I can listen to music in the conventional pop or rock idiom, don’t get me wrong (and I often do), but it’s the stuff like this–stuff that challenges notions of song structure and execution, stuff that dares me to listen not in that overly-ostentatious way that some artists do when they think they’re being edgy, stuff that flat-out feels painful and uncomfortable to listen to–that totally blows my mind every time.

I think stuff like this is to me what virtuoso music is to people that think normally–it’s something I “get,” and quite readily, but it’s something that I will never be able to do.  When I want to hear something that blows my mind, when I want to hear some shit that is so far above me that I can’t even pretend to be able to fuck with it, I throw this, or Storm and Stress, or DNA, or Anthony Braxton, or John Zorn in the stereo and just go “shit, man, I can’t fuck with this–it’s just that good.”