TCC 34. Sermon of the Matriark - W4RP Trio


This episode of the Theorist Composer Collaboration podcast features Josh Henderson and Mikael Darmanie of the group W4RP Trio alongside their group’s recent collaboration with artist LiKWUiD, Sermon of the MatriarK. Music theorist Aaron D’Zurilla talks with Josh and Mikael about their background, process of collaboration on Sermon of the Matriark, creating art in the current political atmosphere, bridges outside academia, and much more!
W4RP Trio Contact:
Website: https://www.w4rpmusic.com/
Publicist email: sam@twntythree.com
Josh Henderson email: hobdyhenderson@gmail.com
LiKWUiD Contact: www.iamlikwuid.com
Listen to Sermon of the MatriarK: https://w4rp-trio.disco.ac/playlist-new/19176891?date=20241007&user_id=2500813&signature=tdeZUtPHNcl8mkGtSz0bH5YLMWo%3AxKlID3g1
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TCC Theme composed by Will Davenport
Performance credits for Sermon of the MatriarK:
W4RP Trio
Josh Henderson: Violin, Electric bass, Vocals; Mikael Darmanie: Keys and Synths; JY Lee: Cello; Rick Martinez: Percussion
LiKWUiD - Vocals
[Aaron] Welcome to the Theorist Composer Collaboration, a podcast interview series highlighting modern composers and music theorists. My name is Aaron D’Zurilla. I'm the host of this podcast and also a graduate music theory student at Florida State University. Today I'll be talking with Josh Henderson and Mikael Darmanie of The W4RP Trio about their collaboration with the artist LiKWUiD. On their group's most recent album, Sermon of the Matriark. I talked with Josh and Mikkel about their background, process of collaboration and recording, Sermon of the Matriark, creating art in the current political atmosphere, bridges outside of academia, and much more. So, without further ado, this is The Devil Went Down to Cackalacky via Georgia, from the album Sermon of the Matriark, and welcome to the TCC. Again, the music that you were just listening to is from the album Sermon of the MatriarK by the group W4RP in collaboration with the artist LiKWUiD. That leads me to welcome Josh and Mikael themselves to the program. How are you?
[Josh] Doing great. Thanks for having us.
[Aaron] Yeah, of course. I know you guys are right now on your promotional tour for Sermon of the Matriark. Congratulations on that release. All right, so we can, you know, on this podcast before, I've never actually interviewed two people at the same time. So you guys can go in whatever order, but how about you both introduce yourselves personally, professionally, academically, whatever you choose.
[Josh] Sure, yeah, I'm Josh. I play violin mainly and, you know, viola and some electric bass. I live in New York City and been there about 16 years.
[Aaron] I'm also, you know, I started to say this to you before we hit record, but I'm also a violinist as well. Now, not nearly as good as you, I would say, but cool, cool. And how about Mikael, how about yourself?
[Mikael] So I'm a pianist, and I play a few other instruments. I do, like, keyboard instruments. I play organ, harpsichord, and the past few years I started being really into synthesizers. love playing I'm a classical pianist but I started doing all these other genres with all those other instruments and I'm like loving how much more room there is for creation when I escaped the limitations of the beautiful genre of classical music
[Aaron] And that's one of the things that I'm very much looking forward to today because looking at both your bios, anyone would be a fool to say you're not classically trained, both of you, in many ways. And the way that you apply it to your music is certainly something special. And I love talking about those limitations and breaking them. So I'm sure we'll come to that. But so both of you, Josh and Mikael, you are two parts of the W4RP group. And can you tell us a bit about that? What is W4RP? And yeah.
[Josh] Sure. So yeah, our government name, W4RP Trio, which is a little bit confusing, W4RP, then Trio. We were started by the cellist of the group, JY Lee, an amazing cellist who went to Juilliard, just like very, very excellent, accomplished classical cellist. Started this group with the idea of starting some kind of chamber group that, you know, definitely did some traditional classical and stuff, but also, you know, we were starting it, maybe, you know, warped the idiom a little bit, did some things, you know, at the time we didn't really quite know, which is something a little bit different. So we met Mikael shortly after then, and then Rick Martinez, our drummer, played the first show. So yeah, so kind of born out of a piano trio tradition, but, you know, expanded with like percussion. And then like on this record, there's spoken word. We work with a lot of singers. So, you know, officially W4RP Trio, but, you know, it's a collective of sorts. Always a lot of people and things kind of going on on stage.
[Aaron] Sure. And so how long has W4RP Trio been around?
[Josh] Probably about like 10 years now.
[Aaron] Ten years, and Sermon of the Matriark just came out the beginning of January of this year. How many releases have you had up to now?
[Mikael] Two officially.
[Josh]8 I think four officially. The EP, and then Circadian Vibes, and then the COVID record. I think this is the first album we actually had like a designated like album release party. But yeah, I think it is, I think it's our best one so far.
[Aaron] Sure. And you know, you're one of the things I'm most interested in, in my classes and talking with people, because just to let you guys know a little bit about. myself as a music theorist what I study and what I like is popular music and to get that that can mean a million different things. So it's like more specifically hip-hop, rap and like top 40 pop. I really enjoy and I also teach the songwriting course at Florida State as well, and I'm always interested by genre. What does genre mean and like how we categorize music? And quite frankly, from that people as well. You know, like, is that good? Is that bad? But also like, you know, just talking about the effects that music has. And so that's a roundabout way of me asking, how would you guys describe your music in W4RP Trio? It has a mix of so many different things. I mean, obvious classical playing. Obviously, but you also have a lot of like popular music stuff going on. You got drum kits, but then you also have spoken poetry, spoken word as in this album. So, you know, does genre matter so much or how do you guys classify your music?
