No Filler Music Podcast - An Uneven Wilderness: Unwound's Repetition

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

We're back from vacation with a short and sweet episode on the post-hardcore noise rock stylings of Unwound, a band that created, as Fred Thomas of AllMusic once said, "some of the more influential and lasting work of their era, with their cloudy moods and explosively tense group dynamics culminating in some truly transcendent albums." On this episode, we're diving into our favorite album from the group, 1996's Repetition. Tracklist: Message Received Corpse Pose Unauthorized Autobiography Devoid This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes. because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Welcome to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Quentin, with me as old. always is my brother Travis.

And as you can tell from that mess up of the intro there, it's been a while since we've done this, dude. Yeah, we're a little bit rusty right now, dude. We're a little rusty. So, yeah, if you caught our last two rewind episodes, we mentioned that we were both on vacation of some sort. Quentin was down here in Dallas for his baby shower because he's got their first human on the way in what August?

August 14th is the due date. August 14th. And then I was on vacation last week on the beach in Alabama. That's the last place. When I think of a beach, I don't think of Alabama. I know. But I've seen pictures. Yeah, they've got these great beaches.

And my wife's family has been going there since she was a kid. And like it's just slowly like the secrets, you know, no longer being kept. Like, you know, more and more people know about this spot, right? So, like, this year more so than ever, I've seen, I saw so many new condos under construction and stuff. That's a shame. It's not going to be this nice secluded little secret spot anymore pretty soon. But, and this is, this might be part of it.

And this is actually kind of cool and relevant to a music podcast. There's this festival that happens at Gulf Shores. It's actually happening right now called the Hank. out festival. And it's a three-day show. It started Friday. So we were there as the crowd started to descend on this little beach town. Nice. And yeah, Friday night headliner was Post Malone. Fallout Boy was playing Tame and Pollitt plays tonight, which I thought was kind of cool. Sweet. Phoebe Bridgers was one of the artists here. So it's, yeah, Leon Bridges was there. Had a bunch of artists that I had never heard of before. But those were some of the bigger names.

But anyway, that's probably part of it because, like, it's, you know, a lot of people show up for those types of things, right? Well, that kind of sucks, dude, for, you know, a spot that Kara's been going to with her family since they were kids. Right. Say goodbye to that spot, dude. But it's still, it was still, it was still fine. We enjoyed it. You know, it wasn't unbearable, the crowds and stuff like that. But, yeah.

Anyway, we're back. So, thank you for being patient with us. And hopefully you enjoyed some rewind episodes that we threw at you. We did our obscure shoegays episode and Jimmy World's Clarity. I thought those were both pretty great episodes. And the clarity one went pretty far back, dude. That was an oldie. It is.

And it also went pretty far back with some of the emo stuff that we played. We kind of used that episode as a way to like very, very briefly touch on like the history of email music that led up to Jimmy Yearworld. Right. So yeah, that was a good episode. Anyway, this is going to be a short episode, but we wanted to at least get something out there since it's been a couple of weeks since we had some new content for you. So as promised, we're going to talk about a band called Unwound today. And we have shared a track of theirs once upon a time, long time ago for, you know, back when we did what you heard at the end of every episode. I brought a track that we're going to be playing today because it's such an amazing track.

off of this record that they put out called repetition. It came out in 1996. Compared to some of the other artists that we've touched on over the last month and a half or so, you know, these guys are post-hardcore is what they're classified as. Noise rock, experimental rock, art punk, which is a term I haven't really heard before, but I can see how that applies to these guys. But yeah, there's something really, this record in particular, there's something different about it compared to some of the other stuff.

like hum or helmet, you know, the more, you know, heavier-leaning kind of alt rock bands that we've touched on. These guys, there's something very, it's his voice and the really angular guitars that kind of make me think of a band like Gang of Four. You remember them, Kew? Yes, I think so. We talked about them at some point. We may have done an episode, like a sidetrack episode on Gang of Four, but that was mentioned as a influence on Brett Daniel of Spoon. He had mentioned Gang of Four. But yeah, this is 1996, you know, so this is after, after Grange had happened, or at least the Grunge, like the explosion of Grunge had kind of ceased at this point, right? And yeah, honestly, we didn't put any notes together

for this. We're just going to wing it. This is going to be a quick and dirty episode. We're just here for the tunes right now. We're here for the tunes. And I want to, before we get into these tunes. The song that we introed in with was track one message received. And I don't know if that little intro was a good representation of what you're going to hear on this album. You did hear his screaming vocals a little bit at the end. That's kind of representative of a little bit of what they do. But he's a very monotone singer. We're going to hear that. Like monotone, sort of like, what's the name of the guy, dude? Joy Division singer, John of Blank on his name. Ian Curtis, there you go.

