I’ve got with us today, musical prodigy, Raphael Weinroth-Brown, here to talk about his new album, Lifeblood, which comes out on the 3rd of October. It’s been a few years since we last spoke, so give us a bit of an up-to-date on what you’ve been doing the last few years.
Sure. I guess the last time we spoke was after the release of Inheritance, Musk Ox’s last record, so that would have been 2021. I released my live album Worlds Within Live and Inheritance within a week of each other in summer 2021.
A good year.
Yeah, it was a good year for releases, for sure. In 2022, I resumed touring with Leprous and got back on the road in the US and Canada in early 2022, then immediately after that I got involved in a contemporary dance project with Ottawa Dance Directive here in my hometown of Ottawa; that was a very immersive project which involved me performing my entire Worlds Within album. Following that, I started to play live quite a lot as a solo artist throughout 2022, so I was very active as a live performer, playing both material from Worlds Within as well as a plethora of new pieces that I was composing throughout the year, some of which ended up on Lifeblood. I did a very long tour with Leprous in the fall 2022-2023 with Apocalyptica; we did a European headline tour, 40 shows in 7 weeks, it was very long, so I was on…
Editorial Preface: The following is an interview conducted between the artist …and Oceans and our Contributing Reviewers, Ryan P. (Hawks) and Zach (Dedes). …and Oceans recently released their seventh full-length LP, The Regeneration Itinerary. The new album can be streamed or purchased via their official Bandcamp page.
RYAN: Hey guys! Me and one of my colleagues on the site, Zach, will be conducting this interview and we’re hyped to be able to speak to you! Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to fit us in! First, please just give us a bit of information on the origin of the band and some of the bands that influenced you.
Timo: We started some time ‘95 a years after we stopped with our death metal band Festerday. Sure …And Oceans started with a bit different line-up. But had partly same members as Festerday. These are not the same band as understood wrong in many places online. Our first stuff was a bit mixed with death metal and more technical stuff. Soon we started to take more bm influences into our songs. That was quite natural since that music was coming strong at that time. Emperor for example had an impact with synths taken along etc. We did a few demos and with ‘96 promo we got a deal with Season of Mist and not before long we already recorded our debut. The after we had already that split album and the next album out and went…
Welcome to a very special interview with My Epic’s Aaron Stone, conducted by DrGonzo and Tyman. Founded in 2005, My Epic are known for their deep-rooted Christian themes and lyrics, over a sound that has gone through various transformations over the years – from post-hardcore and post-rock to indie and pop, all carefully crafted with lush, ethereal soundscapes with powerful breakdowns. Both Tyman and Gonzo hold a huge amount of reverence for My Epic, and we got chance to sit down with Aaron Stone, the band’s vocalist, to discuss the band’s history, future and all things in between. So, let’s dive in.
Tyler: For those of you who are listening and may not know, we are joined by Aaron. He’s the vocalist of My Epic. If you don’t know My Epic, what are you doing now? Me and Simon absolutely love this band and thought it would be fun to have a good little chat with them.
Simon: Jumping straight into the My Epic stuff, could you just give us a brief overview of the band and its history, if that’s cool?
Aaron: The band started my senior year of college with my brother Jesse and my best friends, Jeremiah and Maddie. After college we moved to Charlotte together and the band sort of whittled down to me, my brother and Jeremiah, and that had been the core of the band for a long time. We signed to Facedown Records in 2008 and released our first full-length [I Am Undone],…
What’s up everyone! It’s me again, doing another interview, surprise. I had the chance to sit down and talk with Alex Bacey, the guitarist of Ominous Ruin, this past week and talk about their newest album, Requiem, which came out May 9. Alex was an awesome dude to talk with, and he gave a lot of great insight into how he went about with songwriting and producing the band’s second album. If y’all haven’t checked out Ominous Ruin, definitely give Requiem a spin if you’re a fan of some fun, guitar-focused death metal. But enough about my rambling at the beginning, let’s just right into the interview. You know the drill, click below to listen to the interview, but if you don’t feel like hearing our voices, scroll down and keep reading!
Before we jump into all things Requiem, can you tell a little bit about the band, how you guys started, and how you ended up where you are today?