[Mikael] Well, you know, multi-genre is a thing people are saying today and cross genre. But, you know, to me and, you know, you're a violinist and theorist and coming from classical music background. You know, one of my favorite composers to this day, no matter what I do, Mozart and Bach are, you know, some of my favorite writers of all time and musical minds. And they always had this kind of cosmopolitan fusion of things that they embedded in their works. And, oh, that's a Turkish dance in a Mozart sonata, but it's not obvious. Or that Brahms connections with Hungarian music. And so there's always been kind of like inspiration from outside itself because I think people got tired of the art forms of the minuet. Yeah the kind of archaic forms. And it's cool to see how they've always been kind of revamped you know neoclassicism etc. and so I feel like genre crossing has been something. Crosspollination has always existed in music and I think labels are for you know, marketing and for other things. It's not that important to us. That's my take, but maybe, I don't know, Josh might have a different stance on it.
[Josh] Yeah, I think, like, just like what Mikael said, the label thing, you know, we are in this business of music, and we do need to sell the music, whether you're, you know, Hilary Hahn playing Tchaikovsky's Concerto, or you're, Lil Wayne trying to translate a record, you need to have some kind of means that's easy and just, you know, efficient of disseminating your product. So I think labels and especially with like the way that the world is with Spotify and stuff like that and that the all -powerful algorithm, if things are easily codified and classifiable into these very kind of tight strict lines and that's good for you know whatever music business overlords who are kind of in charge of like where this music is going and how can we kind of disseminate it properly. And you know that's cool but like Mikael says, I think it can be useful, these kind of lines if you're just want to really want to hear up -tempo house music or something like that. So you can go to something and get that automatically like very very very quickly in 2025. But you know I think that's nice but with our group, and a lot of other groups, so you know and I hope you know as we get so saturated and inundated with that level of categorization that people start to get bored of it. Just because it's like they didn't you know the 1700s and like oh I'm going to throw a little Turkish March in here and this Mozart thing or Romanian Rondo or whatever. That we can hopefully move kind of past that and audiences and people were more into just like taking in experiences and just like all right I'm just going to hear some music I'm not going to think so much about it. So yeah we kind of put out this record in particular, it didn't necessarily start off being hip-hop new music, but there's an organic connection with Faye, who goes by LiKWUiD, our collaborator. I've played in her band for many, many, many, many years. And we were like, oh, can you do a track? And then it turned into a few tracks, and then it just naturally evolved into this thing that doesn't really have, like you said, there's hip-hop influences, a little heavy, there's heavy modern whatever, quote-unquote contemporary classical influences. And it's just like it all kind of serves the purpose of the storytelling and then the whole. And sometimes you can do things with spoken word that you just can't do with the violin and vice versa so if we have all these things at our disposal why not just use them all to tell the story and give this message regardless of like whatever the genre lines might they may not be. And we will see what happens you know?
[Mikael] We also like chamber punk
[Aaron] Chamber punk, I you know I can't say I've actually heard that one that's good. Yeah I love the conversation that you guys are having with that. And before we get on to Sermon of the Matriark what we're talking about today, I want to pause again to talk about some more labels. One thing that I'm also very interested in is how people, not just their music, but identify themselves. You know this show is called Theorist Composer Collaboration. I've had on a fair amount of people that do not consider themselves composers and certainly some other people, who I may not always enjoy speaking to, may not consider them composers because they don't meet some threshold. You know I've had people who call themselves producers, artists, you know, just performer, even though they write their own music, they call themselves a performer, you know, and I'm sure you guys are familiar with all the different taglines you can call yourself. Do those sort of labels matter so much to you guys? What do you consider yourselves? Composers, artists, performers, so on.
[Josh] I think I call myself a lowercase C composer. But I think I’m primarily a violinist performer, but yeah to me it doesn't really matter so much. I'm you know all my schooling has been in violin even though I do a lot of other things and I think those designations I've been thinking about this recently because there's something like you brought up like producer. And I feel like that word in particular could mean like so many different things. Like what is a producer? Like I'm a producer, I've never touched an instrument in my life. But I'm a producer, I have money. I'm financing things. It can be a world of things. Yeah, I think I probably identify more as just like a guy playing music than anything else.
[Mikael] Yeah, I would say a similar answer. Just a performer that improvise and then sometimes those improvisations lead to things that I write down and you know sometimes other people play them.
[Josh] Sometimes people give us money to
[Mikael] Yeah Josh is a real composer, he's being very humble he's an often sought out composer and arranger. He’s really really great at that.
[Aaron] Fair, fair. You know, I've come of a mind after, you know, I'm only 23, but growing up and going through graduate school and meeting so many artists, I'm of the mind that it doesn't matter so much either, but it's always interesting to see how people perceive themselves. All right, so let's talk about, other than you two, of course, and W4RP and LiQUiD, let's talk about the subject of today, which is your brand new album, Sermon of the Matriark. I guess I'm going to leave this real open ended. However, you guys want to tackle it. If anyone, you know, the links are fully in any platform that you're listening to this right now. Links to download, stream, purchase the album are available in the episode description on any of those platforms. It's close to pretty explicit what the meaning of the album is. But just for fresh listeners can. Can you give us a bit of a rundown of the story and the message of Sermon of the Matriark?
[Josh] Totally. Well, in just kind of a nutshell, it's just like a celebration of Afro-Diasporic, matriarchal, kind of folklore, but also just like life and just like that period. And as you said, it's a collaboration between ourselves and LiKWiD. We kind of, it kind of was born from, we were just all just reading different things. Myself. I was reading some stuff about witchcraft. I think in like mainly the States and then I was really struck by, I was into that for the the woo woo aspect but then when I got out of it was like oh this is so much more about you know, power dynamics. And just like how people you know, in certain situations whether it's like different classes or genders whenever there's an unequal an unequal balance of power how the person that is not, you know, uh with a lesser amount gets you know villainized and demonized. And at least these things are kind of thrust upon them in the context of us reading of you know women and like witches and you see that with black and white and rich and poor and all these different power dynamic things. And when we were, I kind of brought some of that stuff to Faye, LiKWiD, and then she's just such a brilliant writer and just wrote like a novel of things and we were like oh we have a couple ideas for some tracks and this is getting very loose kind of coming together. And then, which is a beautiful thing about collaboration where things can be very very disparate and like spread out and then they kind of congeal into some kind of thing. In our case an album. And, you know, she, obviously, she's a woman and we can't, you know, we can write music and stuff like that and about feelings and whatever, but she can, she's, she has experienced this. So she can really direct, you know, verbally and just eloquently and beautifully all these things. And then we can, you know, use the text and use our clinical production skills, musical, instrumental abilities and craft this kind of world around that.
