Episode 41: "THE HISTORY OF MUSIC" feat. Liturgy *PREVIEW — FULL EPISODE ON PATREON*

You are listening to the free version of CloudFarm. For the full episode, sub to Patriot on Geyser. Guys being like, I am the candy wrapper in the wind. That's refreshing. Very refreshingly optimistic. Refleshing. Refleshing. I took music really seriously as a teenager. This is why you're in a band called Birthday Boys. You'd like the Netherlands to still be called Holland and for it to still own Manhattan. Do you read about contemporary music at all? Pitchfork was accusing us of being hipsters. And it's just like, but you're Pitchfork. You were cancelled when people just disagreed. Aren't you concerned about the fate of the soul? You don't need to be like a musicologist to understand the will to like, make it louder. I like that people are doing their own stunts at the Grammys. Yeah, I mean, they were like practicing magic, you know. And it blows my mind when people are just like, oh, this is like cringe poser shit, whatever. How do you leave my mind? like re-anihilation uh just as a kid like like obsessed with like metal like everything from just like as a kid like i was a kid at the time when this camera was like oh nine oh wait a long time ago yeah um like i was in high school um but yeah everything from just like really kind of like basic like shiny teen oriented like metalcore to like ultimately like really like extreme violent death metal black metal power violence whatever But around the time of Aesthetica, what really drew me in, and this is the case for a lot of artists that I admire, was the kind of cohesiveness of the overall presentation. So from the philosophical aspect, obviously the much-discussed manifesto, the album titles, or the song titles, the album title itself, and the cover art. I really admire it when artists can create this sort of world unto itself that's incredibly recognizable and also internally.

harmonious um and this this is just this to say nothing of the music itself which like ultimately like bangs like the you know all the the extraneous stuff is cool but if the music sucks then it's kind of like all all for naught but um i remember like i was aesthetica was around the tail end of my like very active interest in metal like i just i guess sort of like smoking weed really heavily at a certain point and i just kind of mellowed out and just became less intrinsically drawn to like heavy music so many people say this like they're oh i used to i used to love metal and i loved your band back then i mean i don't smoke weed anymore so who's to say but um would you can i mean i'm sure i'm kind of like that too i don't listen to metal yeah yeah well do you do i feel like you you are infinitely more aware of like the current landscape than i am but um i'm sure you've had to like discuss this to death so i apologize but we'd be remiss if we didn't like touch on it but do you want to like take us back to like aesthetica and like the the like post manifesto kind of storm quote unquote back when pitchfork called you the david foster wallace of black metal That's funny, I don't even remember that quote. That would repress it too. Yeah, as you are bringing up... I'm glad that you were around at the time because I'd love to hear your perspective on it too. Would you say that my music career has been uniquely controversial in a way? 100%. There's no precedent for it. There's nothing quite like it. Well, there's you and Kanye. what there's you and kanye yeah well but see but i think that with kanye like i was definitely you know canceled before being canceled was a thing but it wasn't like for being like bad or something you know like like it wasn't like i feel like like kanye people are like mad at him for like particular political views or something right um

and you you were cancelled when people just disagreed but like i don't even know what exactly what what do you disagree with you know like it was just like this um this like trauma this like cultural trauma do you think people didn't like didn't like having sort of in you know intellectualism introduced into metal because it i i became familiar with your work about two years ago when i started working with deva But going back over the history of it, it seems like people really reacted quite negatively to any kind of philosophy and theology being brought into the genre in a way that I've not seen with other genres of music. Yeah, I mean, like, that's like, I think the general way someone would summarize it, but it doesn't totally add up, you know? Like, I think, because, like, it's fucking black metal, you know? Like, it's actually a very intellectual style of music. And I think there was a lot of, like... you know, this person's gay or something. Right, okay, yeah. I mean, my experience of it, I didn't necessarily intend to ever start a metal band, right? Because, like, I had been studying philosophy and composition at school, and, like, I think I had kind of planned to have more of a career that was something... like something like Steve Reich or Morton Feldman or something or like Glenn Bronco like where it's like oh it's like art music that's like very classical adjacent but like experimental and like you know there's like a theory aspect and very adjacent to fine art as well you know I had a lot of like friends who were like artists and making art and gallerists and stuff like that and and then then like at the time like the the music scene in brooklyn just like in like the early 2000s was like really strong like it was really like a vital thing or whatever and so i just kind of ended up touring with the band like being more of like a sonic youth than a glenn bronca kind of or whatever like um so could i just ask what music scene you're referring to in brooklyn at that time like like art punk

