The Lydian Spin

During their June 2026 tour across New Zealand and Australia, Lydia turns the mic on her touring partner, Andrew Coates of Melbourne's Black Cab. Together, the duo brought a , live reimagining of Suicide and Alan Vega to stops in Wellington, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, and Perth. The run commemorated the tenth anniversary of Vega's passing, channeling the energy of the 1970s NYC underground where Lydia's bond with Vega and Martin Rev began.

Nuha Ruby Ra is a London-based artist working across music, performance, and visual art. Blending industrial sound, art-pop, and spoken word, her work explores power, instinct, and transformation through raw, physical live performance. Following two critically acclaimed EPs, she is currently creating her debut album, a project unfolding under the creative force known as NOWSYN.

Blake Fleming is a percussionist, author, and educator known for his work with experimental bands and for writing The Book of Rhythm, an encyclopedia of over 5,000 organized rhythms for all instruments. The book has been sold in more than 20 countries and was a top 5 instruction title in the 2020 Modern Drummer Reader's Poll, and Blake was featured in SPIN's 100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music. He has recorded and toured across jazz, rock, and avant-garde scenes, and his drumming has been covered by outlets including The New York Times, NPR, Spin, Rolling Stone, MOJO, Modern Drummer, and Pitchfork. In addition to studio work and teaching students worldwide through live online lessons, he has completed his second full-length album, The Beat Fantastic, scheduled for release later this summer on vinyl and digitally via blakefleming.bandcamp.com. Blake co-founded and drummed for the math-rock/post-hardcore group Dazzling Killmen in the early 1990s, later touring with Japan's Zeni Geva in 1996. In the late '90s, he formed the experimental instrumental quartet Laddio Bolocko, and in 2001 became the co-founding drummer of The Mars Volta, recording early demos and briefly returning for touring in 2006. He went on to form Electric Turn To Me, contributed to projects like The Rollo Treadway. Blake has an extensive studio résumé, recording with Omar Rodríguez-López on multiple solo releases and contributing session work for artists including Kim Taylor, The Ropes, and Israel Nash Gripka.

Sonny Vincent fronted Testors in the mid-1970s New York punk scene, playing CBGB and Max's Kansas City before the band split in 1981. He later formed Sonny Vincent and the Extreme and Model Prisoners, and went on to record and tour with Maureen "Mo" Tucker and Sterling Morrison from the Velvet Underground. He has continued releasing records and wrote the memoir Snake Pit Therapy.

Kavus Torabi is a British musician, composer, broadcaster, and DJ known for a "bent path" songwriting style. He's worked with Knifeworld, Gong, Guapo, and Cardiacs, and now focuses on structure-driven songs, home recording, and steering clear of cliché while bringing the music in his head to life.

This week's episode features a conversation with critic, Byron Coley, whose work has covered experimental music and independent culture. Byron discusses Now Jazz Now, the newly published, fully illustrated 270-page softcover book edited by Eva Prinz, with a preface by Neneh Cherry and an afterword by Joe McPhee. Now Jazz Now brings together the perspectives of Mats Gustafsson, Neneh Cherry, Joe McPhee, Thurston Moore, and Byron, compiling personal archival selections of recorded works that orbit free jazz and free improvisation. Structured around 100 essential releases presented chronologically—but explicitly rejecting hierarchy or competition—the book foregrounds album art, labels, liner notes, and collector reflections as lived history rather than canon. Byron discusses record collecting as a lifelong practice, the cultural conditions that shaped free music, and the idea of listening as an act grounded in curiosity, memory, and freedom.

Photo Maurice Nunez Harley Flanagan began performing in the city's punk scene at age 11 as the drummer for the Stimulators. In the early 1980s he founded the Cro-Mags, a band widely cited for its influence on later hardcore, punk, and metal groups. His memoir, Hard Core: Life of My Own, frames his career within the broader evolution of New York's punk and hardcore movements. Harley has also been active in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for decades, directing the kids' program at Renzo Gracie's New York academy. In recent years he has continued recording and performing while participating in film work and public discussions of mental health.

Longtime friend and collaborator of Lydia and friend of The Lydian Spin, Jasmine returns to the show. She is a filmmaker and artist who wrote letters to Aileen Wuornos and later conducted a filmed interview with her on death row in 1997. Jasmine's footage appears in the new Netflix documentary Aileen: Queen of Serial Killers; Wuornos had asked her to record her story before the execution to provide an account she felt the media had misrepresented. Jasmine is working on her own documentary, which is currently in progress. Jasmine and Lydia have also collaborated on the documentary and Artists Anxiety Depression and Rage.