Kind of Ian Curtis-esque, you know, vocals, very, very monotone. Yeah. But then he'll scream, which is kind of what makes them more of that post-hardcore punk. You know, that's where those labels get tossed on them. Yeah, and then that art punk, I think, I think of television, you know, and what they were doing with Marky Moon and stuff. I think that's what makes these guys so different. Yeah, I think that, yeah, all of those things. kind of play into the unwound sound.

Yeah, angular guitar, really interesting stuff. Let's take a quick break. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. So, Trave, I actually have used BetterHelp in the past, and it was a really, really great experience. I loved my therapist. He gave me a lot of great tools that I still use to this day. You know, without a healthy mind, being truly happy and at peace is hard.

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Thanks again to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode. So let's dive into it. Yeah. So they are based out of Tumwater and Olympia. So Olympia is the capital of Washington. Right around the corner from you. They're neighbors, dude. And this album, again, it's called Repetition, came out in 96,

was recorded in this studio called John and Stu's Place in Seattle. I looked into it. It is now called Reciprocal Recording. It was a studio in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. So I'm very familiar with this area. It was active from 84 to 91. The former studio is actually still up the building. and I recognize this building, dude. I've walked past this place.

Oh, really? Yeah. But it's not being used as a recording space anymore. I'm not sure, honestly. I mean, that looks dope. Yeah, it's a tiny little space. But yeah, that's pretty cool. So these guys are representing Washington.

We've covered Monis Mouse as well, who are from Issaquah. Of course, lots of great music coming out of Washington State, Pacific Northwest, all that fun stuff. So yeah, it says here the word repetition was chosen as the album's title because, according to singer and guitarist Justin Trosper, I like that word. That's all it says. That's all I said. It sort of describes a lot of things. People have said that our music is repetitious.

So I thought it would be funny if we called our record that. Plus, it's our fifth record, so we're like repeating things over and over. So, yeah, I think repetition is something that pops up a lot in art rock and shoe gaze, especially, maybe noise rock as well. building with repetition in an impactful way. Even if it's just subtle changes along the way, that's the kind of stuff that I like. There's a lot of that on this record. Yeah.

And I think the best way to really showcase that is just to play this first song here, Q. Let's do it. So this is the most popular truck on the record, according to Spotify's play counts. But it is worth mentioning there are no singles on this record. So, you know, it's all fair game. So this song is, yeah, I can hear their repetition in the song when I think about it.

But, yeah, repetition has never been a bad thing to me. We talk about how we love repetition in like down-typo songs and stuff, Q. Not that this is anywhere near that, but I'm just saying when done right, repetition is not a bad thing, right? But anyway, let's play this first track here. This song is called Corpse Pose. There's that repetition, man. Yeah. just saying corpse pose over and over again for the chorus right i love it when it's done right man

like you said it's just so impactful so the lyrics on the song are pretty interesting it's a very like nihilistic song like you know life is meaningless like there's no point in believing in anything just go ahead and just get into the corpse pose you know we're dead already we're basically saying like sleeping is believing breathing is deceiving watch your heart let it bleed don't have faith in anything and then corpse pose corpse pose right uh but yeah the part at the end that we just heard where he starts to scream a little bit is like this interesting contradiction of a statement he says don't believe it if you see it got to see it to believe it's like you know people say like you know i'll believe it when i see it he's saying don't believe it if you see it

picks or it didn't happen man yeah picks or it didn't happen but he's saying he's saying both to you know, don't believe it if you see it, but you got to see it to believe it. But both of those, they cancel each other out, you know. Dude, I wonder if he foresaw deepfix, deep fake videos. Dick pics? Deep, deep fake. Oh, deep fake. I mean, I'm sure dick pics were happening in some form or another back in the 90s, but

totally right. They did the two-hour photo, got those dick pics and just mailed them. I have no frame of reference in my mind as far as like when, like when did MySpace take off? It wasn't around until the 2000s, right? When everybody had a MISPace? Yeah, 2003. Here it is. Okay.

