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Human Host first appeared to me in the form of a t-shirt, worn on the torso of a friend in college. Being quite literal-minded back then, I asked, “What is Human Host?” and got laughter in return, laughter in the same spirit as the monstrous face that adorned the shirt. The laugh was a buy for time as my friend gathered his thoughts to sum up what HH was, not a rock band like we often went to see, not a theater play, maybe an art-piece, a provocation, a shared moment of laughter or surprise, something...
The monster’s playful, lightly menacing mouth on the shirt’s front has shimmered at the edge of my consciousness for the following 20 years or so, emerging every once and a while on another body, much like the (collective) entity of HH itself. Sometimes HH has revealed itself to me as a cluster of bodies, furniture, and chords, sometimes as a duo weaving together lines of electronic tones, sometimes as a single figure plucking out notes on a keyboard in a dimly lit room…
I’ve heard that the Host could now be identified as three individuals, Mike Apichella, Rick Weaver, and kim ++ (pronounced "Kim Plus Plus"), but when I asked these questions, as you’ll see, what responded was a single (synthesized?) voice that followed the whims of its own intelligence. Forget my questions and enjoy the answers. - R. McLaughlin, MW
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MW: How do you conceive of the thing that is Human Host? Conceptually, theoretically, historically, practically, all of the above or none of the above?
HH: Well, as you and your readers already know, all gods are low paid essential workers. You’ll find them any given night down at the old neighborhood watering hole, getting drunk and high with all their equals (janitors, groundskeepers, dishwashers, waiters, house keepers, etc.). So, having lost the script, we hired an old head of new cinema to draw out a spot of color on the lake to smear across the second frame of the exterior shot. Without wiping the grease paint from the lens, the master’s stroke stress tested the system and sacrificed the artifice of shallow magic. This is what happens when you’ve been in the business as long as we have been.
It’s similar to when _____ gets a bucketful of ______ then takes it down from the mast, throws it into the _______ without priming the clutch, and voila! You’ve got the best/worst/most bonk-a-liscious _____ ever to faceplant carefully, right smack dab on to the cosmic brain-soul.
MW: What do you think about the contemporary state of music? What do you think is Human Host's relationship to this state of affairs?
HH: Burning one mile of brush is the moral equivalent of walking over fifteen feet in 1953. Now we’re faced with the choice of either letting the right hand rot off into a prehensile sump or taking five. We’ve decided to install an alarm system, now that all the children have drowned. That way we’ll know when to tightly grip volts.
Once moss is shaken, the system should work as promised. If we hear screams or shots fired, we have been told to stay put until the bell rings. Then we may proceed. Anyone who breaks character may be asked to leave the rescue.
Let ’s
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MW: What does it mean for you to put out a record? Is it a chronicle of a moment in time, a jumping off point for future performance, an unrealizable ideal, something else?
HH: Yes, no, and maybe… and this is an answer to all of your questions (occasionally).
But, if you need us to go a bit deeper, then yeh, schmaggle schnabah schnork bork. Algg krall tonyasaurus crillb with atch puffers straggling along the adreeba honk fly twagga pone scramble donkey in the moonlight, cardamom and bergamot, other flavors of tea, you know, like for the learned clump.
Throw spaghetti at a gas wall and see if it fades from existence or spirals through the levels. The spikes feed the engine.
MW: How does this current iteration of Human Host relate / compare to past iterations? Does it matter?
HH: It started with a few signatures. First, our farmer.
What was meant to be dull turned exotic in much more than a hundred years for our farmer, the one with recall. We were shocked when he switched from amaryllis bulbs to electric light. The progress of his first installation split the check then stripped bone.
Above all else, concern spread to more and more on the circle’s periphery. Not that the resources were available. We removed at least one shoe before stepping over collaborators previously mentioned, some once invited to the table. Some even accepted the invitation. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that they and their belongings disappeared. A regular dinner theater-style murder mystery, no one was allowed to leave, especially not the edible corpses.
An audio cassette copy of a Betamax of a mimeograph of the day the zygote performed. Put that in your pitch pipe and smoke it. Morse code of missing pixels.
MW: I've been thinking about the potential for music (pop, folk, etc.) to influence political thought and action. Does Human Host believe in the political potential of music? Does it aspire to create music that could impact political life?
HH: In the theater of bad actors, the trustee with a movie camera is king. We’re not sure which is worse: To hide civilians’ great accomplishments or to finance their massive failures.
To make it extra clear….
MW: For as long as I've been aware of Human Host, I've connected its performances and recordings to two overlapping traditions: DIY culture and the avant garde. To what extent do you find value in these terms?
HH: A PIT maneuver runs through the attic of oxygen and slides forever after mangled merge. When the finger was raised in the boiler room, we hit total deliverance from attachment. Smelling salts to pull us back, concussed on IR. Double-cuffed in an endless deployment of superionic quilt work. Celebrating the bicentennial of the junkyard interstate. Like a post nasal drip mixer, we merged into some sort of ongoing pile up, unidirectional nosedive, breeding octane and the eternal.
…yup, you guessed it: sandwich roinky tobble.
Squidgy influx of liquified trace element burst. Come alive and die awhile.
Moon reflects what repeats.
MW: Tell me a little about your upcoming album. What's it called? Where can people listen to it / buy physical editions?
HH: The name of the album is For an Unknown Sign. For an Unknown Sign is an l.p. that will be out sometime in the spring of 2026 on vinyl and cassette through Entropic Records, based in Poland.
The album will be mastered by Angel Marcloid at Angel Hair Audio.
The cover art was done by George Viebranz, Jr.
For an Unknown Sign will be available to stream or download as well.
This album marks the first time ever that a physical release of Human Host music will receive extensive international distribution. That’s definitely one of the most exciting things about the record. A small global audience has been aware of our work for a long time now, but with this new extra attention in the UK and out on the European continent we’re really excited to learn how a bigger new overseas audience may connect with our work.
To support the new album, we’re doing domestic gigs more often than we have in the past few years and we will be playing some shows overseas as well. An exact schedule for a UK Human Host tour is still coming together, but we’re pretty sure it’s gonna happen in this fall.
MW: Is there anything else you'd like to communicate to this community of readers?
HH: Hugger games can be humbled at the drugstore by stripping tequila off their bones. You can smell alcohol on their breath. Some of those who like to hug you won’t smell like anything at all, maybe sweetmint. With the sober ones, rubber duck debugging is best practice. To discover rare earth minerals, throw your keys aside as soon as you see someone approach you hoping for a handshake.
Consider the oxbow lake as you become one. A ribbon of savory time. Excluding taxes and fees. Take your answer off the air.
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Human Host is an American mulitmedia/music collaboration between an ever-changing ensemble and figments of your imagination.