Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra / Have an Existential Crisis

The world’s greatest human / robot duo, Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra, aka singing robot, SPO-20 and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Professor B. Miller, has a new album, Have an Existential Crisis, out on August 8. Number 10 of 20 themed releases, collectors will want to pick up one of the limited- edition vinyl releases, which comes with truly amazing and unique packaging. Fascinatingly, the album comes with parallel grooves, meaning when you put the needle down, there are two options for what you might hear; vocals from a robot named SPO-20, or vocals from guests including Spencer Moody (Murder City Devils), Marie Haddad (Baby Bushka), Pall Jenkins (3 Mile Pilot, Black Heart Procession), Pat Beers (The Schizophonics), Jacob Turnbloom (Mrs. Magician), Elena Fox (PLRLS,) and Sean Tejaratchi (Social Justice Kittens). Notably John Roy (Smoke & Mirrors Sound System, Unsteady) also adds saxophone on multiple tracks.

How did Prof. Miller pick “Have an Existential Crisis” as a theme for this album? “After our release, Experiments with Auto-Croon, came out, we took a few years off from recording,” he recalled. “During that time I kept a list of song ideas. When we were ready to start up again, I went through the list and found certain themes developing in the hundreds of song titles, maybe two or three songs that fit together. Instead of picking one of them and ditching the others, I decided to lean in and write more songs around that topic and record whole themed albums.” Grocery stores, outer space, ice cream, paranormal, nautical, finance, along with existential crisis were some of those original themes. “I love the juxtaposition of this theme against some recent ones like ice cream. Lyrically, I don’t think it’s a wildly different album than the others. The analogies from some other albums might mask the heavy subject matter better, but there is always a kind of dark undercurrent mixed with humor and satire. Given the world we live in, it’s challenging not to address existential crises, making this album perhaps our most relatable one yet.”

Musically, is this the world’s first robo-rocksteady album? “As far as I know it is,” Prof. Miller said. “We are in uncharted territory. It represents an unconven- tional evolution of ska, rocksteady, and Two Tone, with the added twist of robot vocals. This combination creates an even more unique and unusual sound. While the genres we draw inspiration from are typically associated with hope, optimism, and upbeat vibes, we took it in a decidedly dystopian direction.”

Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra are known for the incredible packaging on their albums. How much work goes in to putting together the extras for this?

“This one is no exception when it comes to extras: a two-sided 9” x 12” puzzle, red decoder glasses, a splintered reality maze, all kinds of hidden messages, liner notes by an expert on ska, color vinyl with parallel grooves. I really want having the physical vinyl