Lost And Sound
Lost and Sound is a podcast exploring the most exciting and innovative voices in underground, electronic, and leftfield music worldwide. Hosted by Berlin-based writer Paul Hanford, each episode features in-depth, free-flowing conversations with artists, producers, and pioneers who push music forward in their own unique way.
From legendary innovators to emerging mavericks, Paul dives into the intersection of music, creativity, and life, uncovering deep insights into the artistic process. His relaxed, open-ended approach allows guests to express themselves fully, offering an intimate perspective on the minds shaping contemporary sound.
Originally launched with support from Arts Council England, Lost and Sound has featured groundbreaking artists including Suzanne Ciani, Peaches, Laurent Garnier, Chilly Gonzales, Sleaford Mods, Nightmares On Wax, Graham Coxon, Saint Etienne, Ellen Allien, A Guy Called Gerald, Jean Michel Jarre, Liars, Blixa Bargeld, Hania Rani, Roman Flügel, Róisín Murphy, Jim O’Rourke, Yann Tiersen, Thurston Moore, Lias Saoudi (Fat White Family), Caterina Barbieri, Rudy Tambala (A.R. Kane), more eaze, Tesfa Williams, Slikback, NikNak, and Alva Noto.
Paul Hanford is a writer, broadcaster, and storyteller whose work bridges music, culture, and human connection. His debut book, Coming to Berlin, is available in all good bookshops.
Lost and Sound is for listeners passionate about electronic music, experimental sound, and the people redefining what music can be.
Lost And Sound
Adam Wiltzie – Stars of the Lid
What began with nothing more than a four-track recorder, a couple of "crappy mics," and a friendship forged over Erik Satie records at university parties led to the quietly seminal influence Stars Of The Lid have had over ambient, modern composition and drone music over the past four decades. I spoke with Adam Wiltzie – one half of the project (the other, Brian McBride sadly passed away in 2023).
Against the backdrop of 1990s Austin – a city dominated by rock and country music – Stars of the Lid emerged with something radically different. Their debut album "Music for Nitrous Oxide" quietly initiated a revolution, pushing against what Adam describes as the prevailing white boy funk and laying groundwork for what would become a seminal force in ambient and modern composition. Now celebrating its 30th anniversary with a remastered release, Wiltzie reflects on those early creative days with the late Brian McBride and the unexpected longevity of their collaborative vision.
Wiltzie is so disarmingly unpretentious I almost gulped at one point. "I am definitely my own worst critic and I still love getting bad reviews," he confesses with surprising candor. This willingness to embrace imperfection has fueled a four-decade career spent continually moving forward rather than getting stuck in pursuit of perfection – a lesson valuable for creators in any medium.
Most poignantly, Wiltzie shares how Brian McBride's passing inspired this anniversary project, bringing memories of their formative creative partnership back to the surface. The reissue serves not as nostalgic celebration but as a "time capsule" documenting how two university students with minimal equipment created atmospheric soundscapes that seaped their way into the water influencing generations of musicians working at the intersection of ambient, drone, and modern classical composition.
Listen to Stars of the Lid’s music:
Listen to Music for Nitrous Oxide (30-Year Anniversary Remastered):
Follow Adam Wiltzie on Instagram:
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If you’re looking for summer read and you’ve not read it yet, check out my book Coming To Berlin, a journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.
And if you like tales of punks outwitting the establishment, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.
You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind-the-scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up.
Hey, it's Paul here. Welcome back to Lost in Sound, the podcast that goes behind the scenes with people shaping music and culture from the underground up. So sometimes the stuff that shapes and influences the direction of music is really loud and direct and comes out of really big, obvious moments of cultural shift, moment of cultural shift. But also sometimes people make work whose influence sort of seeps quietly and unassumedly into the ether and grows over the decades in influence. And you could definitely say that about my guest on today's show, Adam Wiltie, one half of the seminal Stars Of The Lid. But before we get going lost and sound, sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica, a global but family-run company that make headphones, microphones, turntables, cartridges. They make studio-quality yet affordable products because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So wherever you are in the world, head on over to Audio-Technicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Okay, let's do the show, shall we? Thank you, hello and welcome to episode 175 of Lost in Sound.
