Talkhouse Podcast

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve got everyone’s favorite Canadian twin-sister duo Tegan and Sara in conversation with powerhouse songwriter and artist LP.Now LP has had a fascinating, winding career in the music business, starting out in the late ‘90s as a performer whose incredible voice attracted lots of attention in the industry—you’ll hear about that in this chat—but who ended up kind of going through the wringer of that system. But LP turned their attention to writing songs for other people, which had an immediate and far-reaching effect: LP’s compositions have been hits for the likes of Rihanna and Celine Dion, and for a while it seemed like that’s where LP’s career would stay. But a return to performing about ten years ago has born some incredible fruit, and with a big personality like LP’s, it’s not surprising that TikTok and other social media has embraced them. LP’s latest album is the powerful Love Lines, check out “Dayglow” from that album, and catch LP on tour in the US right now through the end of the month; dates are at iamLP.com.The other half of today’s conversation, Tegan and Sara, started making music as teenagers and were flung into the spotlight very quickly, being signed to Neil Young’s record label and opening for him when they were basically still kids. But they got some good advice—you’ll hear about that here—that helped the twin sisters navigate the ups and downs of fame. Over the course of 25 years they’ve released ten albums, a memoir that was turned into a TV series, a graphic novel, and much more. They are creative lifers, and the world is a better place because of it. Check out the song “Yellow” from Tegan and Sara’s latest album Crybaby.In this lively conversation, you’ll hear about two incredible, uncompromising careers. These three talk about how their music has not only inspired joy in other people, but also understanding: LP talks about visiting other countries where many people in the audience perhaps hadn’t met a gay person—at least not knowingly. They get into all things Canada, the vital importance of a good monitor mix, and the primal wound that inspires creativity. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse podcast, and thanks to Tegan and Sara and LP for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got an award-winning multi-hyphenate that you may have seen on TV, a Broadway stage, or packing out a big theater near you in conversation with a guy whose equally riveting work has mostly been behind the scenes: Sara Bareilles and Rob Moose. I’m not sure where to begin with Sara Bareilles’ resume: She found fame with her music, with songs like “Brave” and “Love Song” topping the charts. But in addition to making huge records, she’s been a judge on NBC’s The Sing-Off, she wrote the music and lyrics for—then eventually starred in—the Broadway production of Waitress, and she co-created the Apple TV series Little Voice and acted in the Peacock series Girls5Eva. And honestly, this is all just the tip of the iceberg. You will be surprised by how remarkably down to earth she seems in this conversation—I was.  Rob Moose met Bareilles when he was asked to do some string arrangements for her at a Lincoln Center event organized by Ben Folds. For the past 20 years, that’s the kind of work Moose has mostly done: His expert strings have added color and wonder to music by everyone from Sufjan Stevens and The Decemberists to Taylor Swift. He’s been a member of Bon Iver and performed live with Jay-Z. Chances are very good that you’ve heard him without ever hearing his name, because it wasn’t until this year that he decided to release music under his own name: It was while on tour with Paul Simon that Moose had the idea to collaborate with some amazing singers, setting their voices to his strings—and nothing more. The result is an EP called Inflorescence, which features Emily King, Brittany Howard, Phoebe Bridgers, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, and—perhaps you guessed by now—Sara Bareilles. It’s a fantastic, unexpected set of songs that brings out the best in both the strings and the voices. Check out a little bit of Moose and Bareilles on the song “Extract.” In this conversation, these two chat about how a Craigslist ad changed Moose’s life, about how Bareilles was a bit gunshy about collaborating early in her career, and about how you’ve got to really want to live in New York City—which they both seem to want to do. Enjoy. Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast and thanks to Rob Moose and Sara Bareilles for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the good stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we have the pleasure of reuniting two intensely creative individuals who first worked together decades ago: Emily Haines and Olivier Assayas.Haines is, of course, the singer and primary songwriter for the band Metric, which she’s been fronting for the past 20-plus years, and which sprang from the same fertile Canadian scene that gave the world Broken Social Scene and Stars, among many others—in fact, it’s Haines’ voice that you hear on Broken Social Scene’s biggest (and I would argue best) song, “Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl.” But her primary focus over the years has of course been Metric, which just released their ninth album of thought-provoking indie-rock anthems, Formentera II. It’s a sequel to the excellent album they released exactly a year prior, and another collection of danceable, fantastic songs. Check out “Just the Once,” from Formentera II, which Haines describes as “regret disco.”So what does a catchy Canadian indie band have to do with a fearless French filmmaker like Olivier Assayas? A lot, as it turns out. Back when Assayas was prepping his 2004 film Clean, he needed a band to perform in a scene, and