Streaming services have ensured that we have immediate access to an endless array of media. When you open Spotify, you can listen to thousands upon thousands of songs. This would seem on its face to be a positive—who wouldn’t want to explore essentially the entire human history of music? And yet, with so much power at our fingertips, what might we lose?
When introducing their new album The Spiritual Sound, out in October via The Flenser, Agriculture speak of a “quiet violence in how music is consumed today.” This quiet violence comes in the form of corporations pushing algorithms on us to feed us music, sell us music as lifestyles or aesthetics, or delivering music as a passive vibe rather than something to be experienced. In other words, the art in music is replaced with marketability.
With The Spiritual Sound, Agriculture chose to rebel against that violence. With their 2022 debut EP The Circle Chant and their 2023 self-titled LP, Agriculture boldly displayed their “ecstatic black metal” sound. Their riffs are harsh, their screams intense, and yet their sonic intensity welcomes feelings of cathartic melancholy and jubilation. They aren’t singing about worshipping Satan or destruction, but rather confronting their grief and creating healing from their music.
The Spiritual Sound is a beautiful extension of Agriculture’s artistry. Weaving in themes of Zen Buddhism, history, and queer/AIDS literature, along with pulling inspiration from the likes of Bob Dylan and classical composers, Agriculture have crafted a record that rewards both deeper and repeated listening.
I recently spoke via phone with members of Agriculture: vocalist/bassist Leah Levinson, drummer Kern Haug, guitarist Richard Chowenhill, and vocalist/guitarist Dan Meyer. In our conversation, we discuss Dan and Leah’s approach to writing—some of the themes on the record—but we mostly dive into their thoughts on the “quiet violence” pervading modern music. The band opens up about the concerns they see around them, their intentions with The Spiritual Sound, and what gives them hope for the future.
Treble: Leah and Dan, I’d like to start by asking about lyrics. You both have such distinct voices. “My Garden” feels grand and philosophical, whereas “Flea” comes across like an intense slice-of-life vignette. What are your approaches to writing?
Leah Levinson: I’ll speak for myself with this: I imagine what sort of voice and tone the song needs, and then try to find what the subject matter to meet that is and try to find how to deliver that subject matter. Sometimes a line emerges out of what’s needed, specific phrasing or something like that. So, for me it’s rare I start a song like, “it’s gonna be about this,” and it’s more I start a song with musical ideas. One person I’ve talked about who I was reading on a tour and who is pretty influential to how I ended up writing lyrics on the record is David Wojnarowicz and his book Close to the Knives [A Memoir of Disintegration]. That’s an AIDS memoir that’s also about being an artist, being in community with queer people and other artists, while also watching his friends die of AIDS and caring for them. It’s a really incredible book; even political whatever aside, the writing in it is just amazing. I found that super influential to me. Similarly, I got really into a filmmaker, Derek Jarman, he was another artist working during the AIDS era. Things about his films really resonate with me in their like, sort of what I was just saying about my approach to lyrics, he’s very associative and delivers things through images, scenes, conversations, and a lot more abstraction, but they’re narratively driven films. They’re not experimental films. […] That sort of approach was really influential to how I was writing. It’s like: how can I write about what’s going on in my life and in the lives of friends without harping too much on points we all already know, talk about, and hear about all the time? I wanted to give a more affective version of what I wanted to talk about.
Dan Meyer: I write pretty differently than that. I learned a few years ago that, in order for me to write a song, I have to start out didactic. I have to have a point, and it either has to be image based, narrative, or sometimes I can write a series of images that are sort of associative. Bob Dylan is a really important figure for me, a really important influence. He talks about this too, sometimes you can do that. You’re in a state of mind where images come up and they work together. But most of the time I think that’s kind of impossible to stimulate, it just happens sometimes. With Agriculture, mainly, I’m trying to make a point. I feel that a lot of the songs on
this record are extremely straightforward, the ones I wrote lyrics to. “The Reply,” it’s just a story of a guy thinking about World War I and walking to the ocean; there might be a little bit of absurdity to it. It’s funny, that is definitely the most autobiographical song I’ve ever written for Agriculture.