[Mikael] Yeah, I would say everything that Josh said has been the vibe of the creation of it. And in addition to like witchcraft and folklore and American folklore, we were digging deep into. Faye and I both have kind of loose, I mean, I grew up in the Caribbean and Faye has this connection from South Carolina where she's from, to Gullah Geechee, which is this really amazing kind of interesting bloodline of people in history in the Carolinas and in the South. So just really digging into the mysticism as well as the folklore of these cultures, but also how that intersects with writers like Assata Shakur, James Baldwin, just to name a few, Maya Angelou, etc. what is the overall message and we had all these themes so it's almost this fantasy on you know letting these thoughts marinate so there are kind of some figures that emerge throughout it but it's not like this is our characters. And it's not in this narrative in a certain way but it's this kind of all these elements are kind of together in the same nebulous.
[Aaron] Sure, sure you know in the context that you're releasing this album early January 2025 you know it's hard not to think about political and cultural context in which the music is existing. And in some ways you know the album is there even though there is, well more than just mention, but grappling and dealing with turmoil. There's also celebration in it too it's not just despair. But I'm wondering, what headspace you all or maybe even just you can just speak about yourselves, what you're in when, in a time where I guess you could say politically or maybe that doesn't matter so much to you? But just culturally in America, we have a time where issues of just a, It's so much deeper than it than DEI and so on. But there's so much cultural disrespect and displacement in conversation and you can take this answer however you want or whatever direction but what was it like working on this project and releasing it at a time like right now?
[Josh] Yeah I think it's a great question and I think you know all, not just music, but all art needs to be reflective of humanity. So that's why like AI music art is probably not going to be a thing, even if they can technically do what we do, draw a painting or whatever. But yeah, I think it's so interesting how you know maybe like a few months ago October, September you were, it was like oh well we could go we could go this way and that'd be like a really amazing crazy new direction for the country like we could have this person you know running it whatever. And that'd be wild. Or we could go this way and you know we went one way, but just like the dichotomy of that how kind of close it is and that's just like we have these two you know blue pill or red pill and that's like so wild. That it's like we could even in the lead up to this we're like oh this could be like a such a cool album to come out and if like you know we take this blue pill um or I guess that doesn't work out but, I didn't think of that. The album could be very like coming out it can be seen very you know celebratory and joyful good which it is there are so many elements of like joy in there. Or you know take the Morpheus's red pill and then it can be like almost like a subversion of like oh we have to you know, not despair. But that's where we are so it's like a conversation that's never going to be done but it's probably in our lifetimes, unless the aliens come or whatever and we all get on the same page. But it's a conversation that we have to have like as humans and it's like the reality. Like there is a spirit there's aspects of the album, and of course the stories that are they're not happy and they don't come from a great place. But, you know, with music and like art, we can take those things and like, you know, be like, here's where we are. We can look towards, you know, brighter days. There's work that needs to be done by like everybody. And, you know, whatever, whatever small, not that we're out here, you know, on the front lines, marching on Washington and like, you know, fighting in the Civil War and stuff like that but you know whatever little part we can do as like musicians to just add to the that conversation and be like here's you know we're we haven't like forgotten this. And we're still kind of working towards something better and positive.
[Mikael] I think about this often of you know especially in the classical music world. I mean so much from in the pop world where things are reactionary and immediate and fleeting and ephemeral, like does a work of art especially, a large classical work or something that's written in response to a global event or some specific event like is it able to exist detached from the event from the meaning from the thing it is reacting to? And that that's why we, I think at our goal everything Josh said was like just to add to this conversation and not have any kind of specificity in a certain way, but just be specific about the things that are always there and the things that has always been a struggle in this country.
[Aaron] Certainly. Those problems, although it may feel better or worse, don't necessarily change with whoever's on top. And that's a problem of on top, but so on. And, you know, this is an anecdote from a friend so I didn't hear this firsthand. But a friend of mine, Russell Avelianosa, who is a composer at University of Florida, a Filipino-American, and he wanted to do a piece of work talking about hypocrisy of white liberals uh which in a university setting is very funny and I enjoy that. And he called the piece “White Noise” which I also thought was great it, was a great piece. I saw it performed and at the time when he was working on it a composer Anthony green, I don't know if you've heard of him. Yeah, he's a really cool guy. He came and did a masterclass at University of Florida, and he met with the composition students. And I remember Russell was telling me about his meeting with him. And I remember something that has stayed with me because, you know, it's not a surprise. I'm white and I don't, you know, it's harder for me to fundamentally understand some things because I can't, in a lot of ways. That's a whole other conversation. But this is something that Anthony Green said to Russell that has stayed with me is, Russell was telling Anthony about all the things he was feeling what he wanted to put into the piece and, you know, the anger and some of the frustration. And Anthony was like, you know, that's, that's great. I really love your concept. But he said, always find joy with it. Always find peace. In your own identity, not just anger and so on, which I don't know. I remember at the time I was like, oh, wow. You know, when approaching a work like that, you know, maybe it maybe it seems obvious speaking about it right now. But at the time, I was like, oh, that's very enlightening. But and I really appreciate that about your guys's work with what you were just saying, Mikael, about, you know, acknowledging but not being frozen in time. So going a little bit off of the heavier subject, how long has this album been in the works? I know you were, Josh, you were talking about like the evolving collaboration of it, but how long has this been in the making?
[Josh] We recorded like, I think like a year and a half ago we didn't mean to be a melee. We did a few days. Yeah. Most of the stuff. And then my, my grandfather passed away. So I had to go to the Bay Area for a funeral so then we were like oh we'll resume in a couple months. And about like it's, January now so about like a year ago we kind of wrapped everything up. And yeah before then there's some like old pieces that we kind of never recorded and we kind of reworked and revamped them to be like oh this could be, you know, for a designated track. But before that, I don't know maybe like six months.
