In this episode of Khimaira, V speaks with singer, artist, and composer Nika Danilova (Zola Jesus) about voice, performance, alienation, discipline, noise, opera, and the unstable process of becoming visible through sound.Together they move through questions of self-expression as a process shaped by fear, training, contradiction, embodiment, and transformation. The conversation lingers in the tension between control and surrender, refinement and ferality, mediation and raw expression, asking what it means to build a voice capable of carrying an inner life into the world.Tune in for an episode that approaches the voice as something forged through discipline, exposure, and the ongoing process of becoming audible—the grief and transformation of learning how to inhabit the self through craft, attention, and care over time.Featuring the song OTKUDA written, produced, and performed by Zola Jesus------There is a way a voice can cut through the fascia of reality, cleaving through habit into the raw nerve of experience. Zola Jesus wields a voice that does that.------Support Nika --> www.zolajesus.comSupport V --> www.saturnvox.comSupport the Show --> https://ko-fi.com/saturnvox156

Is Love Badness?An experiment in form: a work of sound composed through field recordings, voice messages, and an essay written from lived experience.Fragments of speech, ambient noise, and lived memory move together here. Composed from lived experience, the piece turns toward harm, desire, rage, and repair as forces felt in the body. Voices, weather, static, and thought sit beside each other as components of intra-action—where no sound stands alone and each is felt in the body of the listener through its relation to others.Therefore, this experiment challenges the listener to stay attentive within a post-essay structure, attuning themselves to new possibilities in listening and relation. This episode asks for patience with overlap and the willingness to stay in discomfort without avoiding it. Best heard with time, through speakers or headphones, without rushing to a conclusion____Collected sounds from this episode come from;Field recordings of woodland sounds and by highway fields during my Volcano Road Trip after my father's funeral last springVoice Messages from friends Karlota, Nancy, and ClayPsalms sung by Rabbi Shefa GoldAn explanation of Karen Barad’s theories of intra-action and agential realism from the Leverhulme Institute I | Session II | Close Reading Karen Barad | Feb 2014Invocation of PGM VII.862--918, "the Lunar Spell of Klaudianos and the ritual of heaven and the north star" Noise and Beats produced, reduced, and abstracted by V Essay from end of episode can be read in full on the Autobiography of a Halfling blog

In this episode, Noah and I speak from inside desire as it moves across fraternity, finance, philosophy, and painting—without attempting to reconcile or redeem the worlds it passes through.The conversation unfolds through Noah’s experience of hazing as formative conditions of belonging, where masochism functions not as pathology but as a mechanism through which coherence, loyalty, and libidinal circulation are produced.As these structures are named, art and philosophy enter as parallel economies—fields that carry their own disciplines, devotions, and sacrifices, even as they often refuse to acknowledge the violence implicit in their formation. Drawing on Bataille and Deleuze we attempt to allow theory to act as pressure within the speaking itself, expanding the limits on what kinds of communication are possible across language games and communal worlds. This episode holds tension as something that acts—allowing incompatible economies of desire to brush up against one another without purification, refusal, or narrative closure.---Noah Louis Trapolino (b. 1998) is a self taught artist with an emphasis in erotic figuration based in Brooklyn, NY. Noah was born and raised in Houston, Texas, and is the eldest of eight siblings.Studying finance and philosophy at the University of Texas in Austin, Trapolino pursued art as a way to bridge the gap between two seemingly distinct fields of academia; desire as an absent center for each would manifest in his art. He has continued to study the overlap of such worlds through a part time research program in political-theology, which informs his works.--This episode features sonic art produced by V 0:00-1:30 a reading from "In the Slaughterhouse of Love" by Ken Hollings, essays on George Bataille in the Penguin Edition of a compilation of My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man16:25-17:21 a reading from "In the Slaughterhouse of Love" by Ken Hollings, essays on George Bataille in the Penguin Edition of a compilation of short stories; My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man by George Bataille32:34-33:34 a reading from Story of the Eye by George Bataille1:16:10-1:16:37 a reading from Story of the Eye by George Bataille1:28:35-1:30:48 a reading from Variations on the Right to Remain Silent by Anne Carson 1:53:19-fin a reading from Story of the Eye by George BatailleAll readings accompanied by manipulated fragments of Sound made by V: Againstfixedrep--------------------Support Noah --> www.pen-keeper.comMimbres School for Humanities --> www.mimbres.orgAcid Horizons --> acidhorizonpodcast.comSupport V --> https://saturnvox.comSupport the Show --> https://ko-fi.com/saturnvox156