There’s this sense that, I think, basically everybody has that we’ve lost something by gaining everything, and that we need to limit ourselves in some way.
Treble: What intention was there in creating a “spiritual,” or at least meditative experience with The Spiritual Sound?
DM: Titles are important because they tell someone how to listen, or at least provide an indicator of like, “hey this is a way to approach this music you’re about to put on.” Calling it The Spiritual Sound was very much like, “hey you might get more out of this record if you approach this from a spiritual angle that makes sense to you.” There was definitely intention there, but it’s not prescriptive by any means.
Richard Chowenhill: To add to that—for me, if you think about a religious text, people generally who practice that religion return to that text over and over. There’s sort of repeated readings through life, it walks with you through life, and you return to it. Something that, for me, has always been interesting—and a lot of this has to do with my training as a composer and the world that I engage in that way—is the value of repeated listening. Because that’s something that’s interesting to me and something that I value, I’m interested in making music that rewards repeated listening. Something that you can return to again and again and either get something out of it because you’re simply a different person today than you were yesterday, and/or because you’re hearing things you didn’t hear before.
Treble: I want to take some time to dive into your point regarding the “quiet violence in how music is consumed today.” To start, when I think of Spotify’s algorithm, having a machine find music for you rather than you discovering it for yourself feels impersonal. What are your feelings on this as it potentially relates to how music is consumed?
DM: There’s been a really substantial shift in the way that we approach information in all facets of our lives these days. As human beings, it used to be that the challenge was to get information and get access to various forms of media; now, the skill is not gathering or accessing but is sifting and limiting. Rather than trying to get more, our job as human beings who enjoy art, is to limit ourselves. Because it is possible to be consuming information and art from the minute that you wake up in the morning until the minute that you go to sleep. I think it’s an important skill to develop now, how you limit that.
There’s this sense that, I think, basically everybody has that we’ve lost something by gaining everything, and that we need to limit ourselves in some way. That’s the important thing I think about with the algorithms. You shouldn’t have access to all of the recorded music in human history at all times, that’s crazy. It’s of course wonderful but it creates a situation where, as a listener, you have to create limits for yourself in order to get as much out of music as you did when those limits were just part of the listening experience. I think everybody has to figure out ways to do that. Kern basically only listens to music on the radio and has a few things downloaded; I started doing a thing recently where I only pick one or two records and that’s all I listen to for at least a week. Of course, having access to everything makes the experience impersonal, but also, when you buy a CD or a record, you’re incentivized to actually spend time with it. When you would buy a CD back in the day, you were just like, “man I just spent $16 on this, which is more than my entire Spotify subscription for a month, I better listen to this and get the juice out of this thing I purchased.” You would get to know the records well. We’re trying to make a record that, I don’t think it’s going to play super well algorithmically because it doesn’t make much sense that way, but I think it makes sense as a whole record.
RC: The passion is important. Dan talks about this sifting, which to me, the word for that is curation, in a way. Fellowship and critical thinking are important things that you would learn through music. Streaming services came out while I was already an adult; I grew up in the East Bay and most weekends I would go to Amoeba and Rasputin and go crate digging. It was cool because there was an element of fellowship because the people who work there could refer you in a particular direction. The people who were next to you crate digging, it was very common that some oldhead would be standing next to me and be like, “oh kid if you like this one you might like that.” […] And while you’re doing that, you’re developing your own personal sense of taste, curation, critical thinking, and passion around things, and you’re making friends and having fun. I’m not gonna sit here and shit talk about the streaming services, but I will say, it’s a lot harder to make friends with Spotify than it is with a human being.
I think the point that we’re making isn’t that it’s better to have a CD. It is that it’s better or worse, depending whether you like it or not, there’s a sense of stakes to it. It is incredibly low stakes to listen to music now, and that’s not bad, inherently. I’m sure for young people that’s all they know and they’re fine with it and they’ll figure their own way. But I think those of us who are older do feel some sense of loss.
Treble: When I think about music being sold as a lifestyle, I think of Metallica shirts at H&M, or how some bands seem to exist just to sell t-shirts. Of course, as working artists, I understand the importance of selling merch. Does this resonate with you and that “sold as lifestyle” point?