[Mikael] Yeah yeah, maybe two years and you know just eight days of, you know, six to eight days of recording and just a few email collabs and phone calls. But not that much time together and stuff. People live in different parts of the country in the band, like some our drummer Rick Martinez is on the west coast in Portland, Oregon and our cellist Young Lee lives in um Providence, Rhode Island. We're in New York. So, when we get together, it's potent and concentrated. But a lot of times it's an idea and we go off and kind of do our thing and work on it, let things marinate.
[Aaron] Sure. And, you know, I'm really curious about that, that recording process. We've touched on it a little bit, but, you know, one thing I want to highlight is, you know, the W4RP Trio is made up of all men, male identifying, I believe. And the album, Sermon of the Matriark, and many of the themes have to do with LiKWUiD, your collaborator, the spoken word, the things that they are saying specific to black female experience. And I'm wondering, especially now knowing that it was such a concentrated time of collaboration, like a pretty intense period. What was that like for you guys, you know, recording, working through and bouncing off of each other, especially with something that I don't know how much you both have in your own experience with maybe women in your own lives or with LiKWUiD or what was that experience like with those topics?
[Josh] Yeah, I think that's a great question and I think it's hard to like, if we were going to be, for example, like people have hit us up in the past and be like oh hey would you guys want to do this grant like strangers for like whatever blah blah organization to write a piece? And it's like okay cool I'll sign a piece of paper and see what happens and you know, nothing happens because there's nothing there. It's two stranger parties who are trying to work, you know. It's cool if we can make stuff happen but there's no history or there's nothing there. But something like this I think we have to, if we look on from the outside and it's like oh wow that is like kind of a crazy thing. But I think because we've like known Faye for so long was such a long history of collaboration. I, on the first day I met Faye, aka LiQWUiD, well Rick and I, Jermain; the group were playing in another band like 15 years ago at some burlesque show or something, something crazy. And then she was just ran at her friend, was dancing and she like came up to me. I was like, oh, this is you just see me close up. Oh, that's nice let’s be friends. Let’s play together or whatever and I was immediately like oh, this lady reminds me of my youngest sister. You know, it is an immediate friendship and like connection that's there and you know through many many many years of projects like this and like other things and there's just a familiarity like a kinship of family aspect. So, it's not like, I also grew up with like all sisters. So it's you know we can talk about these subjects and really do something like a project like this and it's genuine and it's like from the heart. And of course all the guys in the group have known each other for so long like myself and Gina have played together since we were children, it's over half our lives. So it's not like there's no, it's like your family, there's a lot of things you're less afraid to say. You can just be natural and just let things happen without trying to force them or you know things don't feel weird, it can just like everyone do this thing and it's like cool because there is that that history and that the chemistry and that that that time that things have developed and like cooked. So when you produce something it doesn't feel unnatural or weird or forced it can just happen. And in the studio we worked with a wonderful record label a phenotypic recordings which is pretty new but they're a label that donates a lot of their proceeds to charitable funds. And the producer Steve Pressman was, this is particularly interesting to me, he's like older middle-aged like white male, very very accomplished classical pianist and just a brilliant guy. But he was doing a lot of the production stuff and like you know it's like being in school, all right take 9,000 Josh is out of tune. And it was so cool to me to see him producing. Again with Faye rapping and again, we're on the same team, he's trying to elevate the music and the art so that the message is super clear. And just to see him respectfully you know, coaching all of us being like oh Faye this delivery and this rap lyric like we need to watch it out for that. I was like this is so cool but it wasn't like any kind of weirdness, which is you know props to him for being able to be, all right it's my job here to make sure this is awesome, how am I going to do that respectfully? And like to not step on in toes? And I was like that's really amazing to see. I feel like stuff like that doesn't get celebrated enough. But, yeah I think we're all on the same page, you all know each other for a long time so it was able to happen and you all want it to be good so when we're testing out whatever lyrics or just like combinations of things it can just it can just work.
[Mikael] And I just add to that that at the initial phases of the collaboration, like figuring out what this was. Because we had an offer for an album so then we were like okay what are the puzzle pieces that fit together? All four of us were immediately like okay Faye came to mind, LiQWUiD, came to mind immediately. And in the initial phone call it was like you know we were thinking of a track featuring Faye to kind of celebrate our nine year, ten year relationship of them performing with us, like it's been a long beautiful relationship. And just Faye and I are friends and it turned into an hour-long conversation of history and family and all these themes of mythology and folklore, a very deep conversation. And then, you know, and also she had another conversation with Josh and it was like, one track can't contain it. I was like, this is cool. It kind of just grew from there in this way of like, oh, this, there are phases and there's this kind of LiKWUiD as in orator or a leader or narrator through this thing. So it just kind of took its own shape. It wasn't like women and whatever buzzwords. It was more like it was, you know, cliché to say, but it was very organic how things emerged.
[Aaron] Yeah. I mean, I didn't doubt it whatsoever, but it's good to hear that it was organic. I never doubted that. I'm smiling because I'm thinking about, I would never put on blast someone so hard, but there was this one composer in my undergrad who, he ended up writing a piece that was about gun violence. But that's not how it started. He started with the title and then he found the subject, which I thought was just so anyways, it was a, it was a fit.
[Josh] I have a joke but I'm going to refrain from. Yeah, I don't know. I was just going to say that I always like to give somebody the benefit of the doubt. And say that the creative process, like if it spoke to them.
[Aaron] Yeah. All right. No, no, no, no. That, that, that is true. I will say it was a fixed media piece that used real sounds. I'm just going to say that. And that, yeah, that was a, I'm going to stop talking about that because, but yeah, no, no, I try to give benefit of the doubt too.
[Mikael] Speaking of frozen in time in a way.
[Aaron] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How about, you know, since we're kind of like promoting the album here, we're promoting what you guys are doing. What are you guys, so I know that you guys are on tour right now. What is the whole album release, album rollout, you know, performing? What's going on with you guys? What are you doing?
