Talkhouse Podcast

On this week’s Talkhouse Podcast we’ve got the songwriters behind some of the most tuneful tunes in indie-rock, one with a couple of decades under his belt, the other two relatively newer to the game: A.C. Newman along with Liz Stokes and Jonathan Pearce. Stokes and Pearce are the core of the New Zealand band The Beths; she sings and plays guitar, he plays guitar and engineers their fabulous records. Their third and latest, Expert in a Dying Field, was one of 2022’s best—and you don’t have to take my word for it, it made tons of those best-of-the-year lists. Stokes is a fabulous lyricist and expressive singer; she’s one of those people whose semi-deadpan actually says quite a lot. The songs are melancholy and spunky, and sort of in the tradition of some great late-90s/early aughts indie-rock, like Superchunk or Rilo Kiley. Maybe it’s no surprise that some big bands that broke out in that era, like Death Cab for Cutie and The National, have taken the Beths out on tour. Check out the title track from Expert in