shortparis. An episode which has been through into sharp relevance by the recent death of singer Nikolai Komyagin, who passed away in mysterious circumstances on Feb 20th 2026.We hope you enjoy.This week we’re joined by American artist and academic Rebecca Yurivna to talk about the Russian band Shortparis.Shortparis is a Russian experimental rock band hailing from the city of St. Petersburg. The band was formed in 2012 and musically, the band are quite difficult to catagorise. They take in elements of post-punk, electronic, and avant-garde music with traditional Russian folk melodies and lyrics. Their sound is quite unique, and is characterized by intense vocals, complex instrumentation, and a theatrical stage presence.More recent albums are almost exclusively sung in Russian, with the occasional lapse into English and French peppered throughout their career.Chris is fairly new to this band, as are Mark and Rebecca, so it was fun to get under their skin. We also chat about their political stance, which until the recent Russo-Ukrainian war, was somewhat ambiguous in their music. This often contrasts with their videos, which are more overt in their pro-LGBT+, almost anti-Russian stance. Indeed, they’ve become quite outspoken critics of Russia snice the war.In this episode we go through all of their records whilst also touching on the political situation in Russia today, and take a quick look at some other protest music that has cropped up in Russia since the war.Check out Rebecca’s music here, and give her a wee follow on Instagram here. It was great to have her on the show. Hopefully we can link up again soon!Let us know what you think of Shortparis on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
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Is Insomniac by Green Day an Unsung Classic? (Side B) w/ Rick Bruce from Coffin Mulch/Moondshine Docs - 379
Mar 201:59:45Tap to summarizeYou may be shocked to hear that Green Day have a lot of songs. Some may say, in fact, that they have too MANY songs, because there does come a point where they all just blend into on another. In this episode we explore this phenomenon, and it is exclusively (in our view) an issue that plagues the latter half of their career. We cover everything from American Idiot to Saviors, and whilst not all of these albums are afflicted in such a way, it definitely seems to become more prevalent as we more closer to the present era. We also ask a crucial question - is Green Day punk? The answer is probably not quite what you expect, but we do debate the finer points. Suggesting that perhaps they could be Schrodinger's punx... All this leads us to trying to answer the real question - is Insomniac Green Day's unsung classic? Let's find out. Highlights: 00:00 Intro 01:53 Car Album Debate 05:07 Legacy Act Question 09:31 Setting Up American Idiot 10:24 American Idiot Phenomenon 14:22 Stadium Band Status 23:08 Broadway And 21st Century 31:15 Uno, Dos, Tre And Rehab 35:38 Revolution Radio To Father Of All 37:38 Father of All Reappraisal 39:03 Critics vs Short Runtime 39:49 Side Projects and Salty Pretzel 43:18 2020 Output and Pandemic Era 44:18 Saviors and Derivative Sounds 48:42 Compression and Phone Listening 52:49 Is Green Day Punk? 01:00:28 Defining Punk and Yardsticks 01:19:59 Insomniac Context and Backlash 01:21:21 Critics and Rawness 01:22:22 Sales and Fan Backlash 01:24:01 Honest Bridge Album 01:26:28 Opening Tracks and Tone 01:30:29 Singles and Track Picks 01:32:56 Production and Gear Talk 01:39:54 Songwriting and Label Control 01:53:48 Closing Tracks and Verdict 01:59:22 Wrap Up and Goodbyes
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