[Josh] Yeah, we had a really big release show in New York a couple of weeks ago. Super, super nice. Wonderful opener and really packed room. This tour is because, you know, we booked up so far in advance and we're playing some stuff from that, but you know, phase them with us on this particular run, but we're like, it's interesting too. We're all out in like the, the cowboy states right now. We're in the Quality Inn, in Grand Junction. And so it's been cool to, you know, I'm of the mind where I don't want to beat people over the head with like the message and stuff like that. So like, you know, obviously, we can talk to crowds in Brooklyn, which is where the release show was, in a different manner, and we should talk to the crowds in maybe a more conservative Wyoming town or whatever we're going slash coming from. But we can still slip in what we're trying to do here. Like one of the pieces in the last track is a setting of this Asada Shakur poem, "To My Mama". So, you know, I'm not going in, we're not going in just being like, all right, yeah, Black Panthers, let's go. This is like about this, but you can get what she's trying to get across. Like, hey, this is about like complicated relationships with family. And like, you know, this is the freedom fighter Asada Shakur, check out her poetry, you know, dig more into this. We project up on, we've been doing it so the audience can just see. An audience that might not necessarily seek that out or that could be totally against it if it's you know coming at them from a certain you know certain tone. But you know, I think that's the cool thing about what we can do as musicians, is go in these spaces and we're going we're heading to Casper, Wyoming and then we're in like Spearfish, South Dakota and all these little places like this. And we can talk about these things and also bring people in to the conversation, have them be like let me think about that. And here are these people that maybe there not a lot of people who look like this around here, or not saying these things. But also like not like finge-wagging or whatever. But here's a conversation, join in this conversation. How can we, you know, make this conversation better, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's on this kind of leg of the tour. And all tours, you know, there's always something like that that we can give to, like, when you see our election maps and stuff like that. Like, because, you know, there's so little conversation between these sides of people. So how can we do that? Whether it's rolling out an album or just playing music for people. So it's been it's been cool to play like I said it was booked before even album things and you know these kind of tours so we play the show and then we have LPs, CDs of the new album and people are just curious and they come in buy. But it's not like this is you know, we're not beating yeah down in people's heads or anything so it's kind of cool to see this kind of curiosity emerge from the little bit of nuggets that that are fed.
[Aaron] Yeah I'm sure it's, I’m sure this may not apply to you guys so much because you clearly are so experienced. But I feel like for some that might be a nerve-wracking experience. But it seems like it's kind of cool and collective with what you guys are doing.
[Mikael] Yeah I've been doing it A long time.
[Aaron] Sure, sure. It's like you said, having a longer perspective of history than being too bound up in the moment. Well, before we move on to more general topics about music, your industry, and so on, is there anything else you guys want to share about your new album?
[Mikael] Check it out. Give us some clicks.
[Josh] All I'll say is there's a kind of bonus, and I think it'll be added on, I think, the label and everything. But the middle suite in the piece is synced to a film from 1903, like one of the early, early silent films. So that's a little extra bonus feature that, you know, kind of a little Dark Side of the Moon, Wizard of Oz, more specific.
[Aaron] That's a cool easter egg. That's neat. All right. So, in the last part of this podcast, I like to get real general, maybe a bit philosophical. We already kind of have been. That's what I like to do, even in my own research and such. But I always leave this super wide open to any guest. I want to ask both of you, Mikkel and Josh, what does music mean to you? And you can take that any way you want.
[Josh] Yeah I feel like to me it's a form of communication and that's universal, even if you can't hear there's still music that can convey, not necessarily information, but just like maybe vibes is probably like a less scientific term. But a good one. I think we all get the connotation of that so, you know, the internal music of the workings of our body and music of the universe, planets moving around. I started to read a really cool xixi and lou short story about that, making music with like the sun and stars and this very beautiful imagery of an intergalactic entity. I don't know if you read comic books but like like Galactus, from planet eater type of thing but they were a musician and they traveled light years to make these symphonic things with the cosmos and a season who's amazing and I'm butchering you know the beauty of the story. But it was this, I love the idea of it just like this this communication thing that, you know, can transverse galaxies and it's just like an almost magical form of um communication that we can't always you know concretely define but it's a connective tissue between all of us in some way that's deep.
[Mikael] But also spoilers man I love sushi.
[Josh] It's a short story it's like 10 pages highly recommend reading the three body problem trilogy.
[Mikael] I don't know about that series the YouTube the dead tech series. But yeah my answer would be you know similar things you said philosophy and theory. You know, Josh was kind of tying in the Boethius, like the Greek kind of the classical analysis of music in a way and I think I’m so with synthesizers and everything I’m so obsessed with studying electromagnetism now and waves and everything and how the hell can a note be played on a violin that creates this vibration of ear molecules that reaches the inner ear. And the vibrations of the bones kind of tapping against these intricate circuits. So I mean I think we're just fortunate no matter what one believes spiritually, philosophically, or religiously it's just like we're just fortunate no matter what. I mean there's many degrees of that luckiness but I think all the great things it's the, in a cliche way, it's the unspoken. It really is the unspoken. It's just like my journey into music when I was almost a teenager, when I was like 12 13, and I was you know I was in the Caribbean Trinidad Tobago’s. Which I like how the back of that flag in the back it's like the colors of the Trinidad flag rearranged in a different way. And I was, you know, starting to do all the crazy things that wild young people did unleashed. And then my grandma was like you need music in your life, some culture or something. So they wanted me to take piano lessons and I was like this is corny what am I doing this. I kind of skipped for a year, I was not into it. And then I used to visit my family in America once or twice a year. And then I happened to come back and there was, for a visit, we had an encyclopedia on CD-ROM at that point. And I was like going through all the things and I heard a Chopin Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2, the famous E -flat Nocturne. And it was just a 30-second clip because CD-ROM was so limited then in the 2000s. It was like I heard nostalgia. I heard hope. I heard bittersweetness. And I didn't understand how a piece of music just evoked that, not knowing anything of theory or harmony or, you know, what made a melody. But it just hit me that, you know, music is such, it can speak to whoever and it depends on where you are in your life. So it's almost like prayer or meditation or something or anger or it really is the totality of us.