when he saw Metric, everything clicked: You can see the band perform their early hit “Dead Disco” in the movie, and Haines and Assayas hit it off after working together. Like Metric, Assayas has created an incredible body of work over the years, and done it—again like Metric—by following his own muse. His best-known films include Irma Vep, Clouds of Sils Maria, and 2016’s Personal Shopper, for which he was proclaimed Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. In a strange twist, he was asked to re-created Irma Vep as a TV series for HBO, which he did under the condition that he have total artistic freedom. That came out last year, and it’s definitely worth checking out.These two get right into a great discussion about how they approach creating their art: Both rely on instinct rather than any desire for commercial success. They talk about the real Formentera—it’s an island in Spain—versus the one Haines created for these albums. They touch on Haines’ father, a well-known poet, and how that might have figured into her creative growth. Also, you’ll learn from this chat that every piano has one great song in it. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Emily Haines and Olivier Assayas for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great stuff at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got two women who lead fierce, fantastic rock bands: Karly Hartzman and Marisa Dabice.Hartzman is the driving force behind the band Wednesday, which started as a solo-ish vehicle for her songs back in 2017 but has blossomed into a full band with an already-sizable catalog. Everything they’ve done is worth checking out, but it sure feels like Wednesday hit exactly what they’d always been striving for on the album Rat Saw God, which came out earlier this year. Hartzman’s lyrics are both pointed and poetic—amazing in their specificity and delivered with some serious passion, whether in a country-ish moment, or one that feels almost metal. Today’s other guest, Marisa Dabice, thinks Wednesday sounds like Black Sabbath meets Sparklehorse, which is both accurate and something that’s probably never been said about any band before. Check out “Bull Believer” from Rat Saw God.Marisa Dabice is the voice behind Mannequin Pussy, a band that’s been releasing blistering music since 2010. Just this week, Mannequin Pussy announced the release of their long-awaited fourth album, I Got Heaven, which will come out in March of 2024. Hartzman, as you’ll hear in this conversation, has already gotten a listen to the record—which was produced with John Congleton—and she loves it. The title track is already getting rave reviews for taking Mannequin Pussy’s intense punk energy and adding a bit of sweetness with some synths and a sugary chorus, but those aspects almost make it sound even more confrontational in a way. In any case, it’s awesome: Check out “I Got Heaven” right here.In this chat, these two friends talk about touring, and specifically about how unusual it can feel to perform—and how that can lead to actual tears on stage, not the most fun experience. They chat about the difference between Mannequin Pussy and Wednesday fans, and about the pressure to enjoy your success while it’s happening. Oh, and about saunas. You’ve gotta love a sauna. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Maria Dabice and Karly Hartzman for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting service, and check out all the goodness elsewhere on this site. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of performers and songwriters whose work joyfully throws genre out the window in search of something bigger: Robert Glasper and Emily King.Glasper started his career pretty firmly in the jazz world, though as you’ll hear in this conversation he really started out by playing in churches in his native Texas. But in 2012 he released an album called Black Radio with his electric quartet, the Robert Glasper Experiment, which gleefully knocked down boundaries between jazz and hip-hop, and featured such artists as Erykah Badu and Lupe Fiasco—not to mention an awesome cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” His catalog before and since is too broad and varied to cover in any depth here, but in addition to jazz and R&B records, he’s done a bunch of movie and TV work—including a bit of acting, which you’ll hear about—won a handful of Grammys, and helped curate the Blue Note Jazz Festival, another topic of conversation here. Right now he’s in the middle of “Robtober,” his monthlong residency at New York’s Blue Note Jazz Club, which will feature an incredible lineup of guests throughout.The other half of this conversation is Glasper’s friend and fellow Blue Note alumni Emily King, herself a Grammy nominee whose music exists at the corner of R&B, soul, and pop. Her third and latest album, Special Occasion, is brash, heartfelt, and energetic, and she’s an incredible presence live. The album, like most of King’s work, was produced by Jeremy Most, who happens to be an old schoolmate of Glasper’s—and with whom King was in a long-term relationship with until just recently. (You can hear a bit of that tension in its songs, in a good way.) King will be opening for Marc Rebelliet later this month at Red Rocks, which is pretty awesome. Check out a little bit of “Special Occasion” right here.In this lively chat, these two talk about how the New York Times accidentally named Glasper’s band for him, the chances of Glasper becoming a PEGOT—you’ll see—how being a messy person might make you creative, and more. There’s also talk of bad hairstyle choices, and how having white friends might exacerbate that problem. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Robert Glasper and Emily King for chatting. If you liked what you hear, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time! 