If you’ve been following us, you probably know it’s not a secret that we’ve been around for a while, but that’s just kind of a product of most of us have never really wanted to be like full time musicians, like full time touring musicians, and really, we care more about like the product; the product is the music more so than it is us. I’ll try to keep it kind of short. I’m technically the only original member left in the band, but our original bass player, his name…
What’s up everyone! Welcome back to another Sputnik interview! This week, I had the privilege to talk with Ryan Vail. He is currently the vocalist of Larcenia Roe and Synestia. Larcenia Roe just released their debut album Extraction on Friday, and so I was able to sit down with him on a Zoom call and talk about who Larcenia Roe is and what the album was about. He’s truly an awesome guy, and it was great hearing about his different approaches to vocals and how they influence the way he writes lyrics and vocal segments. So please, sit down, give this a deep and thorough read or listen to my lovely voice below, and show some support for Larcenia Roe. Even if you don’t want to listen to us talk, listen through the first few seconds and listen to my how professional I sound messing up Larcenia Roe’s name in literal seconds of the recording starting (I swear I’ll be better next time).
Just to get started, for people who may not know who you guys are, could you tell a little bit about the band in general and how Larcenia Roe got started?
We’re a five-piece deathcore band from Raleigh, North Carolina. None of us are actually natives of Raleigh, but this is where we all met. We’re all from different places, and somehow we all came together here in Raleigh. The band started with Henry Koster and myself. We decided to kind of put together, almost like a marketing…
Back in the early-to-mid 2000s, Earshot were key players in spearheading the American alt-rock movement, releasing massive hits like “Get Away”, “Not Afraid” and “Wait” respectively, with their influence and success getting them significant radio airplay, as well as being featured on a number of video games including Madden ’05, MX vs. ATV Unleashed, and Project Gotham Racing 2. However, despite all the success of 2002’s Letting Go and 2004’s Two, the band would go through several line-up changes and their momentum would gradually wane, not releasing their third LP, The Silver Lining, until 2008. After this, the band would recede into the shadows for over a decade, releasing only a 4-track EP in 2015 and a couple of singles during Covid. Thankfully, all of that is about to change: with a brand-new line-up that includes ex-Breaking Benjamin guitarist, Aaron Fink, Earshot are set to make a massive comeback in 2025 with their first new album in 17 years. The band’s first single “Where Were You?” recently dropped to a strong reception from fans, and the band are currently in the throes of planning their next moves. I recently caught up with the band’s founding member and frontman, Wil Martin, who candidly discusses the band’s history, its tribulations, and the bright future that lies ahead of them, so I hope you enjoy it. (Please note: the transcript from this interview was edited and some of the wording changed for a more concise reading experience. For the definitive version of this…
What’s up everyone! Welcome to my first interview that I’ve done for Sputnik, and hopefully the first of many. This week, I was able to sit down on a Zoom call with Jackal Twins to discuss their debut record, Cuzco. These guy were absolutely amazing to talk with, they all had great senses of humor, and they all genuinely love the work they have done with Jackal Twins. If you haven’t listened to their debut album yet, or this is the first time you’ve heard their name, let me give you a quick introduction.
Jackal Twins is a three-piece band based out of the New England area, with Ben Trussell on drums and vocals, Mike Palumbo on guitars and vocals, and Dante Lamusta on bass. Their Bandcamp profile describes their music as “psychedelic noisy tunes for the hopeless romantic.” Good luck trying to pin a particular genre down, though. They tend to focus on the mathcore side of their music, and lean into the aggressive style. However, there are numerous genre influences that shine throughout, with a great balance of heaviness with melodic songwriting.
But I’m not here to explain the band myself. No, I’m here to let you guys hear from the band themselves. Please, enjoy this interview with the Jackal Twins! You can either read the interview, listen to the recording, or follow along with both.
NOTE: The transcript below was edited for brevity. Some of the wording has been changed or…
Peter Connelly is one of my most revered composers, not only for being involved in some of my all-time favourite games growing up, but because the music he created for those games expanded upon Nathan McCree’s iconic formula for Tomb Raider in a way that made it, arguably, better. By the time Connelly came in to compose the scores for Tomb Raider’s 4-6, the direction taken amped up the sombre sophistication and exotic, Bondian-esque string arrangements to match the darker, more serious tone the series was heading in at the time. So, in light of the release of Tomb Raider IV-VI remaster, which came out a couple weeks ago, I thought it was a good time to catch up with the man responsible for the scores to these classic games.