Yeah. So we're well off from social media as we know it today. But yeah, he's basically just saying there's no point in anything. There's no, don't have faith in anything, you know, just embrace your death. classic like, you know, lyrics for this kind of music, you know. Doing the cockroach, right? What was that? Doing the cockroach.

Is that that that modest mouse, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We're all just doing the cockroach. Yeah. That was a song about like, um, just urban decay, urban repetition. Yeah. So yeah, there you go.

That's a really good representation of this, of this record. the type of music that they're making on this record. Corpse pose is a good, a good way to start. But this next song is the heymaker, dude. This is the one that knocks you out. Well, let me just say, dude, and I think the post-hardcore, maybe garage rock as well, genre, is the ones that kind of perfected the monotone voice. Yeah.

But I love it, man. Yeah, that, dude, this is why I love Interpol. so much, at least their first record turn of the bright lights. And it's one of those things where you either love it or you hate it, the monotone voice, right? And to some extent, Julian Costa Blancons had a very monotone voice. Parquet courts. Yeah, if you want to name a more modern band, yeah. A more modern. And I hear a little Lou Reed, you know, Velvet Underground a little bit. You know what I hear? This is just a sort of a sidetrack. But when he screams, I feel like I don't remember his name, but the lead singer of Phantom Planet

sort of sounds like that. Yeah. When he screams. Totally. Maybe he was influenced. And by the way, that's one of my favorite episodes. I think we, yeah, we put that on our top five. Yeah.

That's one of my favorite episodes. What was the record that we talked about? It was self-title. We talked about their self-title. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of reintroducing themselves to the world. That was a good episode.

That was one of those garage rock, but like, you know, pushing the envelope of garage Rock a little bit. Maybe I could check that episode out. That was our Fan of Planet episode. Couldn't tell you when it came out.

It was a couple years ago, probably. They're the ones that wrote that song, California, that was made popular by the O.C. The O.C. TV show. But the album that recovered

is far from California. They completely changed their sound. Anyways. So, yeah, Trev, the Beas Knees is coming up. Yeah, like I said earlier, this next song, this is the one that knocks you out.

This is the haymaker. So we got to let it play out all the way through. Does Haymaker mean that it produces the goods? Apparently the Haymaker is like this punch. It's a punch in boxing. Powerful punch. Okay. So that's what I'm saying.

This next track, dude. Gotcha. Packs it. And this is the song that I played as a what you heard years ago. So if you're a longtime listener, you might remember this. But it's such a damn good track, dude. and repetition used in the best way possible. Yeah, it's really hard to describe how amazing this song is

and how they do it right without listening to it first. So here we go. This is the very next track on the record. This song is called Unauthorized Autobiography. Yeah, the guitar is so effective the way that it just kind of like cuts through, you know. I don't know if they leaned into the repetition. Probably not because if that was a, if that was, how their music was described in the past,

and that's just probably part of how they write music. But the way that the guitar part repeated itself for a couple more measures, maybe, is the right word, to use during that second chorus to me. Dude, we'll get the terminology, right, one of these days. Yeah, eventually. What am I going to do? Learn about music theory and stuff?

I got time for that. Well, dude, the word repetition is in the song. Yeah, bored with my life repetition. But yeah, the guitar part, man, that's what gets me. And that's that angular guitar that Interpol very much embraced. And television as well. Yeah, and television. I like how he starts this because, you know, this song is a journal entry.

Yeah. It's number 20. Journal entry number 20. Getting older, feeling meaner. Just coasting through life. It's all bullshit. By the time you hit to, you know, your 30s, like we are, you know, you've got your career established, at least most of us do.

Speak for yourself, brother. I know, I know. But you'll see. About to start mine. You'll see. It does get very monotonous, you know, grins repeat. Well, speaking of the, you know, leaning into the repetition thing, is a quote here from Megan McCarthy, not the one that you're probably thinking of off the top of your head.

Of CMJ New Music Monthly, she wrote that the album features a sound that is polished and paste, tethering its base-driven ferocity to tingling melodies. And then it says here, but also admitted that some songs such as fingernails on a chalkboard, I don't believe we're going to play that one. No, we're not. Songs such as fingernails on a shockboard are too repetitious. So maybe they did lean into it, dude. Have you listened to any of their other albums?