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of musicians with interesting backgrounds: one in computer engineering, the other in stand-up comedy. It’s Vagabon and Jaboukie.Vagabon, aka New Yorker Lætitia Tamko, just released her third album under the name, and as you’ll hear in this chat, it had been four years since her last. But Sorry I Haven’t Called was worth the wait, and another cool stylistic leap. Tamko’s first album, Infinite Worlds, felt like a fresh take on indie-rock; her second, a self-titled record from 2019, dipped more into more varied electronic pop. But Sorry I Haven’t Called, which was partly produced by former Vampire Weekend guy Rostam, takes things even a step further, with an eye toward something even bigger and bolder. And even though the songs were inspired by a dark time in Tamko’s life, they turned out incredibly buoyant and upbeat. Check out “Lexicon” right here.Jaboukie Young-White is best known as a stand-up comic, writer, and actor: You may have experienced his jokes on Big Mouth, or seen him as a correspondent on The Daily Show or acting in Only Murders in the Building. If you’re a fan of this podcast, you may have heard him in conversation with Jonathan Pierce of the Drums a couple years back. But in the past couple of years, Jaboukie has set his last name aside and worked hard on his debut album, which just came out. It’s called all who can’t hear must feel, and it’s an incredibly diverse set of songs that touches on a bunch of genres—rock, hyperpop, jungle—without sounding beholden to any one in particular. Jaboukie played almost every note of every instrument on the record, and as you’ll hear, he spent a lot of time getting it just right. Check out “Cranberry Sauce” right here.In this chat, Jaboukie and Vagabon talk about how creating is like molting, about how music can feel more timeless than comedy, about “domming” your audience, and about how Janet Jackson is MOTHER. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Vagabon and Jaboukie for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform and check out all the goodness elsewhere on this site. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of artists who got to know each other over the course of the pandemic, and who got together in the same room for this chat—which is still kind of a rarity these days: Sarah Tudzin and Alex Lahey.Sarah Tudzin is best known as the mastermind behind Illuminati Hotties, the band she started as sort of an extension of her production and engineering work, which includes contributions to albums and songs by Boygenius, the Armed, and Eliza McLamb. As Illuminati Hotties, she creates pointed, sometimes funny, always catchy songs that she once described as “tenderpunk,” which is kind of perfect. Check out a little bit of “freequent letdown” from Illuminati Hotties’ 2020 release Free I.H., an album/mixtape that comes with an interesting backstory you can find online. New music is supposedly forthcoming pretty soon, so keep your ears open for that.Alex Lahey was born and raised an ocean away from Tudzin, in Australia, but she’s been spending a lot more time in Los Angeles recently, as you’ll hear in this chat. Lahey has been releasing great records since 2016, and her latest set of punky, animated break-up anthems, called The Answer Is Always Yes, is actually being re-released in an expanded edition with some bonus tracks next week. Check out the ultra-catchy “On the Way Down” right here.These two chat about the philosophy behind Lahey’s album title, The Answer is Always Yes, as well as thinking about whether a creative career beyond music makes sense. They talk about the relatively unpopularity of guitar music at the moment, and speculate whether either of their songs might someday get crazy big. (For the record, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch at all.) Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Alex Lahey and Sarah Tudzin for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all of the goodness at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got the frontman for a band that recently made a welcome return after a long absence, and the producer who helped him find the sounds and songs to do it: John Gourley and Jeff Bhasker.Gourley is the singer for Portugal. The Man, which started making music in their home state of Alaska back in the early 2000s before finding success and relocating to Portland, Oregon. The band has an impressive catalog that runs the pop gamut, and weirdly they hit it huge pretty deep into their career, with the 2017 song “Feel It Still,” which is still on pop radio six years later. Just this year, PTM finally released a new album, called Chris Black Changed My Life, which both mourns and celebrates the band’s close friend, for whom it’s also named. The album was also partly inspired by the daughter of Gourley and his bandmate Zoe Manville; Frances Gourley has a rare genetic disorder that’s touched on in this chat. But the album and Gourley’s story is by no means grim: He’s all about celebrating life, as you’ll hear on this track, “Summer of Luv,” which features some assistance from another recent Talkhouse guest, Unknown Mortal Orchestra.You’ll also hear the fingerprints of producer Jeff Bhasker on that track. Bhasker is best known for co-writing and co-producing smash hits like Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk.” He’s one of several names that Portugal. The Man brought in to help realize Chris Black Changed My Life. The two talk about how that process worked, and in particular how Gourley is—unlike some songwriters—always happy to have more creative voices in the room. They also chat about which of them is a better singer, about playing at the Hollywood Bowl, about Gourley’s life-changing jaw injury, and about Gourley’s daughter Frances and the challenges they face. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to John Gourley and Jeff Bhasker for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great written pieces at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got an actor-director you’ll likely recognize along with the musician-slash-composer who made beautiful sounds for one of his films: Jesse Eisenberg and Emile Mosseri.Eisenberg is best known as an actor; he was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network, which is just one of his dozens of credits. You’ve also seen him in Zombieland, The Squid and the Whale, the Now You See Me movies, and lots of indies. He also starred in the TV drama Fleishman is in Trouble last year alongside Claire Danes and Lizzy Caplan. And if that isn’t enough, Eisenberg is also a writer, playwright, and director. His feature debut as a director came earlier this year with When You Finish Saving the World, which began life as Audible original—which he also wrote. The movie stars Julianne Moore and Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard, and it was released by A24, a trademark of quality. And… segue time… music for the film was composed by today’s other guest, Emile Mosseri.Now Mosseri spent years in bands, most notably The Dig, but really seems to have found his stride in recent years as a film composer. In 2020 he did the music for both Miranda July’s Kajillionaire and for Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, for which Mosseri was Academy-nominated for Best Original Score. He’s also worked on Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Jonah Hill’s Stutz, which you’ll hear a little about in this conversation. Earlier this year, Mosseri released his first album of original songs under his own name, which is called Heaven Hunters. It’s a really personal, intimate record that sounds best on a pair of quality headphones, as it’s sort of cinematic and somehow also small and quiet. Check out one of Eisenberg’s favorite songs from Heaven Hunters, this is “My Greedy Heart.”These two get right into a great chat, talking about the various neuroses that fuel their art and stifle their ambition: Mosseri even talks about choosing whether to spend money on his therapist or an awards-season publicist. Eisenberg talks about his experiments using AI on a script—they don’t go well—which leads to a discussion about whether AI will impinge on creative jobs like theirs in the future. It’s a great, fun chat—enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Jesse Eisenberg and Emile Mosseri for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the great written pieces at Talkhouse.com. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got a pair of musicians who create with an air of mystery, but who have a fantastically straightforward chat here: Ethel Cain and Adam McIlwee.Ethel Cain is a character created by Hayden Anhedonia, though one that’s been sort of all-consuming. Anhedonia began releasing music under the name in 2019, finding her sound and her vibe over the next couple of years before releasing the absolutely epic Preacher’s Daughter in May of 2022. The album, a concept collection about the life and ultimate demise of Ethel Cain, skillfully moves through sounds from a sort of Gothic Americana to slowcore to ambient sounds to who knows what, exactly, other than it’s thoroughly engaging. The album was pretty quickly hailed as a masterful debut, and Cain found herself not only the darling of the music world, but with some prominent modeling gigs as well. As you’ll hear in this chat, though, the spotlight has gotten a little bit bright for her taste lately. She’s currently on the European festival circuit, though she’ll head back to the States in October for sold-out shows at really interesting venues. Check out “Crush” right here.Cain and today’s other guest, Adam McIlwee, go way back. He was an early supporter of her music, and appears on her Inbred EP under his most prominent alias, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. Though he started his musical journey as part of the pop-punkish band Tigers Jaw, he’s moved in a dozen other directions since. He founded the emo-rap collective GothBoiClique back in 2012, which briefly counted Lil Peep among its members. As Wicca Phase, though, McIlwee combines synth-pop with more acoustic sounds and more hammering beats, depending on the track. His latest release under the name is self-titled, and it just came out in June. It’s well worth checking out. In fact, check out “Moving Without Movement” right here.Now for two people who’ve created such interesting mystiques, this is a refreshingly down-to-earth conversation in which they talk about trying to carve out space as middle-class musicians who don’t expect to conquer the charts with their music—but who’d love to be able to make a decent living at it. They talk about what to do when you hit a touring wall—this chat took place not long after Cain fainted onstage in Australia—and how great Vicks Steam Inhalers are for singers. Hey Vicks, you might have a couple of spokespeople here if you play your cards right. Enjoy.Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Hayden Anhedonia aka Ethel Cain and Adam McIlwee aka Wicca Phase Springs Eternal for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform, and check out all the other podcasts in our ever-expanding network. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan, and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by the Range. See you next time!