As an established composer, what was your musical upbringing like?
It was relatively normal but I was always fascinated by music and musical instruments. My father introduced me to Burt Bacharach at a very early age and I was obsessed with Burt’s music, melodies, his approach to music and his arrangements, so much I remember wishing that, one day, I could also be writing for an orchestra.
I’ve not heard a Bacharach song since I was a kid, what a blast from the past. Bacharach’s known for so many catchy classic songs. His compositional style has a rich network of emotions, layered with a lot going on if you dig into a song, but there’s something immediately alluring and easy-going about…
For me, Thurnin’s new record, Utiseta, is easily one of the best albums of the year. Coming as a recommendation, Thurnin’s sophomore album blindsided me with its incredibly astute songwriting, rich instrumentation, and resonant Pagan aesthetics. Given my obsession with this LP since its release in September, it seemed only logical I get some discourse going with Jurre Timmer – the project’s mastermind – to discuss the thought processes behind the project, his sudden success with Thurnin’s debut LP Menhir back in 2021, and how he approached moving forward with a successor.
Give us a bit of background on yourself.
Jurre: I started doing mostly metal back in 2015, which was when I was really getting into songwriting. I released two albums under a previous project [Algos], but I drifted away from that because it’s a really expensive and difficult genre to produce in if you’re doing everything solo. So after that I shifted my attention and made a doom album under the moniker I, Forlorn, but then all my equipment broke, so I decided to go back to what I had originally started doing, which was acoustic music. I wrote this demo which ended up being “A Lament for the End” – which was the only song on Menhir that was completely improvised – and showed it around to some friends, who encouraged me to go down this path and make more of it. So I set out to make this really chill album without any stress or…
In advance of the release on Friday, November 3rd of their third LP, Summer Moon, all five members of There Will Be Fireworks took some time to answer some questions posed by Sput’s own Sunnyvale. Yes, you’re not going crazy, there was indeed another interview with two members of the band posted on this site last week, but the more the merrier!
For ease of reading, please find the initials of each band member below.
NM – Nicholas McManus (vocals, guitar, synthesisers, piano)
SD – Stuart Dobbie (guitar, piano)
November 3rd, 2023 marks a day many fans doubted would ever come – the release of a long-awaited follow-up album to The Dark, Dark Bright. Anything you can share on how things transpired/how the creative process unfolded between the 2013 release of that record through the finished product of Summer Moon?
NM: A lot has changed for us since 2013! We released The Dark, Dark Bright in November 2013 and played a few shows around that time and in 2014. We had a clutch of other songs at that point that we loved but that just didn’t feel right for The Dark, Dark Bright. And, to be honest, I think we need that little natural break from writing for a bit. We all had a lot of life stuff going on too – starting out in our careers, some…
This interview was conducted and formatted by user Slex
After a ten year hiatus in which the band remained hard at work, beloved (at least on Sput) alternative rock band There Will Be Fireworks have finally returned with a follow-up to the cult classic The Dark Dark Bright. Ahead of the impending release of Summer Moon on November 3rd I was able to correspond with Nicholas McManus (vocals, synths, guitar) and Adam Ketterer (drums).
The first question I have is, did you guys ever feel burdened by the legacy of The Dark Dark Bright? At least on Sput it was hailed by many as an instant classic, did that shadow ever loom as you guys worked on Summer Moon?
NM: I think it’s all relative. We’re aware that there are these amazing little pockets online that still love The Dark, Dark Bright – and we’re really appreciative of that and humbled by it – but we’re equally aware that in the grand scheme of things we’re a little DIY band self-releasing records to a small audience. To be honest, we kind of thought everyone would have forgotten about us anyway. It wasn’t until we re-released The Dark, Dark Bright on vinyl earlier this year that we realised how many people still cared. There’s a certain freedom that comes from all that. Also, we don’t do this for a living, we’re not actively involved in any scene and we’ve not been playing shows, so for most of the last ten…
Music has had a bad year. Sputnik has had a bad year. Awful things have happened, and the jury is still out on who to blame — silly jury! They should spend less time pointing their fingers and more time clapping their hands at the one user who can save us. After a randomised selection of noble volunteers, it was determined by fated that this user would none other than the site’s longtime dismantler of philosophies, distorter of diets, shredder of manchildren, encourager of all the most unlikely and profane interests, BaselineOOO! Here she is! There will be no images: hush and look at Baseline’s words.