Yeah, I listened to some stuff. Yeah, it's similar. You know, this is just kind of, and this is why they seem to have leaned into it. embraced the repetition, uh, critique, I guess, because it's just how their music is. And it's not a bad thing. But I've listened to some stuff of the very next record challenge for a civilized society. Well, what about stuff before repetition? Because that's where you get your answer, dude. Have they always been repetitious? Yeah, they have. Okay. But I don't think I would have ever noticed it because I don't mind. Yeah. And because they do it so well. Yeah. So as we mentioned,

this is going to be a short and sweet episode. So we got one more track for you. But I keep hearing more and more, dude. I have to think that, let me give his name so we can see it. But it seems like the fan and planet singer may have been influenced by this guy because the similarities are pretty Alex Greenwald. The vocal style is pretty freaking similar, man, to the point of like, I don't know. I can't not.

I can't unhear it. Yeah, especially on the, again, like the music that Phantom Planet did for their self-titled. Alex Riemwald has a very, like his voice is pretty melodic and stuff. Like, he can be. But I think in that self-title, they sort of embraced the, yeah, this more monotone sound almost. All right, well, let's jump down here to a little bit later in the record. To close us out here, can you tell that we didn't do any research for this episode? and we're just kind of winging it.

We'll call this a sidetrack, and that's for the OG listeners. A little wink and nut. All right, what are we playing, dude? All right, well, this song is called De Void. They're influenced, dude. I mean, I'm curious to know how many bands found, unwound, found of this album, and we're influenced by it because you can hear it. Yeah, you really can't.

Throughout their early 2000s through the 2010s, even today, man. Yeah. there's just kind of a peak of what was coming, you know. Yeah, dude, I was just hearing some Balkans too, dude. Frankie Broils and his voice straight up, dude. And Balkans, again, is one of our favorite bands that we discovered when we were running New Dust, our music plug, just a fast-paced and fun punk rock band from the 2010s. So if you like this vocal style, check out our episode on Phantom Planet Self-Titled

record. And we've done an episode on Balkans too, but that was probably a long time ago. But anyway, a lot of times we talk about bands that we know. And most often, bands that we know, we've made an episode out of it. So, you know, go back through our catalog and you'll probably find episodes on a lot of this stuff. But anyway, so yeah, I'm always fascinated. Like, this is what I I love sort of tying the tying things together, you know, the thread that goes through all of this stuff. And with this album and other albums that came out in the 90s that, yeah, seemed like they sort of had their foot in most, you know, coming around the corner of the 2000s. It's always fascinated me, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because you got to, you got to think of the timing, man. You know, like before, before the bands that we grew up loving in the early 2000s, 20s. 20-tins formed bands when they, you know, were first picking up their instruments and messing around. What were they listening to? Yeah. All right. That is a very quick peek at Onwild. Let me wrap it up with, you know, tie a little bow on it, dude. With this quote from Kerry Brownstein, who, of course, is one half of Slater Kinney, who was also formed in Olympia in

94. So they were probably in the same circles. You know, I'm sure she knows the dudes from So she wrote an article for NPR saying that Unwound's influence and successors far outshine its own story, which is a shame because Unwound synthesized all that was exciting about Olympia and music in the Pacific Northwest. It's music dark and often experimental. It had pop riffs that grew out of murkiness only to disappear again. Its songs gave you glimmers of light but never flooded you with sun. There was angst but not brutality. It possessed an uneven wilderness, which is all you'd ever want from music.

Something unexpected emerging from what we already know. I mean, what better way to describe it? Dude, I like that last line. Yeah. Something unexpected emerging from what we already know. Yeah, totally. It's good. All right.

Well, we're going to wrap this episode up next week. I think it's time for what you heard episode to close out May. So I got to get my stuff together here, Q. But you're ducks in a row, man. Yeah. But I should be able to narrow down my list, my working list of what you heard's for this month. So I got a few lined up. So anyway, that'll be next week.

And then I don't know if we have any plans after that. We've talked about some stuff here and there. Well, I say we cover that bands that Marita Ryan, turned us on to one of our listeners said hey you guys should check out swerve driver um you kind of in the same vein of the alt rock somewhat shoegays somewhat grunggy stuff that we've been covering lately uh so yeah let's let's do that dude so that'll that'll be how we kick off june also dude you know what i was just thinking about about my AKG microphone mm-hmm what you've been thinking about so i've got the the AKG podcaster essentials kit you know how we were

awkwardly sharing your microphone while I was down to record those little intros for our rewind episodes. I do remember that, yeah. Dude. I mean, I thought it sounded okay, but, you know, it wasn't, it sounds great, you know. So I got a shitty microphone. That's what you're saying. What you're trying to say? Well, no, but.