Speaker 1:I'm Paul Hanford, I'm your host, I'm an author, a broadcaster and a lecturer, and each week I have conversations with artists who work outside the box about music, creativity and how they're navigating their life through art. So, whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's good to have you along. And, yeah, I'm coming speaking to you today from a back in about 2021, during the prolonged pandemic lockdown period. Back then, this bridge that I'm sat on right now was like one of these kind of meeting points where people, would you know, buy a pizza, buy a coffee, buy a beer, sit around with their pals, uh, stick their masks on to go in and get another coffee, all that kind of stuff. But now it's just like it feels a lot quieter here now. It's more like a regular bridge, but I'm have that little feeling of nostalgia of speaking to you right now from here. So, yes, today, um, on the show I'm speaking withie, composer, producer and one half of the quietly seminal duo, stars of the Lid, cassette recorder and initially not much else really helped pave the way for a certain nebulous space in music where ambient drone and modern composition whatever you want to call it collide. So on the 25th of july this year, their debut album, Music For Nitrous Oxide, is getting the reissue treatment.
Speaker 1:It's 30 years since it quietly emerged and I think it's really key here to consider what was happening at the time it came out. This is when at that time, 1995, the whole ambient thing was was considered in a very, very different way and I remember there was a lot more of a kind of new age chill out, rave, chill out room factor going into like what people kind of felt ambient was like. I think about to like things like the ambient music that was being made at that time, like the orb, which was like very synth heavy and also using a lot of samples, like quite a lot of like uh, like fun. You know that time when everyone just loved using samples in a really really like. Yes, we're just going to post-modernly kind of recreate, recreate all of life up until now in the music that you're going to hear and anyway. So stars of the lid, I feel definitely came from a very, very different energy. They were influenced heavily by Eric Sarti, but there was something very distinctly alt and American about them, something that couldn't have existed without having come out of the American post-punk 80s continuum, and the music that they made together directly shaped the path for artists like Johan Johansson and Max Richter, and I can hear influences in the work of friends of Lost in Sound like Kali Malone and Sarah Devachi.
Speaker 1:Stars of the Lids 2001 and 2007 albums. The Tired Sounds of dot dot dot and and their refinement of of the decline are regularly cited as landmark works. They also have incredibly classic post-rock album titles. Do you remember those really long post-rock album titles? And post-rock was also a thing that the group were kind of lumped in with. One of the the post-rock and stars of the Lids early champions was the acclaimed writer Simon Reynolds, who used a lot of terminology around that to describe them. And since then Adams continued to explore this sonic world through projects like Winged Victory for Lysallan, also composing for film, theatre and contemporary dance.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so in this conversation he reflects on that early period, the creative relationship with the late Brian McBride, who sadly passed away a couple of years back, and what it means to return to music for Nitrous Oxide three decades later. So yeah, the guy is incredibly self-deprecating. That's one thing I really really got out of the conversation. Uh, one point he says he's his own worst enemy. Uh, that he enjoys reading bad reviews of his work.
Speaker 1:It's a fun chat and you're about to hear it any minute now. But if you like the show bit of housekeeping here if you like the show and you haven't already, please do consider giving it a subscribe. It really, really, really does help. And also, what really really does help is like leaving the review of the show on the podcast platform of your choice. It really, really, really does help. I know I always go on about it, but I'm sure you know you listen to other podcasts and they all do it as well. We just have to do it. Is that that kind of thing we have to do? But anyway, back to the chat. We had this chat on July, the 4th 2025. And this is what happened when I met Adam Wiltzie. Thanks so much for taking time to speak to me today. I wanted to begin by talking about the reissue of music for Nitrous Oxide. What prompted you to revisit the album now, like 30 years later?
Speaker 2:so basically, yeah, it's. I mean, I guess in the end it ended up being it was 30 years and I'd kind of forgotten about it. But brian died a couple years ago and you know, after he died I started thinking about it again. You know, memories are coming up because you lost an old friend from a long time ago. So really it was sort of simple as that. I'd forgotten about the thing. I really hadn't listened to it. Honestly, about that long I wasn't really too happy with the way the sound quality was. So I worked with Francesco Di Nodello, my engineer that I work with on most of my records, and he remastered it, made it sound a little bit, a little bit more listenable. Yeah, that was basically it.
