Westerman with Luke Temple

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast, we’ve paired up two songwriters who love to wander musically but whose recordings are tough to mistake for anyone else’s. It’s Luke Temple and Will Westerman.

Temple has been making incredible records at a pretty solid clip since around 2005, first making a real splash as part of a trio called Here We Go Magic, whose four-album catalog is legendary in certain circles. But Temple has also recorded fantastic records under his own name, under the alias Art Feynman, and, more recently, with Luke Temple and the Cascading Moms. That name is a little funny, kind of like his music—there’s humor but also a little bit of menace hiding underneath sounds that sometimes flirt with ‘70s soft-rock in the best ways. Check out “Echo Park Donut,” which is out this month on the new Cascading Moms record, Hungry Animal.

The other half of today’s chat, Will Westerman, invited Temple to play on his 2023 album An Inbuilt Fault, and as you’ll hear they sound eager to meet and perhaps work together again. Westerman has been releasing music under his last name since 2020, crafting subtly mellow records that reveal something more intense when you listen to his lyrics. The third and latest Westerman album, A Jackal’s Wedding, came out last fall, and it’s another evolution in his sound—it’s been compared to mellow greats like Talk Talk, Tindersticks, and Nick Drake, so if those names mean anything to you—and they should—give it a shot. Check out “Mosquito” from A Jackal’s Wedding right here.

This conversation between Temple and Westerman may have been the furthest geographically we’ve ever recorded: Temple was at home in Los Angeles and Westerman at home in Milan, where he recently moved after spending several years in Greece. These two talk about being recently married, about growing as artists and perhaps tricking yourself in the process, and about the very different places they now live. Enjoy.

0:00 – Intro 2:35 – Start of the chat 4:35 – On Los Angeles and gentrification in Echo Park 9:39 – Westerman on Milan, Greece, and learning new languages 13:20 – On Luke Temple's new album, Hungry Animal 19:50 – On tricking yourself to keep the creative process fresh 20:57 – On art and "the capitalist need to innovate" 24:50 – Comparing the musical heritage between the US and UK 28:25 – On the spirit of Jazz and Hip-Hop 30:38 – How technology caused the death of regionalism

Thanks for listening to the Talkhouse Podcast, and thanks to Will Westerman and Luke Temple for chatting. If you liked what you heard, please check out both of their great new records, and please follow Talkhouse on your favorite podcasting platform. This episode was produced by Myron Kaplan and the Talkhouse theme is composed and performed by The Range. See you next time!

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