Okay. So, like, not metal. What bands would that be, just for the audience? Like Lightning Bolt. Okay. I mean, not that they're a Brooklyn band, but X Models. Okay. Sorry to cut you off, but just to put it into context, there's a Reddit thread from around this era talking about listening to you, and the top comments is, man, sometimes you can just hear when the metal is made by someone wearing jeans. Okay. Okay. uh oh yeah i think i remember that phrase i mean this is the funny thing because it's like pitchfork because like pitchfork kind of turned on us by the aesthetic of time and one quote that i remember i've forgotten a lot of this but one of them was like brooklyn hipsters unsurprisingly make crossover friendly black metal album or something okay yeah like it was like pitchfork was accusing us of being hipsters It's just like, but you're a pitchfork. And then some way that happened. Also, maybe three years later, they were aggressively fellating Death Heaven. Exactly. So it's like we were too traumatizing because it was real art. And then it's like, oh, let's find an actual hipster band that's easier to swallow or something like that. Shade. Well, no, I don't. I mean, I like that. I think Death Heaven are nice people. It's like a different type of project, though. It's like more. It definitely felt like being in the jaws of a music industry that was just hostile. And I think that... Because you've described the quote-unquote hipster side of the spectrum expresses an immersion to you, which is to say nothing about the metal side. So both sides, to put it very, very reductively and simplistically, both sides of the things that you're supposedly synthesizing had some instinctive... distaste for for what you did for reasons somewhat unknown yeah i mean because i mean it's like we kind of backed into getting in the metal scene at all because it was like making like before liturgy like black metal had never existed in like a math rock context or whatever right and so we like brought it in to this other context and

so like that so we were playing like warehouse shows and stuff like that you know and like you know like playing like parties basically and like so it was like whoa wait these guys are playing black metal like that's crazy like it kind of works though or something you know um and like the other bands are like no wave bands or something you know um and then but then once we released Annihilation I know it had that album had like black metal aesthetic in the art and stuff like that and uh we actually entered the black metal scene through the record without having that wasn't like the circuit that we were touring on or whatever and but then our second record we put out on a more of an indie rock label and then um was it thrill jockey yeah thrill jockey but then like suddenly like it's like the new york times was like covering the band and like And, like, I wrote the text, and, like, it just kind of all sort of blew up into this kind of, like, media phenomenon or something. And... But, like, everyone was, like, mad, like, very quickly, you know? And, like, the music was so sincere. Like, it's very, like, loving, really sincere music, you know, that's very kind of, like... Your heart is on your sleeve. Yeah, there's a lot of theory in it, but, like, really, I mean, you don't need, like, it's clearly, like, really emotional music, you know? But, yeah, I always imagined that it was something, there's just something, like, that it almost is a little Kanye-ish, like, that there was something, maybe because of the... like the european classical music influence just something that was just offensive to the whole sort of like culture industry of countercultural music that like there were like journalists who were like no this is this is like like this won't like uh you know keep people stupid well enough or something like that or like like you know that it was like an um

defiant like because like to some degree you know any even cultural cultural music is like kind of co-opted um it's kind of a double-edged thing but yeah well i've i have a a point here that you've sort of suggested before that hipster culture and the 2010s was pushed by the government and do you do you like do you think it's sort of this like explicit like like in the same way that like abstract expressionism was in that kind of like it's kind of like a boring conversation there But do you mean specifically like South by Southwest sells weapons or more or more sort of like Mason jars are evil? Mason jars. Yeah, like that there's some way that the main power structure always kind of siphons off some kind of vital countercultural. energy in a way that is ultimately makes it disempowering um like maybe they did that to the 60s too and then did it again to punk and then and like the like the brooklyn hipster was like an iteration of that or something and um was that a in any way like explicitly counter-cultural force there I think it saw itself as that. Yeah, like we're like sticking it to the man with our mason jars or something. People still see themselves as that now, even though from the beginning of your career as like someone in like counterculture, you're beholden to brands at this point. I feel like you kind of go back as far as the 60s and I sort of feel like each iteration of counterculture that we get is you're a bit weaker and you're a bit more diluted. you know yeah do we count as counterculture probably dude absolutely we're the last we say we say swear words on the record but i mean like this this era of music and this is like kind of like a digression already to me like always just i mean not to say nothing the music because i love like a lot of the music but nothing about it felt like particularly like radically dangerous or like subversive i think it was a lot of it was just kind of like a lifestyle affectation