Speaker 1:That's no real diabolical plan other than just a 30-year recognition of time, right, yeah, and I'd be great, if that's okay with you, to ask you a few questions about yeah it's fine. So listening to it back now, with this three decades of distance, is there anything that you hear now like, particularly about, like the way you and Brian played together that you didn't notice at the time?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I definitely think that some of the early records that we did were I don't really it's really difficult for me to have reverence for, for art that I've created. I don't know why that is. I don't really feel comfortable in revisiting. I can appreciate it from um in the context of it's sort of like. So these moments in time where I just these placemats of my life so and they're all sort of as if they're children, and I don't really have a favorite child although that first one is probably my least favorite child, just because I don't think I'm not so sure it aged really well. I mean, people appreciate it for the time it came out and everything which is. It's nice. It's nice that it's still appreciated after all these years. But for me myself I it was the first one and I'm not so sure it was really exactly where I was trying to go. But you have to start somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's interesting that you use the word children for that, because I've experienced my own version of that when I've made music or when I wrote my book. In the way I relate to it is once something's out there. It's about other people's relationship, perhaps more than our own, and we just so you're someone I get the impression that isn't too sort of precious about, like nostalgia.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I am nostalgic. You know I take the work seriously, but I don't take myself seriously. But at the same time, as you were just mentioning, I look at artists, just like this one giant ball. Whether you're a writer, or you make music, or you're a painter, for me it's you're creating something out of nothing, and you create this thing. This being this, whatever you, however, you refer to your, your art, and then you send it out in the world and then, and there's a reaction that happens or not for a lot of us, that there's no reaction, and it can take a life of its own and after 30 years, for whatever reason, I don't know why, but the stars, the moniker and the things surrounding it, people responded. In a way, it somehow kept it alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the prodigal son returns, Something like that. Yeah, so going back to the beginning, you and Brian met in Austin. Can you tell us a little bit about what was going on at the time and how you met?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were at the University of Texas. We met at the old radio station back then it was only it wasn't even on the air, it was a cable radio. This would have been in 1990 and brian had a radio show and we became fast friends. We had a lot of similar music and concepts and we love collage music and it was really that simple just just met at the university, as as so many of us do yeah, there's a story about like you bonded over eric sarti.
Speaker 1:Is that just like yeah? Yeah at a party.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we both loved eric sie and you know during that era. Well, there's, all you know, questionably bad music going on throughout history. So that was the white boy funk craze was going on at the moment, which neither of us were too too happy with. So, yeah, putting on eric satie at a at a party was was frowned upon, but we bonded over it.
Speaker 1:So you actually put it on at the party.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I imagine that to the white boy funk at the time that was not, and I guess that was just like a little bit preemptive of grunge as well at the time.
Speaker 2:Oh, it was all. I don't remember when that was exactly, but it was all around that same time. Oh, it was all you know.
Speaker 1:I don't remember when that was exactly, but it was all around that same time. Yeah, and, and you, you know you described also as well before, like um, austin being like in a vacuum and you mentioned a little bit there about, like you know, the Eric Sarti and how do you feel like other people under the time understood what understood?
Speaker 2:what? Where you were both coming from, did you feel?
Speaker 1:like you had, like a language together.
Speaker 2:Oh, me and brian, yeah, well, I think we had a lot of doubts too. But I mean, austin has always been revered as a sort of a music city. I mean, willie nelson was from there, so the the type of music that was mostly coming out of there was, you know, mostly known for rock and country, and so I don't know where we fit. I don't think we I mean I think most people in the large. Maybe we're well known in certain circles, but I mean most people.
Speaker 2:Still, if you ask a normal person on the street, no one knows what starzl it is, or the concept of ambient drum music and all this. So at the moment we were a little bit of an anomaly, I suppose, considering the type of music that was out there. But I think that also sort of inspired us, pushed us on because of everything that was around us, and also it was hard to get a gig, which I can understand why would anyone want to give us a gig anyway? So, but it spurred us on. Spurred us on because there was really there was no community with what we were doing and no one liked what we were doing, which somehow gave us momentum.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the process, the process for making the album as well, did you feel like because, like you know, when we'll give you you gigs, it was perhaps like putting it into recordings instead felt like a better solution?