[Aaron] Yeah, yeah, I really love that and I find your story about the Chopin nocturne. To transition, my what next question is going to be, what does music theory mean to you? And I'm going to take my small soapbox and I want to say from what you said with the Chopin Nocturne, that's really what music theory means to me. One thing that I do at the start of my songwriting course, which is for non-majors, the songwriting course is really an accelerated theory course that forces you to write music. That's basically what it is. But my first the first day of class, you know, we go over the syllabus and then I give a short lecture. And I always tell them, you know, I'm going to play for you my favorite piece of music ever. And I tell them this is not my favorite piece of pop music, not my favorite piece of 50s, 60s music, not my favorite whatever. This is my favorite piece of music, period. Everything. And it's true. It's Stand By Me by Ben E. King. That is my favorite piece of music because to me it has such an emotional connection that is absolutely unbeatable for me and for my life. And there's different things in it that signify that to me. And it's like you're saying with the Chopin piece. You know, in my opinion, music theory, for me, is a guide to explore that. that like unobtainable connection that you feel, you know, what you were experiencing the Chopin piece, you know, like there's chords, there's reasons, there's suspensions, there's, you know, all sorts of fancy words, but ultimately that's all in service of what effect it has on you. Stand by Me, the reason why I use that in class is technically speaking, it's so simple. It's such a simple song for the most part, but that doesn't discount what happens when it comes together and what experience people have from it. And so that's what music theory means to me. That might be really general, but you know, I study chords. I study, you know, improvising chord progressions on the piano. I have to do voice leading, blah, blah, blah, blah, all these things. But really that's all in service of that unspoken, that you said. To me, at least. And so that leads me to ask, what does music theory mean to both of you?
[Josh] Yeah, I agree with that in totality of what you just said. I love music theory. I was always really into it. I had really great music theory instructors. And I look at it like you have to like you're not going to know, you know. James Baldwin, Shakespeare, these people who write the Bhagavad Gita, these wonderful works of text art, Eminem. It's not just random, it just happens, but we can look at the grammar, which I look at as a parallel to music theory, like the study of language and theories like the study of you know how we kind of quantify these musical feelings and emotions and you know to help us out so that we can do it you know more and like maybe even more so better or have an idea of like how things kind of work. Or just like physics just like studying like the universe but we have to, can't just be like the universe is a very big awesome thing, but we have to have some kind of language to discuss it to talk about it. So it necessitates some kind of code, like language, grammar, physics, music theory in order to just like you just said to do that to supply, to bolster to add to the emotion to the human and spiritual and universal nature of these the phenomenon. We the quote-unquote the good stuff like the actual music, the actual writing, the play, the actual supernova that happens. And yeah you have to understand it, on some level, I should say. You don't have to necessarily be like, okay, I know this scale really works over sharp 11 chords. But on some level, you need to know like, okay, when I do this thing, it kind of creates this kind of result. And that's like a little squishy way you can describe something. Or you can you know why not just have the exact word okay, I could play this lydian scale over this like thing and you know like it's going to do something. So it's like a method of efficiency too, which you know it's just like the language we have language which is developed to discuss things like this.
[Mikael] Yeah I really like Josh's answer about tying music to language. I have this feeling that music is this very rich, deep language. It's almost something like cuneiform type A or something, because it's like, we can see all the symbols and everything, but there's just one missing Rosetta Stone of translation to what actually, to actually give meaning. So I think it's like, you know, people like I've read Schnakenberg and these kind of theorists at Yale who liken, okay, here's Derridean deconstruction and let's use that as an analysis tool. So, you know, what the fuck am I talking about? Like post-structuralism, like using the way that linguists analyze language in the same way of theory of, okay, what gives meaning in structuralism? What gives meaning in post-structuralism? And so that same way I think music is like almost, meaning is almost there but that gap is the beauty of the untranslatable. I think that's where you can hear the same Chopin and be like oh this is a happy beautiful piece or whatever or I hear something and say this is happy and you're like this is the most tragic thing, like Mozart. So many people say they hate Mozart, and I think Mozart is, or they're bored by Mozart, I should say that. A lot of musicians, they're like, classical musicians, it's like, yeah, but Beethoven is more interesting and fun. I think Mozart has this understanding of that language of music and how to use it in its totalities, as well as Bach. And so the way I ground it in theory is that I see what is our baseline. And that every possible note is some degree of tension. So I think of Western music as this play of tension and release in this harmonic sense. So then certain notes are far away from it. Like Josh was saying, what works with the Lydian scale? Some things don't work, but then knowing how to angle back home and everything has this kind of elastic pull to tension. And I think Mozart was the best at knowing where this tension releases. And I think the best composers of the Western tradition are ones that use that and play with subversion. I think subversion is one of the most interesting tools in classical music. So theory is this really cool tool to me. As a pianist, it just came naturally because we have to think vertically. It's almost like we innately do it as pianists and we have to, our dilemma is we need to liberate ourselves and be horizontal. Or as opposed to a lot of single instrument you know I just did a violin thing, single instrument people are more like linear and horizontal so it's a lot of it's a little harder and there's like this everyone has an innate feeling of like where does this resolve, but then I like theory because theory highlights what's unnatural about music and the things that are the most unnatural are usually what makes them so special.
[Aaron] I love that answer. I love that answer. And so, you know, I think you two are in a very interesting position in a lot of ways. Both of you have quite the institutional experience, but also you have quite the commercial music experience. You know, a lot of people that I interview on this podcast, this might not be surprising, are about my age. And at this age, for the most part, there are some extra special people I've talked to. But, you know, I am from an institution and I'm part of it. I teach a class at it, Florida State University, music theory degree. And for the most part, you know, you the people I interview are either, now, this can be a loaded word, but commercial, so they're not part of the building the name and so on. And then I interview people who are getting their doctorate degree or I’ve interviewed adjunct and full fully tenured professors on this program who are the institution, not just part of it. And but both of you have had feet in both parts and it seems like good experience with it. Well, not quality good, I don't know, but you've had a fair amount of experience in it. And so I'm wondering, how do you guys see yourselves, W4RP, W4RP Trio, LiKWUiD, what you do and your art, how do you see that in relation to institutions, to academia?