In today’s episode, Cara and I begin by asking: How does the body teach us to listen when sensation overwhelms, when it surprises, when it transforms?Through our conversation Cara shares how past struggles with sensory stimulation and neurodivergence became doorways into practices of embodiment. By attending to sensation in all its intensities, she has learned to inhabit states of power—moving through a variety of selves, performing with and through the body’s shifting voices.We explore how listening deeply to the body turns discipline and devotion into art, how sensitivity becomes a site of strength, and how embodiment itself opens pathways into metamorphosis.This episode is a call to action for those navigating the thresholds of sensation, seeking to travel lightly yet powerfully with the many selves the body carries.--------------------Cara is a holy rascal, ecstatic seer, and body nerd who performs many different selves; calling herself an artist, filmmaker, actor and occultist who shares their strength practice, film & storytelling, myth & magick, & their ongoing spiritual art quest on the frontier of personal development with those willing to walk beside them. --------------------This episode features sonic objects collected by Cara, as well as a poem she has written and performed titled Manifesto.All other sounds and modulations produced by V--------------------Support Cara --> linktr.ee/caraclaymoreSupport V --> https://saturnvox.comSupport the Show --> https://ko-fi.com/saturnvox156

In this episode, Jessica and I begin with a question: How does one stay rooted in beauty without being consumed by it?Our conversation traces the slow emergence of Babalon—the archetypal force of erotic creativity, sovereignty, and sacred presence—as she rises from beneath perception and into felt experience. We explore how this creative power nourishes when embodied, but also how it can distort when separated from feeling.We draw on priestess and magician lineages to consider what it means to grow in relation to beauty—to open without losing oneself, to feel deeply without flooding, and to hold the creative current with integrity.This is an episode for those navigating the subtle path between inspiration and fragmentation, and seeking to rise gently, steadily, into the sacred power of presence.--------------------Jessica Christine is the creator of DeerWomen. Her work has been featured internationally. As a Creative Director, she has brought together worlds and traveled worldwide with event management, welcoming and taking care of all needs of visiting high-profile ambassadors, including royals of Belgium. As a STEM teacher, she has taught coding and 3D printing through gaming and robotics. Mentored by Francesca Lia Block, Maja D'Aoust and attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium amongst others. At an early age, she cultivated a strong interest in mythology, evolution, travel, and esoteric sciences and applied those interests to the several facets of visual arts. In 2006 she began traveling to the Middle East, where she lived and worked for a number of years. In 2010, she launched DeerWomen, a world to combine her fascination with the art of travel, tea and folklore's long and wonderful history of ritual objects with intent. In 2022, we welcome DeerWomen’s reopening in the heart of Belgium, Antwerpen.Jessica strives to join the quiet intimacy and elegance of herbs with the magic of storytelling: narratives that emerge from myths, cultures, and stories, both new and old; universal and personal.Moreover, every work of art holds beauty and strength over time while imbuing the atmosphere of unique traditions and histories. Pieces are sourced from around the globe, made from nature and crafted with intention.--------------------Songs for the Witch Woman by Jack Parsons & Marjorie CameronPoems written and read by Marjorie Cameron from An Evening with Cameron - MOCA U - MOCAtvAn interview with Kenneth Anger on Cameron, Jack Parsons etc - Düsseldorf 18.II.2013--------------------Support Jessica --> https://deerwomen.comSupport V --> https://saturnvox.comSupport the Show --> https://ko-fi.com/saturnvox156

In Khimaira’s premiere episode, Nancy joins V to talk about names, birds, friendship, and the quiet ways we learn from each other. It’s a conversation about staying open — to language, to love, and to the surprising knowledge that comes from other people when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable. This episode is an offering, a shared moment of reflection on how we learn from those we love and what it means to listen with when seated in care.This episode features original sound art by Yīxiāo, titled Bird Seeds, as well as field recordings of birds captured by Nancy and V --------------------Yīxiāo Yao is a Chinese interdisciplinary artist/researcher. They utilize texts, sound, images, paint, clay, letters, common substances, and their own body in work. Using real, constructed, mediated materials in and out of archives they are able to compose, curate intra-actional exchanges, and invite the participation of active viewership, readership and thinkership. They have curated/participated/published work in Ohklahomo, Mayfield, Open Art Studio, SITE Gallery, The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project, Friends Gallery, and No Nation Art Lab. Yīxiāo received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honours from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Department of Visual Critical Studies. They received their Master of Arts degree from Rice University, Department of Religion. They are currently based in Chicago. --------------------Support Nancy --> https://yaoyixiao.comSupport V --> https://saturnvox.comSupport the Show --> https://ko-fi.com/saturnvox156