Speaker 2:maybe, I mean, you don't really know. We just, you know, we have friends, we have friends and bands, but taking cassettes to a club and places back then that's that's how you, that's how you would get a. Yeah, they didn't know what to make of it. So, yeah, we did, you know, did have a couple, couple shows here and there, but I mean it didn't really go very well and the reaction was just more of just stunned silence. No one really knows what to do. So but I think in general, I mean, you know, I can appreciate playing live, but I have much more comfortable working in a studio and crafting art this way. So I think it's, it's a safer place when you're just sitting there with your four track alone in your house. So we would, we would gravitate towards that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so, like the four track, that was quite important for that, particularly that first album. Um, absolutely yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about the recording of it, like what kind of equipment you used? Like, was it like some equipment, right, okay?
Speaker 2:that was it. We had that and a couple crappy mics, sm57 and the sort of a pzm like this flat metallic thin microphone we bought. There used to be this company that existed called radio shack, sort of a place, place where you could get uh electronic items. We bought, you know, a pzm back then was, I think, 30, 30, which was quite a lot of money for me back then. So that was our fancy room mic and, yeah, we didn't have any preamps, it was just guitar, direct straight into that.
Speaker 1:Uh, beautiful machine do you, I think, because I feel like limitations are kind of very key for a lot of good work. Do you feel like now that you still uh good work? Do you feel like now that you still uh use, find, like a use for limitations? Now I imagine you have like more, you know somewhat more access and choice, like you know, even just in the fact that any kid can kind of get ableton and get the whole universe of sounds. Do you, how do you reflect on that yourself in terms of like your creativity? Now, do you feel like limitations are still very important and no, I'm not so thinking about it so much.
Speaker 2:It's nice to have more tracks, um, I think it's. It's fine that kids can record. I don't really see a problem with it. I mean it's. It's also connected to the time of when I think about how.
Speaker 2:You know, we used to have to look for music back when I was in back in high school and early university days. You know there were no algorithms. We had to go to a record store or find out, find out via magazine, or I used to listen to to the, to John Peel back in the in the eight, that was to John Peel back in the 80s. He was a big part of my birth, of understanding the concept of an eclectic taste. I used to be able to pick up in Santa Fe. I went to high school in New Mexico. You could pick up the World Service once a week and I used to listen to sort of know, sort of a frankenstein put together peel show they put on, and that's how I found out a lot about a lot of music. So take that and also put it with you know the way it was making music versus the making music now are things easier? Possibly are people spoiled? Possibly? I just think it's just the world's evolved and this is where I'm not sure I'm along for the days. I can appreciate, you know exponentially people like peel, but I think that people like that still exist, but maybe not as profoundly.
Speaker 2:One person that touched so many of us back, you know who is, who is still around. It was a back then. You know whether you two or Nick you know. You know who is who is still around. It was back then. You know whether you two or nick. You know they probably have some nick cave who these old people that are still around you know. They probably all have a story about john peel, because I think they all probably thought about things through him. So maybe we don't have that per se. Maybe he was the algorithm yeah, I mean that definitely.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know you, you pay tribute to it's. On JP RIP I remember like definitely, I think it was 2003,. Wasn't it Like hearing the news that he had passed and it just seemed just, I think, like I felt quite winded. I think I feel like a lot of people that were into music at the time did as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was young and it was very unexpected. But I mean people like marion hobbs. Yeah, I think they do, and bbc6 in general keeps you know, they keep the spirit of what people was doing alive to a certain extent. Maybe not during the, during the certain parts of the day, but I still listen, and you know early, you know mornings and late nights. They're like they really push the boundaries a bit. Still so, and I I don't know if it's still six, but at least every time I switch on it through the iPlayer, I can still hear his influence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely Me too. I'd even argue that perhaps sometimes, occasionally, certain journals like the Wire or the Quietest sort of touch on that, but perhaps they're a bit limited in expressing an interest in certain genres they've already agreed to be interested in. I think John Peel was always very open to hearing neat things.
