Episode 178: Michael Zapruder

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Episode 178 of Look At My Records! features an interview with songwriter and composer Michael Zapruder. The Austin-based musician released his fourth full-length, Latecomers, in October of last year, a collection of sonically vivid tracks that delve both inward to dissect domestic intimacy and outward to examine the wasteland of modern American life. The album was a decade in the making and follows the 2010 release of Pink Thunder, a collection of free verse pop art-songs made from the poems of more than twenty contemporary American poets, including Noelle Kocot, James Tate, Bob Hicok, David Berman, D. A. Powell, and Valzhyna Mort. We talked at length about both Latecomers and Pink Thunder, plus we touched on Michael’s background, including his relationship with his two creative siblings, his time he spent in Nepal during his teenage years, why he was drawn to study music composition at a high level, his memories of recording at Tiny Telephone studios in San Francisco during the mid-to-late aughts, and more. Zapruder also gives us a little insight into what it’s like to score an opera and he picked some great records from Silver Jews, Elvis Costello, and more. You can follow along with his picks via the official playlist for Episode 178.

You can purchase Latecomers via Bandcamp. The album is also available on all streaming platforms, including Spotify. Keep up with Zapruder by following him on Instagram and liking him on Facebook.