Shows
FlavortoneEpisode 50: Captain's Log, Transcendental [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 stake...
2023-04-2110 min
FlavortoneEpisode 49: Foibles and The Meaning of Tossed Salad & Scrambled EggsAlec 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 aest...
2023-03-091h 29
FlavortoneEpisode 47: Thus Shook Zarathustra's Groove Thing (Politics & Poetry) [PATREON PREVIEW]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...
2023-02-0710 min
FlavortoneEpisode 42: Phenomenology of Fantasy FootballBlue, 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, th...
2022-10-201h 30
FlavortoneEpisode 36: Friedrich Nietzsche’s "The Case of Wagner" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]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.
2022-05-2912 min
FlavortoneEpisode 30: Tomato Town Composer’s Workshop (Editorials & Opinions) [PATREON PREVIEW]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.
2022-03-2607 min
FlavortoneEpisode 28: Jacques Attali's "Noise" Part 2 - "Sacrificing" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]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.
2022-03-1209 min
FlavortoneEpisode 24: Jacques Attali's "Noise" Part 1 - "Listening" (Study Group) [PATREON PREVIEW]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.
2022-01-2914 min
FlavortoneEpisode 21: The Cochlear WindIn 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...
2021-12-231h 04
FlavortoneEpisode 20: Mise En Scene [PATREON PREVIEW]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 cl...
2021-12-1404 min
FlavortoneEpisode 16: Tasting Menu 2 (Stinky Edition)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 me...
2021-10-091h 51
FlavortoneEpisode 15: The Fudd-Flynt Complex for Editions Eric Schmid (Montez Press Radio)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.
2021-09-2520 min
FlavortoneEpisode 13: What Is An Experiment? feat. Ying LiuHaving recently celebrated experimental hodgepodgeist and artist Ying Liu’s 10th anniversary as a resident of New York City, Alec & Nick embark on discussing a central question she has asked Flavortone: what is an experiment? The episode features a self-checklist of questions Ying asks herself when inquiring if something “is an experiment.” The conversation responds to these questions and broadly discusses Ying’s two recent works PLAYDATE and PIGTAIL—centering questions around the production of willingness, commitment, our technological reality, the shifting reality paradigm, and the implications of Ying’s work and approach for experimental music, specifically.
2021-09-031h 38
FlavortoneEpisode 6: Musician's Friend 1 (Guitar)Alec and Nick discuss the guitar. This episode inaugurates the “Musician’s Friend” sub-series of the podcast—where an entire episode is dedicated to discuss various techniques, approaches, and cultures of and around specific instruments. Guitarists mentioned include: Pat Methany, Buckethead, Allan Holdsworth, Abraham Leonard, Shane Parish, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Sister Rossetta Tharpe, Jimi Hendrix, Taku Sugimoto, Loren Connors, Oren Ambarchi, Bill Orcutt, Eugene Chadbourne, Rhys Chatham & Glenn Branca. Opening theme music by Xander Seren (Flavortone guitar edit) Closing music by Jimi Hendrix, “Little Wing (Live)”
2021-04-161h 15
FlavortoneEpisode 4: Tasting Menu 1 (Dégustation)Alec and Nick make a first foray into a gastro-acoustic, audio-culinary, flavor-phonic approach to listening and talking about music. In the spirit of Dégustation ("tasting menu") and experimenting with what music can be, this episode samples and discusses various music in culinary terms, and various foods from the perspective of sound. This menu includes Oysters on Half Shell, Souvlaki, Iannis Xenakis, Wold, Witecka Friedemann, the Black Velvet Cocktail, the “You Pick Two” Special, Evanescence, The Gentle People, the Sour Cream & Onion Chip, Ambrosia Salad, Pierre Boulez, and Peter Evans. This will be a semi-regular sub-series on the Flavortone podcast...
2021-03-192h 06