Speaker 2:And also, if you think about it, I people it's easy to slam on bbc for certain things, but I think the well, maybe I'm just biased, but I mean even things like they've got gay biggy papa radio show. I mean that's just sort of unheard of in a lot of circles. So I think that they're still pioneering good taste and they're trying. I think they're trying to do with wherever that money comes from the, the tv license or whatever you call it. I still think there's good, really great things coming out of them yeah, I, I do too.
Speaker 1:Yeah and um, still a little bit on that time, you know, mentioning about like eric satie at the party and and being kind of like very, very different from the music around at the time, was there something that particularly drew you both to the kind of slowness and the kind of ambience of the sounds that you both came up with? Was that? Was that something like? Were you already listening? You know you mentioned about eric sarti, but was there already like a kind of a lot of references for that, or was it just something that was very natural and organic to play like that?
Speaker 2:well, the maybe not necessarily sarti, I mean I I still feel most of the recordings of jim and petty's are played too fast. There's versions that are played a lot slower, but I think a lot of it was just connected with me slowing down guitar on the four track and playing guitar over it. So that opened up my, opened up my mind and also because of the four tracks bounce to two tracks and then you have two more tracks, and so two of the tracks were always slowed down. So that was just an early experiment and that was something I've and still to this day I'm always pushing towards. I remember when Dustin, when I met Dustin O'Halloran, we made the first win, victory of the Sullen record, all he remembers was just me saying, hey, can you play that slower? Can you play that slower? Can you play that slower? Can you play that slower?
Speaker 1:So I think slower. So I think it's just, it's just part of my psyche. Yeah, I mean, I know you're touching on the four track thing as well. I think that's a really interesting thing there that you mentioned picked up on that you mentioned because I, when I started making music, we I did my early stuff on a four track as well. And going back to the idea of limitations, you do have that thing that comes up where you have to decide when you want to bounce down. You know that, I feel, is very different of how people would record. Now, you know and I'm not trying to say one way is better than the other, but it's that idea of like going okay, this is, are we ready to bounce this down? Is this how? This part of the track, these two tracks?
Speaker 2:exactly you have to, you have to commit, you have to let go a bit, but that's it.
Speaker 2:That's a good thing definitely you know, you could always go back to the concept or convince yourself. I mean, when is a song, when is a piece of art really done? Anyway, I mean your book you could, you could write, always write another chapter, painting, you could always add another color, music, you could always add another sound. But at some point you have to. Someone has to put their foot down and you have to move forward. And this also comes back to one thing I'm glad I did at an early age is let go in general and just be done with it and move on to the next recording, because I have so many friends and colleagues that are just stuck and don't move forward and it's a really debilitating thing. And so it's, it's. It's helped me because I think with every record I still have doubts and still wonder you know, what am I doing? It's just garbage. So you have to trust yourself.
Speaker 1:Don't second guess yourself and just move forward definitely, definitely, I think, um, I think this, this idea of searching for perfection as well, can, can lead, often lead people to this never-ending kind of yeah absolutely yeah, and I think the other thing that I pick out about a lot of your work through through the ages is the, the way that silence plays a role in it. Do you feel like, you know, like quietness and silence, what? How does that sort of affect the music or what? What do you try and get out of that?
Speaker 2:oh, that's impossible to answer. There's too many intangibles to my. Yeah makes no sense to me, but honestly, something like that it's too difficult to articulate. I think, yeah, I just I love it. I love these moments of this, this where the reverb comes down and there's nothing there.
Speaker 1:It's just always something that I've gravitated towards yeah, no, I I fair enough, fair enough, totally. I guess it's like asking a comedian why is that joke funny? Yeah, that's a tough one, yeah, I mean. But I I guess, like there are a lot of people that listen to the music do connect with that that silence and the snows, and sometimes like feel like a sense of transcendence out of it. Um, and so I was wondering, like, for you, is there like a feeling of transcendence that you get from playing the music?
Speaker 2:you know when you're actually baking it I mean, there's these moments of not with all the tracks, but in general I always used to tell myself, okay, when I was sort of testing it out, if I couldn couldn't fall asleep to it, then it probably wouldn't make the record, and so there is something in there. This is also getting back to sort of trust and not so much believing in yourself. I'm still full of a lot of doubts. You have to find a way to sort of, yeah, go over the cliff and and go to the next one.