[Josh] I think that's a great question. I mean, I feel like academia is in an interesting place like today at that time of interview and I'm you know I'm constantly of like two minds myself about it. And I teach adjunct at like NYU it's like private students and chair music in Longy school over in Boston, and you know I like teaching and like the I've been the recipient of just very so much just generous and wonderful teaching. And I, as much as I can, help out the next you know crop of kids, you know, make sound on a wooden box and pay the rent like I’m happy to do that. And it's really exciting to me and I learned so much stuff from my students, but the whole institution thing, because like you know it's just like it's just like expensive and it's like you know it's not like it was generations before us where it's like okay you go, there's a couple schools you go to really and then you get an orchestra job. And it just made more sense and things didn't cost as much. And I think institutions themselves are also questioning should we be doing this, I mean like the good ones the honest ones, like is this helpful? So I think like you know our place as a group we do play you know performances and stuff at schools and that's great I think a cool thing about institutions is that they can be it's, you know, they get a bad rap for being a bubble. But it's nice to have a bubble sometimes, especially, you know, for a limited amount of time where it's like, I'm going to be in this little thing for four years or maybe a couple of years from doing grad school. And I'm going to experience a lot of different types of things that I might not necessarily experience. I think that's especially like people like, you know, our parents when they're coming into school had that experience this magical thing you can maybe come from a smaller community and you might not necessarily have a group like us or like international contemporary ensemble or like Jay -Z come to your school and do a college show or Jack white or somebody. But like you know I think groups need to you know parlay with institutions and for the sake of providing just like new viewpoints to folks that are in the institution and you know attending and it's like a part of that. And also like the opposite, like people need to, I think it's hard to be in one world for so long. Like if you're just a tenured professor that's what you do all day every day and you just, you're just in the bubble, I think that's not healthy either. So there needs to be a healthy amount of communication with attend the institution and also just the community around it and how you know those things can help each other, and also bringing in things from other parts of the world and other communities to help and you know have that exchange of communication
[Mikael] Sure that's a beautiful answer. I would just add that the academia is in an interesting state this particular musical academia is in a state of identity crisis, I think. You know, there's a saturation of amazing players that are coming out. And there's also a saturation of non-amazing players because universities need to survive and self-sustenance. And I don't think our group in particular is necessary, but I think, like Josh said, new opinions and like, okay, who's out there doing what? Especially that we are from these generations of like, when it started drying up, the ever-available symphony job. Or the string quartet is this medium that there were hundreds of string quartets touring all over the world. Now there's a handful of those that are household names. And, you know, like Ataka is an amazing quartet with something like Sony behind them. But a lot of those opportunities don't exist for other classical kind of traditional groups. So it's like everybody's scrambling what do we do how do we stay relevant and it's sometimes it's funny sometimes it's really inspiring, sometimes it's goofy, but everybody's trying and it's kind of interesting to see where that goes. I say we're not necessary but I do like the fact that other, there are other groups that are starting to do this and you know things are starting to change. I think san Francisco conservatory is kind of interesting let's see how it goes but like the way that okay, now we're a university with a conservatory with a record label, with a recording studio, with a management company. So all we can do is wait and see what that gives. But we, you know, we love the, some of our favorite things are going to these colleges and universities and conservatories and shaking things up a bit in air quotes. we don't think we're shaking things up but just for their zeitgeist and for their like oh it's different it's cool that we're a little older and have been just been doing it for a bit and we love sharing the message and the crazy weird shit that we're have been doing.
[Aaron] And honestly you know it is to many it might be crazy weird shit but given the possibility of what's out there, it's certainly not even close. And, you know, it's like a couple of things to say about, you know, like opening up more. Yeah, I think for students, it's an OK bubble to be in, but I think it becomes really problematic. when it's the professors that get real firm in their office, you know, metaphorically and sometimes literally. I'm not going to name the theorist who said this because they are one of the most famous in the history of the field and they're still living and working and it would be career suicide if I name dropped them. But they, but it's something that they once said that really has stuck horribly with me. I think it represents a lot of issue with this sort of thing is they said, if composers are stocks, who are you buying and who are you selling? I see your faces. That is to say that as an academic, as a professor, as a theorist, you know. You hitch your tag to the composer and then you get the success off of that. And I don't remember the musicologist that said this, but one of the things that's also stuck with me in a decolonizing class that I took was citation is political. And so is analysis, you know, platforming. I congratulate the universities and the places that you're playing at. And yeah, I mean. you know just exposure to music that is a little bit different than the canned. You know I think the Society for Music Theory the big national organization, has made actually great steps in recent years. I think they're doing really great but also you know contemporary composer sessions are still about Ligeti and John Adams and William grant still which is not contemporary at all. I mean they are amazing composers, all the ones that I just named, but it's also it's very funny because to a lot of people in the room yeah that's brand spanking new. But uh no not in the slightest not in style and literally time and so on. I think the field's made a lot of great steps but uh Mikael I believe you said you know, identity crisis. That is right on the money. If there's one thing, as you might be able to tell from me, if there's one thing music theorists like to talk about, it's what the fuck are we doing?
[Josh] I just have a quick funny thing about what you just said about new music being taught as, you know, Ligeti. Yeah, yeah. I was doing a project on Henry Cowell. I was writing a piece based on his stuff. He has this kind of, and he has a problematic history and et cetera, like a lot of whatever, but there's this musical autobiography that he recorded, which is interesting. It's him talking and then pieces from his career emerge. And he's talking about his upbringing of being a violinist and studying violin and piano at the, I guess, the turn of the century, 20th century. And he said his teacher, it's like none of this new music no Brahms none of this Brahms new music and that was already 40 years after. You know, only Mozart and Haydn. And I was like that's so funny that Cowell, so that to see how far that jump into you know modernism yeah that so I just you know just commenting what you said it's the ages age old problem.
[Aaron] Yeah it'll keep going. It'll keep going in that fashion. You know, hopefully one day you guys are getting papers presented on by young theorists, too. You know, that's the point of this podcast. You know, this music is just as valid as any sonata from 100 years ago, you know, in my opinion. You all are not stocks. I just make clear. All right. All right. You know this, I've loved this conversation. This is the sort of stuff I love talking about so much. And we're kind of coming to a close here. But, you know, just to wrap up, it's funny to ask what's next for you guys because you just hit such a big milestone and you're still kind of in the moment of it but uh what what's coming up for W4RP, Josh, Mikael you know individually as a group what's going on?