I don't have an AKG, Q. You don't have an AKG. And this podcaster essentials kit comes with the Lyra, the AKG Lyra microphone. And it captures front and back, dude. And the way it rotates, like, we could have had it set up to where both of us had our own microphone. Did you know that, Chav? It looks like I just blew your mind. This microphone is designed for a guest.

Yeah, you can have guests. Yeah, that's going to be good for people who want to record a podcast in the same room with somebody else. Like, that'll be a good way to cut down into your costs because you don't have to get a second microphone. You just sit right across from each other. And the Lyra microphone is designed to do that. Both voices are going to be coming in as buttery smooth as mine is, dude. And, you know, I've been flying a lot the last couple of weeks. The way into Dallas, we ended up having to take four flights because one of our flights got canceled anyways, dude.

Between all the flights, it was probably like nine, ten hours total with these headphones on. My ears didn't hurt at all, man. It's ridiculous. That is really impressive to me because, you know, I wear my headphones quite a bit. And these are decent headphones. what I'm wearing. Yeah. But I bet they're hurting right now, aren't they?

Not yet, but dude. But if we were on this call for another hour or two, I would start to experience some ear pain. And so, yeah, that's a pretty big endorsement of the AKG quality. Because if your headphones aren't comfortable, like, that's a big, that's kind of a deal breaker. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And the podcast are Essentials kit.

So it comes with the Lyra microphone, the K. A371 headphones, and then it comes with the light version of Ableton Live, which is the audio production software that I use to piece together this show. And it comes with a Berkeley online introductory recording course. It really is everything you need. If you want to get started on doing your own podcast, get the AKG podcaster Essentials Kid. It really is a no-brainer. All right, key, before we wrap things up, we got at least one shout out to give, because this was pretty freaking awesome and it made our day to see this. Shout out to Chris Zappa. He reached out to us on Instagram and said, hey guys, big fan of your show. I just wanted to let you know that I included

your podcasts in a piece I just published titled The Best Podcasts for Serious Music Lovers. Like you said to MQ, blushing. We're blushing over here. Yeah, dude, I could feel the blood rushing to my face. Yeah, and he, you know, on this list are some shows that, you know, you and I would consider, like, the best of the best, like music podcasts. Crim de la Crem, dude, for music podcasts. Yeah, like song exploters on here. Quest Love's podcast is on here. Yeah. But anyway, so to be included on that list, it's a big, big deal, and we really appreciate that, and it's an honor to be included.

Dude, all songs considered is on here. One more do you need to say. Anyway, so thank you, Chris, for including us. on that list. That's a big honor and we really appreciate it. You can find it on medium. Medium.com. So yeah, find Chris Zappet there and follow him. He writes about music basically. So why wouldn't you want to follow him and what he does? He's a music writer. So yeah, thanks, thanks Chris for that. We really appreciate that. And that is that for this week. And next week, we will be coming at here with our What You Heard from May. And you can also find us on Instagram,

which is where, hey, thank you those of you who have reached out to us, because we've been asking about that and sort of like, you know, encouraging our listeners to reach out to us. I would say begging. Begging. At some point, we were both, you know, on our hands and knees begging. And it seems like it's finally worked. We've heard from a lot of you recently, and it's great. Keep it up. We just had somebody send us some recommendations for some shoegay stuff. So we'll be circling around to that. Like we said, after our Watcherard episode, we're going to devote an entire episode to a band recommended to us by one of our listeners.

So we'll mention that again on the episode. But yeah, as of right now, that's the best way to talk to us is on Instagram. So you can find us, just search an affiliate podcast and follow us on Instagram. And yeah, if you have any bands that you love, any recommendations, you know the type of stuff that we like to talk about. So send us your recommendations. And, you know, at the very least, we'll give you a shout out. And we might even play a song that you recommend to us at the end of a what you heard or something like that. Find us on Instagram.

And also, of course, you can always find us on the Pantheon podcast network. That is a home for music podcasts. There are dozens of other great music-related podcasts on that network, including ours. So if you want to sort of get them all, get all the shows on the Pantheon podcast network in your feed, you could follow Pantheon podcasts on Spotify. And each week, our episode will pop up in that stream, you know, along with every other show on the network. Anyway, that's that. Pantheonpodcast.com. Next week, we will come at you with the What You Heard episode.

And until then, we will talk to you guys later. My name is Travis. And I'm Gwen. Bye-bye.