My guest today is the cellist and composer Peter Gregson, whose music you've most likely heard on Netflix's crazy-popular Bridgerton, and HBO's The New Pope starring Jude Law and John Malkovich. His output even reaches the heights of haute couture in campaigns for Balenciaga, Burberry, and Dior.

He's now released his fifth studio album called Patina on the premier label Deutsche Grammophon. It's an unusual album in that it explores the theme of absence, particularly with the posed question, "What happens when you remove a melody?"

Patina is his most expansive and expressive work to-date, featuring an astonishing array of analogue electronic instruments, a string ensemble, and his unique solo cello.

This is the type of art that makes you pause and reconsider reality. It's not something that is just casual, but rather forces you to understand what is happening through a heightened awareness.

My conversation in this podcast explores numerous examples in which Peter articulates this "hyper-awareness" through subtraction: from Disney's Pixar and the concept of "uncanny valley" to Paul McCartney's recordings to photography in a Phaidon coffee table book.

While this might seem very philosophical, it really is quite relatable when you think about Andy Warhol's work focusing on Campbell's soup cans or his icon-type paintings of Marilyn Monroe.

Examples abound of this hyper-sensitivity to the subject matter, not the subject's existence in the real world. It's the representation of reality versus reality itself.

Listen to Peter Gregson's full story in this episode. I hope it gives you a new sense in which to experience life—and most likely a certain angle that you haven't explored.

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