DM: We exist as a band because we sell t-shirts. Our job is that we sell t-shirts and the way we promote those t-shirts is by playing music. If we were talking strictly economically, that’s just a fact.
LL: Weirdly, it’s also our most direct engagement with the money we make and with our fans. We’re often selling our own shirts at the merch table; that’s actually how we talk to a lot of fans and get feedback on our sets. We get cash in our hands; that’s one of the most direct economic exchanges in our lives as musicians. So, it is funny because it seems cynical, but it’s actually one of the more grounded exchanges in what we do.
RC: I will say, there’s a difference though, at least for now. We haven’t licensed our slogan, yet, to H&M or Target or anything like that. There is a difference between going to Target or H&M and you buy a Slayer shirt, versus, in order to buy an Agriculture shirt, you can buy it online, or the most common way people buy an Agriculture shirt is by handing cash to a member of Agriculture, and a member of Agriculture hands you a t-shirt.
DM: The ethical issue is curating everything into a vibe. That’s the thing that we’re talking about there [regarding music being sold as a lifestyle]. There’s no context to anything, it’s just like this ephemeral, floating piece of culture that one can do with what one wishes. That’s something I do think kind of sucks. Where it’s being sold as a lifestyle, it’s more like, how does it get decontextualized? I think it was Kylie Jenner wearing a Slayer shirt that people were really mad about at some point. Is it that she’s a celebrity and she’s wearing a Slayer shirt? There’s nothing wrong with that to me, it’s a cool shirt. The thing that I think is—I don’t have an issue with it but it’s maybe less comfortable—is that it’s totally divorce from what Slayer is. There’s no context for where that sits. I think it’s the decontextualization and the de-grounding [sic] of whatever the thing is, that’s the upsetting part. I think that’s the thing we’re trying to say—this doesn’t really make any sense unless you’re paying attention. It’s about mindfulness more than anything else.
Treble: Between the rising costs of being an artist, the rise of AI slop, and the ever looming issues of capitalism, it feels rough being a working artist today. When you think about yourselves as musicians, what is it that you see or try to do to fan the flames of hope?
RC: Something that gives me hope is anytime I go to a show. Whether it’s playing our show or going to somebody else’s show and seeing people in attendance. Community and fellowship—for me, what’s spiritual in music, that’s a big part of it. When we’re playing and I’m looking around and I look over at Dan, Leah, and Kern, and we’re sustaining and playing this blistering loud music that’s intense and we’re all going for it, and I look out at the audience and there’s a ton people right there with us, and we’re all in this moment together.
LL: I’ve been really inspired seeing a lot of queer and trans people I’m around who are younger than me doing these events that I think are so sick and so divorced from social media activity. I think that runs contrary to how we think of Gen Z being chronically online. The events I’m talking about: I have a friend whose been organizing Jello wrestling; it’s a bunch of trans people in swimsuits and bikinis on a hot summer day wrestling in a big tub of Jello. They do a full competition and have superlative awards at the end, and it’s just a bunch of people who got together. It wasn’t even publicly shared on social media or anything like that; there were photos after the fact, but it was not about that. It was a bunch of people hanging out in a backyard getting in some Jello. [Events like this are] organized by these younger kids who are using social media in this way of like, we can connect and then we can organize things, and then we can meet up. I think millennials, like myself, a lot of us came up right at the wrong time with social media to think it is something that matters. I think a lot of what I’m seeing from these kids is that it’s something they can use, and it can be whatever slop, but then it’s “OK, let’s hangout.” Or let’s hangout and make videos. I hope that that also continues into music. People getting together to play music together. Throwing shows to hang out and not with any ulterior motive, just to make music and hang out.
Kern Haug: I’m inspired anytime people are motivated to create stuff, versus consume stuff. Like, “oh I just have energy to make something; I didn’t have to do that, I spent money to make a thing happen.” I work at a community radio station, and I’m always in awe of how many people show up just to play a mix on our turntables. They’re like, I want to get in there and practice more, I want to create a mix to share with people, get good at DJing. No one is making money off this, it’s not going anywhere. But [people] finding things to do besides buy their identity or personality. It’s cool to see that there’s people actually motivated to do that. Bring their own sense of value to put into stuff.
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