Speaker 1:so that's a big part of it is there anything that you feel that helps you with that, like that kind of sense of belief or just letting go?
Speaker 2:no, there's not nothing other than just letting go. You have to, you know. You know you're standing at the edge of the cliff at some point.
Speaker 1:You either jump or you don't right, so I guess a lot of people would run away from the cliff yeah, I mean, I think I think we're all we all do to a certain extent, I mean.
Speaker 2:But all these years later that's helped me. I mean, I don't think my music has evolved that much. Maybe I've technically maybe improved a little bit, but still kind of feel like I'm making the same crap I was 30 years ago.
Speaker 1:But doesn't that kind of feeds a little bit into maybe what you were saying about like kind of letting go and not trying to, you know, like being maybe being a bit critical and then just going on and saying, okay, I can go and do it again?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it will be self-critical is extremely important to me. Um, I am definitely my own worst critic and I still love getting bad reviews. I don't know why, but I find them very and it kind of helped me in a sense. Bad reviews, yes, bad reviews, are a very important part of life but what, what did you get Cause I know like.
Speaker 1:I mean, I remember like when my book came up, the first review of it was really bad, Uh, but I mean you can't, you can't expect people aren't going to.
Speaker 2:I mean can't, can't, please everyone.
Speaker 1:Hmm, but do you? Yeah, I mean like talking about critics. There was the sort of momentum that picked up with like, uh, say, I'm thinking of like simon reynolds, um, and you know you also, there's also like a little cheeky reference to him in the john peel sample that you used, um, well, that's that's john, that's john.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's john, I mean. But that that's the. I mean that's also from the, when I was recording those short. You know, honestly, if I think back like one of the probably the most satisfying moment of my life, life, musical life in a sense, was this, that moment when I just got, you know, I was recording, uh, that show in 94, 95, whenever it was, and peel started by playing, talking about the, talking about the recording, and played this song. I couldn't believe that I made the Peele show, also the, that wire article where they lumped us all into a category. I mean, you know, you have to categorize things. You can't.
Speaker 2:So I understand that you might not like it. You know I never. You know, there was what I was post-rock, and then now I'm certain circles, I'm neoclassical or whatever. It's, it's fine, it's it's it's another, it's another opinion and it's it's part of the whole musical landscape. So I might not agree with it because I mean, yeah, it's okay, it's so. But I, I think negative reviews, harsh reviews, I I think they're good sometimes. I mean, if it's personal or something is one thing, but luckily, you know, I pretty much stay out of it. So it's never really been. You know, the with the social media and the modern world getting getting into it, with people that write snarky, mean comments, I mean I, I don't, I don't get involved them and people are going to say what they want to say.
Speaker 1:So I think, uh, it's best to just accept it and move on again yeah, like so you don't really have a, you don't really kind of connect too much with it. You know it's not personal, it's like labels, just yeah but I mean it's you know.
Speaker 2:You know how it is. I mean you're, you're english, so I mean you guys can be extremely sharp, sharp tongued, but I think it's a really, really good thing. It's a it's part of your part of who you guys are, but it's also, I think it's a beautiful thing too. So, and sometimes a lot of it is just they're just having a go at you and it just needs to be said and you know, maybe sometimes they're right I listen to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, I really like that as a perspective. Actually, I think there is like definitely like a sort of symbiotic relationship between like critical thought and and the work that people make. And you know you mentioned earlier on about like the music being like children and just letting it out into the world and and moving on.
Speaker 2:So it's kind of like you know, you're not, you're not, so you're not precious at all once it's out yeah, but I mean I don't know why, this just popped in my head, but thinking about, for example, like restaurant views or something. There's a, there's a guy that writes for the guardian I can't remember his name, but he can be really just me and then you know about food and I can. I always sometimes wonder when I'm reading the ones that you know the place he really doesn't like. This must really bother this, this chef or whoever's running the restaurant. But yeah, they're in the same boat as we are. You know they're creating something and you can't please everyone. You have to accept this. Although I can imagine restaurant because you're having, it's not like they're. You know, like I'm running a CD store and inviting people to come in and playing in the CD. It's sort of. It's so direct because, the.
