Minor Compositions Podcast explores the unruly intersections of art, politics, and social struggle, tracing lines of flight through music, performance, literature, sport, and everyday life. Across its episodes, the podcast dives into avant-garde experiments, militant aesthetics, and radical practices — from surrealism to squatting, feminist antifascism to free jazz, football to revolutionary love. Each conversation maps the ways creative and collective practices resist commodification and open space for joy, refusal, and possibility. Guests include artists, musicians, writers, activists, and thinkers engaged in shaping counter-histories and emergent futures: discussing topics as varied as anarcho-punk provocations, the politics of logistics, mutual aid in disasters, the Surrealism of Bugs Bunny, feminist anti-fascism, and the deep commons. Whether examining the cracks in capitalist realism or celebrating the minor, the fugitive, and the improvised, Minor Compositions invites listeners to think and feel with those who refuse to be shaped for mediocrity — and who dance to rhythms of refusal instead. You can listen to the podcast on the Firefly Frequencies website. It is also available through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music / Audible, Deezer, Podcast Addict, and Podchaser.
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Dismantling the Master’s Clock
In this episode, we speak with Rasheedah Phillips about her groundbreaking book Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time. Drawing from Black Quantum Futurism, Phillips challenges… Read episode details
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States of Divergence
For this episode we have a discussion with writer and theorist Sven Lütticken, as we delve into his new book States of Divergence. In it we will explore… Read episode details
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Take This Refusal and Dance To It
This episode is a conversation with Paul Rekret, centered around his book Take This Hammer: Work, Song, Crisis (2024). In this discussion we explore the book’s key themes… Read episode details
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Penny as Producer
Penny Rimbaud is best known as a founding member of the anarcho-punk collective Crass, as well as for his work as a poet, writer, and philosopher. But beyond… Read episode details
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Surrealism, Bugs Bunny, and the Blues
This episode is a discussion with Paul Buhle, Abigail Susik, and Penelope Rosemont about the newly released book Surrealism, Bugs Bunny, and the Blues: Selected Writings on Popular… Read episode details
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Band People
This episode is a recording of a seminar held at the University of Essex with Franz Nicolay on his book Band People. In it Franz Nicolay explores the… Read episode details
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Free Jazz, Revolution and the Politics of Peter Brötzmann
For this episode we have a discussion of the book Peter Brötzmann: Free-Jazz, Revolution and the Politics of Improvisation with its author Daniel Spicer and long time comrade… Read episode details
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We Don’t Need More Heroes
For this episode we talk with Brixton-based textile artist Scorpio about his life and work. Last summer a quest to learn more about the 1990s militant queer art… Read episode details
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Shaping for Mediocrity
For this episode, in light of the current sector wide university crisis in the UK, we present the recording of a seminar with Ronald Hartz, David Harvie, and… Read episode details
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Jobs, Jive, & Joy
For this episode we have a conversation with Bernard Marszalek and Peter Bloom about Bernard’s new book Jobs, Jive, & Joy: An Argument for the Utopian Spirit. In… Read episode details
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No Authority No Self
As part of previewing and preparing for a larger project with Penny Rimbaud, this episode revisits a conversation with Penny from 2017. This was part of the “Stop… Read episode details
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Subversive Performance in the Age of Human Capital
In this episode we chat with Pil and Galia Kollectiv to explore their new book, Subversive Performance in the Age of Human Capital. Stevphen was originally to take… Read episode details