And I think a lot of, as Rob is saying, by the time we got to that point, very few people, at least in my view, had any pretension of doing anything remotely dangerous, basically. Also, just making music that was weird or interesting or cool. I wasn't there, though. I don't know. Yeah, like when I was, I don't know, living in Brooklyn during that time... I mean, definitely that kind of, but I think there was a sense of like, and again, I mean, not to, I feel like everything is always double-edged, but like there's a sense of like, oh, we're outside the system and like that's good or something, you know, like that's like virtuous. But then, but yeah, you're right. I mean, there's no like morality to it beyond that. So when you were playing these kind of warehouse shows, like it was like a sense that like oh cap because it was like there was still a little bit of a delay between music coming out and it necessarily going on the internet you know and so it was sort of like oh this is non non-commercial like it's non-commercial and so it's not capitalist or something i'm sorry what were you saying as a black metal band playing kind of these these warehouse shows did that was that quite unique at the time because yeah i just feel like the show we went to on saturday didn't it doesn't feel that sound now seems much more commonplace definitely based on what we experienced on saturday yeah it was the dissensus album on tripe oh yeah there was it was callahan's wish was our friends jack callahan and wish aka nick and um cities of thieves new band who were playing this kind of like extended sort of like post-punk-y like melee type thing and uh this other band who were like super like heavy and like sludgy in a way that like to me it was like really cool and really fun but like nothing about it felt like it was uncharted territory yeah that's what i meant so it sounds like you invented doing that uh i think kind of i mean yes i mean certainly like art art adjacent indie metal stuff is a well-trodden path

now but yeah and so then at what point do you start playing specifically with black metal right I was gonna say what point do you come into the black metal world and you're playing shows with your contemporaries in that genre specifically rather than this kind of Brooklyn hipster world um I mean pretty I mean well there was actually another pretty well known black metal band called Kralis that was starting in New York at the same time that we didn't They had, like, a member who was more of in the art rock scene. Okay. And... Mr. Washington? No, Mick Bar. Okay. But then, like, playing shows with actual black metal bands, it was really, like, getting booked on festivals. It was, like, it was sort of, like, the... Because Krauss kind of doesn't... Krauss is kind of, like, liturgy in a way. Okay. But they have more of a metal aesthetic than us, but, like... But, yeah, getting booked on festivals because of the album and then playing with, like, Watain and, like, you know, like, actual, like, crumbs, paints, spikes. Were you apprehensive going into that, given the kind of reaction that the album had had? Or it sounds like, in a way, maybe you were kind of up for it. Yeah, I mean, the whole experience is really interesting, you know. I mean, it's still kind of like that now, too. Like, it's still a pretty homeless band in a lot of ways. I've always aspired to being nomadic in that way. It wasn't a complete shock that it happened. Maybe it was a shock that people got quite so mad. You want to be in that zone. When you're seeking originality, it's like, oh yeah, this doesn't quite fit into a couple of different categories. I think people will do that. say they're doing it but then they're not actually doing that and then when you're actually doing it it's like wait what the hell is happening yeah this is actually quite an unpleasant thing to experience yeah yeah where do you think that drive towards originality and newness comes from because trauma because i think i think you're quite right in music in terms of people will often be telling you they're doing something new when they're really not and actually

It's ultimately the audience that decides what isn't new. And for you to have successfully executed on that to some degree, was there an intention? It sounds like there was an intention. Yeah, no, I don't work too intentionally. I mean, I've just always been really passionate with philosophy and music. Just like, oh, I've got to get this out or whatever. And then getting really, I don't know, working on something and getting really excited at how it sounds and being like, oh yeah, you know. And then just being, I don't know, being interested in a lot of different things and then wanting to kind of put them all in there. Hey, faint niggas. They do it all for the clout Always runnin' their mouth But they've never been about I splashed niggas In and out, in and out Clout is killin' our people They do it for U-K-L Clout is killin' our people They do it for U-D-N Clout is killin' our people They move like the groupies, them Sending shots or snap But in real life don't use this gang