Unsung Podcast

<p>THIS WEEK ON FROM THE VAULT we revisit episode 25 and our dive into Never Better by P.O.S. It's a great example of what this podcast does best, and we hope you dig this episode if you haven't heard it before. In the intro Mark talks a little about what's happened to P.O.S since too, specifically around the allegations made against him in 2020, his apology, and where he is now. </p><p></p><p>Original shownotes follow:</p><p></p><p>Folks, we did it. We managed to find a hip hop record that Chris Cusack enjoyed. We're fairly sure that this is one of the signs of the apocalypse so we're probably just going to end the podcast here. Thanks to everyone who listened.</p><p>Joking aside though, this is a screamer of an album. People have been drawing comparisons between punk and hip hop since...well, forever. The line between the two is drawn pretty clearly on this album. P.O.S himself was a punk kid, but growing up in the cultural and musical melting pot that is Minneapolis meant that there was a great deal of other influential music lurking just around the corner. Indeed, the diversity of the artists that come from the city is telling of the city's cultural and creative landscape. And did we mention that it was the home of Prince, perhaps one of the masters of genre-hopping?</p><p>This is P.O.S third album, and like every album before or since, it's a singular musical, tonal entity in his oeuvre. He's artist that never wants to cover the same ground twice, and whilst we all couldn't necessarily agree on if each of his records are successful at melding together as many disparate influences as this one, we all certainly agreed that this is his best work. And we all agreed that this should indeed make it into our discography of unsung classics.</p>

<p>You may be shocked to hear that Lift to Experience made one album. One. A ninety-minute double CD concept record about the apocalypse, set entirely in Texas, written by three boys from Pentecostal and Baptist backgrounds who genuinely believed they had something to say to God. And then, more or less, they vanished.</p><p>In this episode we cover the Texas Jerusalem Crossroads in full — the vision behind it, the religious fervour that powered it, and the question of whether you need to share any of that fervour to find the record genuinely moving. We'd argue you don't, and the band themselves seemed fairly relaxed about that.</p><p>We also get into the wider story, which turns out to be just as compelling as the music. The album that couldn't be bought in its home country for years. The label that mixed it without the band present and broke their hearts. The tour that never happened. The beard competition. The sandwich grill.</p><p>Along the way we ask a question that feels increasingly relevant right now — what does it actually mean when Americans start singing about Texas as the site of the final battle between good and evil? In 2001 it seemed like a grand artistic conceit. In 2025 it feels a little different.</p><p>Is the Texas Jerusalem Crossroads the unsung post rock record with actual things to say? We think so. But it's a ninety-minute album, so you've got time to make up your own mind.</p><p>Highlights:</p><p>00:00 Intro and Whether We’re Actually Living in the End Times</p><p>03:11 Album Introduction</p><p>04:46 Millennium Anxiety</p><p>09:17 Band Origins</p><p>11:19 Sound and Influences</p><p>12:22 Post Rock With Vocals?!</p><p>17:33 Name and Release</p><p>19:48 Religion and Meaning</p><p>25:46 Art Versus Belief</p><p>29:46 Lyrics and Apocalypse</p><p>32:00 Track Highlights</p><p>33:51 Shoegaze Favourite Track</p><p>34:50 Dynamics of Cloud Nine</p><p>36:27 Maximalist Texas Vibes</p><p>37:03 Album Art Joke Explained</p><p>38:56 Religion and Tech Rants</p><p>40:53 UK Success US Absence</p><p>44:22 Recording Struggles and SXSW Myth</p><p>49:19 Bad Mix and Band Fallout</p><p>53:17 Aftermath and Cult Legacy</p><p>56:02 Reunion and 2017 Reissue</p><p>59:41 Remix Reviews and Changes</p><p>01:02:42 Apocalypse Talk and Final Thoughts</p><p>01:07:45 Outro</p>

<p>This week we're throwing back to June 2018, when this pod was only six months old. Things were simpler - the research was less onerous, episodes were shorter (this would easily be a two parter these days), Dave was still part of the crew and the world wasn't ending...</p><p></p><p>Godspeed You! Black Emperor don't really do brevity. They do epic, sweeping, often joyous, always elaborate, suites of music that are designed to move you. They're thorough, crafting songs with painstaking attention to detail.</p><p>In keeping with the spirit of the band, we thought we'd do the same, so we present to your our longest episode yet. But trust us when we say that it's probably up there with our most interesting listens.</p><p>We dive deep into the band's back catalogue, stopping along the way to talk about the politics of the band and yes, we do offer a take on some thorny subjects. With this band it's something that can often be inseparable from the way their music, and image, is presented, so it had to happen.</p><p>The Foo Fighters Nexus also returns (jingle pending) and Chris has a full on GY!BE superfan nerdgasm, while Weaver whacks his politics degree on the table and Mark takes issue with the label "post-rock".</p><p>This is a fun and captivating listen.</p><p>We understand that the title of "best Godspeed album" is a contentious one, so we're intrigued to see if people agree with our decision to include this in our canon Unsung classics.</p>