Speaker 2:The person creating it is right next to the person feeding it, so I can see that gets a little bit nasty in there, but I see the overall effect kind of similar. It's more of just back to the concept you just cannot please everyone, so don't even try.
Speaker 1:Definitely, and you do your best work by not really factoring that in at all. Exactly, yeah, and you your best work by not really factoring that in at all, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, I mean this is like the fourth decade of, you know, leading a creative life making music. What do you think are the things that? Is there anything in particular that's kind of kept you going? You know like maintains you, like kept your belief going in making music. You know, like maintains you, like kept your belief going in in making music, uh, particularly at, uh, the kind of sort of underground. You know, like I think stars of the lid have reached this kind of mythical status in certain areas.
Speaker 2:But you know, at the same time, you know you're not, you're not taylor swift, uh, no, no not taylor swift, but um, I mean, I think the only thing I don't not so sure about music that's going on now but I guess musically just in general, for just joy of music, is I'm I guess I'm a bit of an inveterate record collector so I love, I buy vinyl but mostly use vinyl. So I'm I like to go use record shopping and so looking for old vinyl because the more than anything about there's still a lot of music going on now. But I'm more fascinated with the amount of records I still haven't heard from the past that I'm constantly finding.
Speaker 1:So in a weird way, that kind of I think that keeps me going more than anything and looking back to where you began, how do you, how do you reflect on, like um, your relationship with brian? Now, listening, listening back to the album with, like, the promotion of it coming out, is it kind of brought up memories? Uh, any kind of reflections on on?
Speaker 2:I mean I'm just glad we met and I'm glad I'm happy we we were able to be creative together. I mean it's a long time ago, but it was just sort of a short amount of time and I miss him, of course. But I don't know, I mean I don't feel proud. For me pride obscures things, but I don't know. I guess I'm still a little bit not really sure how to process all that, because it still feels like he just died yesterday. So I mean it's nice that people care and we can revisit this thing and not be too weird and gaga nostalgic over it and just appreciate it as a time capsule.
Speaker 1:Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, I mean I feel like I can I put it on like a playlist with music made this year and it's just about how things flow together, rather than the age context of it or the era context you know. Um, but like, I mean also, just like, finally, I mean, how would you look back on it, know in terms of where you are now to when you were beginning? Is there like anything that you feel that you would tell your younger self or that you could sort of see in your younger self that you're really different from now?
Speaker 2:Not so much, because I really don't. I really have a hard time taking myself seriously. So I don't think I've changed that much, so I don't think I would. I would just, I wouldn't say anything, just keep going, don't stop, adam.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, thank you, thank you. Okay, so that was me, paul Hanford, talking with Adam Wiltsy for the lost and sound podcast, and we had that conversation on july, the 4th, 2025. Thank you so much, adam, for your sharing your time and thoughts with me there. Music for nitrous oxide's 30th anniversary remastered edition is released 25th of july this year on adam's very own artificial pinnurch manufacturing label, and if you like the show and you haven't already, please do consider giving it a review and a rating on the platform of your choice, and also please subscribe if you've not done already. Really, really appreciated.
Speaker 1:If you like what I do and you want to hear more of what I do, you can listen to my BBC Radio documentary the man who Smuggled Punk Rock Across the Berlin Wall by heading on over to the BBC Sounds app or on the BBC World Service homepage, and my book Coming to Berlin is available in all good bookshops or via the publisher's website, velocity Press. Please don't buy it on Amazon. Amazon are a bunch of cunts Lost in. Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica, the global but still family-run company that make headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. They make studio-quality yet affordable products because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I'm trying to sort of like wrap this up as quick as possible because it's just started raining where I am and it's raining over my equipment, so I'd usually kind of try and be a bit more finessed here. So I'm just going to sort of say yes, the music that you hear at the beginning and end of every episode of Lost on Sound is by Tom Giddens. Hyperlink, as always in the podcast description, and I hope, whatever you're doing, you're having a fucking great day and I'll chat to you soon, thank you.