* * * * *
jotW: Greetings BaselineOOO, lucky winner of the Sputnik Interview Raffle. You have appeared before us today to save Sputnik. How does this feel?
BaselineOOO: Hello, Sputnik! Baseline at your service, or should I say, at your rescue? Honestly, I’m resonating with this whole “saviour” thing, my messianic syndrome is tingling. It feels like finding a glitch in reality and riding it. Saving Sputnik? Don’t I do that every day with my succulent comments? Should be like just another day at the office for me!
jotW: Let me explain the rules: I will write in italics and you will not write in italics, otherwise the interview will break and you can’t save Sputnik. I will ask you questions and you will try to answer them. You may ask me questions in response and…
Two years on from the critically acclaimed third album from Musk Ox, Inheritance, and a lot has happened in that time. Evan, the band’s violinist departed from the band this year to pursue other creative ventures, Raph has continued to tour extensively with both his solo work and Leprous, and the band’s founder and guitar player Nathan Larochette, it seems, has been very busy indeed. On 21st July Nathan released his second solo album, Old Growth – an austere dark-folk album with an incredible array of tactile moods and an underlining poignancy. I recently caught up with Nathan to discuss his new album, a slew of new content headed our way soon, live prospects, and Musk Ox’s future.
Earth and Sky was seven years ago and since then you’ve done Inheritance, so what made you want to release this album now?
It’s funny because I recorded the album in September/October of 2020, so I’ve had it for a while now and some of the older songs date back maybe ten years. It’s been a project that’s slowly come together, because the main focus was finishing the third The Night Watch album and then working on Musk Ox’s third album, Inheritance – which were these big projects that took so much effort and work. Whereas this album [Old Growth] had similar challenges, but it was a reaction to those other records; they were albums with big, long songs that made it intense, so I really wanted to…
Welcome back to Sputnikmusic’s maybe possibly most helpful segment where we discuss the ins and outs of reviewing music and all its glory! Maybe you’re a budding reviewer, on the cusp of greatness, searching for that piece of the puzzle lost on the floor or maybe your mum just logged you on to the household’s singular trusty laptop and you don’t know what to do with your fifteen-minute screen allowance before the older sibling demands the computer for…research? Either way, you’ve come to the right place!
First off. How did you get in here? What are you? This place doesn’t seem to have doors.
I’m just a mysterious lad with a Trailer Park Boys-derived moniker whose late-blooming interest in music quickly turned to obsession, which led me inevitably down into the dingy corridors of Sputnik. I don’t remember the first thing I read on Sput, but it was probably some review for Bob Dylan or Led Zeppelin or Tom Petty or the like. Now, some twelve years or so later, here I am. For the vast majority of my tenure on Sput, I never had any thought of being a contrib, let alone staff, but the ways of life are mysterious, I guess.
Milo would like to know who your musician union representative is. I would like to know why.
I’m gonna go with Mark Knopfler, probably my favorite guitarist, and I think his “chill but emotional” style of playing resonates with how I try to review: laid-back but letting…
So it’s been *checks notes* a hot minute since we’ve done this but in case it’s your first day here or the first sober moment since those mushrooms turned on you this is where we vaguely cover “how to review an album”. That is to say in this segment we’ll be cross checking different staffers’ approaches to putting words together. Maybe you’re a budding reviewer, on the cusp of greatness, searching for that piece of the puzzle lost on the floor or maybe your mum just logged you on to the household’s singular trusty laptop and you don’t know what to do with your fifteen minute screen allowance before the older sibling demands the computer for…research? Either way, you’ve come to the right place!
First off. Who are you and how did you get here?
I’m Kompy I got here cuz I got locked out of my Webkinz account and figured this was the next best thing.
But you are the show-poni of the hour. The creme della creme. How has your reviewing got you to this perceivable reception point? What makes Kompys so chompy?
Weed brownies and poor sleep health
Weed, brownies or weed brownies? Remind me to compare recipe cards later.
Ooh, got anything with walnuts?
A couple of salads, nothing of note. Maybe some caramalised beetroot?
You always know how to make a mouth water, chef!
And how does that cream turn to butter? Hard work? Dedication?…