<p>You may be shocked to hear that musicians sometimes lie about who they are. Some may say this is not shocking at all - it's almost a tradition. But there's a meaningful difference between Ziggy Stardust and a band from North Dakota claiming to be a Chinese black metal act to game the press.</p><p>In this episode we try to map that difference. We spend a healthy portion of time on what we're not talking about - aliases, concept bands, anonymity for anonymity's sake - before getting into the genuinely murky territory of bands that have used fabricated identities for commercial advantage. We cover the fake Zombies that toured America simultaneously in 1969, The Masked Marauders and the elaborate Rolling Stone prank that accidentally became a real album, Silibil n Brains, Dundee rappers who got signed to Island Records on the strength of their American accents, before discussing Ghost Bath, the project that brought this whole phenomenon into focus for us.</p><p>Along the way we also get into AI-generated music, Milli Vanilli (and why what they did is arguably less dishonest than what plenty of current pop stars do routinely, and a genuinely unresolved case involving a supposedly Iraqi black metal band that may or may not have put its members in real danger.</p><p>The question running through all of it: does context change how we hear music? And if it does — what does that say about us?</p><p>Highlights:</p><p></p><p>00:00 Introduction</p><p>01:24 Catfish and Hoax Bands Explained</p><p>02:11 Patreon</p><p>05:10 Famous Death Hoaxes</p><p>05:42 Mystique Versus Scams</p><p>09:02 Not Aliases or Roleplay</p><p>10:43 Anonymity and Masks</p><p>13:23 Fake Touring Lineups</p><p>19:03 Concept Bands and Bits</p><p>24:28 AI Bands and Deception</p><p>27:54 Outright Music Scams</p><p>30:13 Milli Vanilli Then and Now</p><p>30:53 Pop Star Fraud Culture</p><p>33:39 Mask Marauders Hoax</p><p>35:20 Orion Elvis Impostor</p><p>38:50 Platinum Weird Backstory</p><p>40:25 Syllable American Rap Ruse</p><p>43:38 Jana Mystery Metal Band</p><p>46:06 Velvet Cocoon Troll Scam</p><p>48:36 Ghost Bath Identity Debate</p><p>54:40 Context and Cultural Relativism</p><p>58:10 Ghost Bath Fallout and Ethics</p><p>01:02:53 Outro</p>

<p>WELCOME BACK TO FROM THE VAULT. That's right, on our off weeks we'll be pulling an episode from our extensive vault that we love and we think is somewhat relevant to goings on in the modern era.</p><p>And our latest episode is about Pashka by Shortparis. An episode which has been through into sharp relevance by the recent death of singer Nikolai Komyagin, who passed away in mysterious circumstances on Feb 20th 2026.</p><p>We hope you enjoy.</p><p></p><p>This week we’re joined by American artist and academic Rebecca Yurivna to talk about the Russian band Shortparis.</p><p>Shortparis is a Russian experimental rock band hailing from the city of St. Petersburg. The band was formed in 2012 and musically, the band are quite difficult to catagorise. They take in elements of post-punk, electronic, and avant-garde music with traditional Russian folk melodies and lyrics. Their sound is quite unique, and is characterized by intense vocals, complex instrumentation, and a theatrical stage presence.</p><p>More recent albums are almost exclusively sung in Russian, with the occasional lapse into English and French peppered throughout their career.</p><p>Chris is fairly new to this band, as are Mark and Rebecca, so it was fun to get under their skin. We also chat about their political stance, which until the recent Russo-Ukrainian war, was somewhat ambiguous in their music. This often contrasts with their videos, which are more overt in their pro-LGBT+, almost anti-Russian stance. Indeed, they’ve become quite outspoken critics of Russia snice the war.</p><p>In this episode we go through all of their records whilst also touching on the political situation in Russia today, and take a quick look at some other protest music that has cropped up in Russia since the war.</p><p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://soundcloud.com/rebeccayurivna">Check out Rebecca’s music here</a>, and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.instagram.com/rebecca_yurivna/">give her a wee follow on Instagram here</a>. It was great to have her on the show. Hopefully we can link up again soon!</p><p>Let us know what you think of Shortparis on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.facebook.com/unsungpod">Facebook</a>, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.twitter.com/unsungpod">Twitter</a> or <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.instagram.com/unsungpod">Instagram</a>.</p>