[Josh] Yeah we’re on the road now. Just back on the, you know, on the that that grind which is always super fun. Maybe you love it and are you know already starting to think about the next project. I think that's the thing with these albums. It takes a couple years to get going, but then you're kind of over it. That's the thing with the next thing we're going to do. Thinking about that and just new ideas and trying to commission some folks and get all the funds together and write some grants and just keep on doing what we're doing.
[Mikael] Keep on keeping on as they say.
[Aaron] Certainly, certainly. And so what would be the best way for the audience to contact you guys, whether W4RP Trio or Josh Mikael individually?
[Josh] Yeah, I mean, just warptrio@gmail.com it's spelled normally there just w -a -r -p -t -r -i -o at gmail.
[Mikael] Or we have the ww's.
[Josh] And yeah and Instagram we respond to the messages you know if you send us a dm or whatever.
[Mikael] And Facebook if that still exists and we're not on Blue Sky yet but you know we're getting there. You know we're easy to find. Then like our personal social media can be found easily through those things too.
[Aaron] And, you know, this has been a great conversation, and I want to end out. I always do this just similar to the, what does music mean to you? This is as open-ended as it can get. So, Josh, Mikael, if there's something else that you would want to say about music, composition, life, anything, what would it be?
[Josh] Just keep on doing it. All those things. Live. Live. I was trying to make a live, laugh, love joke, but I couldn't think of it. Compose, listen, live, listen. Kind of right.
[Mikael] Let me say something and he'll think of it.
[Josh] Live, listen, learn. Awesome, awesome. I'll virtually see myself out there.
[Mikael] But I just add, that's beautiful. I'll add to that, don't, people have this hesitance to put things out. Like of course like have a be a good critic of yourself but don't like no one's going to hear your if you don't put it out. So that you know for musicians like you have your recital for you know for musicians in college and conservatories you have your big senior recital in April or whatever. Don't perform in April for the first time in front of an audience. It's not as precious. It is the most precious, beautiful thing, but it needs to, it grows when you're out there performing. It grows when you're, and just like composers, put your things out, especially in the academic world, like that network of people that you're with form these relationships, like forge these collaborations because the older you get, the less time and the less frequency you have to workshop things. So that's, that's one of the. Things I always say is produce, but don't be afraid to put your things out, especially with social media. Like you never know what could happen.
[Aaron] You never do know. You never do know. Well, thank you, Josh, Mikael., For coming on to the Theorist Composer Collaboration, sharing W4RP Trios and LiKWUiD's Sermon of the Matriark. A wonderful album. This has been a great conversation. I'm so happy to have you both on. It's been great to meet you. And thank you very much.
[Josh and Mikael] Thank you.
[Aaron] Hello, this is Aaron again, and I want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Theorist Composer Collaboration. I also want to give another big thank you to Josh Henderson and Mikael Darmanie for coming on to the podcast for sharing their group's album in collaboration with LiKWUID, Sermon of the Matriark. The W4RP Trio's contact info is listed in the description, and I would appreciate it if you could show them some support. For further updates and notifications on the Theorist Composer Collaboration, make sure to follow our Instagram and Facebook pages. You can listen to future episodes through our host website, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and YouTube. So make sure you subscribe to the platform of your choosing. If you want to monetarily support the work of the TCC, you can click the link to our Buy Me a Coffee page. All donations are highly appreciated. All the relevant links to follow, listen to, and support the show are in the description. TCC episodes are posted every other week on Mondays, and don't miss our blog posts, which go live a few days before a new episode is added. Make sure to follow our social media accounts and relevant streaming platforms, because you won't want to miss it. But until then, this is Aaron, and thank you for joining the TCC.

Aaron D'Zurilla
Theorist/TCC Founder
He/Him
Aaron D'Zurilla is the primary host and founder of the Theorist Composer Collaboration. With diverse research interests in both modern classical composition and rap, Aaron has presented work at the 2025 Indiana University Symposium of Research in Music, with a paper titled: “Guess Who’s Back: Narrative Subversions in The Death of Slim Shady (Coup De Grâce)". In a currently forthcoming presentation, Aaron will also present at the 2025 Analytical Approaches to World Musics Symposium on the Music Theories, Histories, Analysis, and the Musical Cultures of Asia, with a paper titled: "International and Personal Tragedy in "A Vietnamese Mother’s Letter to Nixon" (2023)". Aaron also has a forthcoming publication through SMT-Pod, titled: "Trauma and Vocal Timbre in Ellen Reid’s p r i s m (2019)"
Aaron holds a Bachelor's of Music in Music Theory from the University of Florida and a Master's of Music in Music Theory from Florida State University.
Contact:
acdzurilla@yahoo.com
941-773-1394

W4RP Trio
Artist Group
Described as a “talented group that exemplifies the genre-obliterating direction of contemporary classical music” (Columbia Free Times), W4RP Trio is an internationally touring cross-genre chamber music experience. Reflecting the combination of Juilliard trained members juxtaposed with members steeped in rock and jazz styles, the one-of-a-kind ensemble can be seen performing classical works in prestigious halls on the same tour where they headline a standing room only show at a rock venue. In addition to their electrifying public performances, they have gained a reputation for their innovative educational workshops with students from grade school through university level. Their groundbreaking original compositions and collaborative works explore myriad musical traditions and styles, as well as important social issues.
W4RP Trio’s collaborative partners range from orchestras to hip hop to jazz and pop artists. They have performed mind-blowing original orchestral programs with the Des Moines and Louisville Orchestras, as well as the Chesapeake Orchestra, Palaver Strings, and New York City’s Urban Playground Chamber Orchestra. In popular music, W4RP has long standing collaborations with spoken-word artist LiKWUiD as well as vocalists including Mirah, Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez, Claire Wellin (of San Fermin), and Rich; W4RP recently opened for Icelandic jazz-pop sensation Laufey at the Caroga Lake Music Festival.
Publicist Email: sam@twntythree.com
LiKWUiD
DJ LiKWUiD, born Faybeo’n LaShanna A Mickens, is an award-winning hip hop fusion artivist, DJ,…
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