EPISODE 15: Bye Bye 25. AKA “the Jacques Cousteau episode” ft. Christof Migone, Larry Dolman, Mark Loeser, Alex Moskos and Virtual Borzeix
It's a joy to be alive. It's good to be glad. Good to survive. It's great to be mad.
Leon:Hello. Welcome to the year end CD Esoteric episode. End of first year, Amazing first year of this show. Super excited to share it. A number of our guest hosts from the year are joining us today.
Leon:We don't know how many. They'll pop in and out. It's gonna be exciting. Currently, we have Christophe and Lily. I was gonna get the name wrong.
Leon:It's perfect. But that's the dude. We've got Mark as well and potentially some others dropping in and out as the hangovers pass and the day rolls on. So we're excited to to have this celebration of an amazing year of music. Thank you everyone for joining us.
Leon:It's amazing to have you here.
Larry:Thank you, and congratulations on a wonderful year. Thanks.
Leon:It's pretty exciting to you that we have this collection of folks that the podcast has been bouncing around in in, like, being influenced, influencing. You know, it's Christophe, you played those tracks that that were partially influenced by experience of the pod. Larry, you you've mentioned us a number times in the in the in the in the blast deck, and it's it's bound up tracks being influencing stuff playing here. It's just really, really, really nice to see the circle expanding like a rock in a pond of water. It's great.
Leon:I love it. And and here we go into the next year. Jacob, you got a way to kick us off here.
Jakub:Oh, I have to kick us off. I'll kick us off in a second. So okay. Okay. So, yeah, welcome everybody, and really nice to see you guys again.
Jakub:So, you know, I mean, I was thinking this is kind of a celebratory episode, and and it's the holidays. And, you know, it's as the song in the beginning mentioned, life on Earth. So I figured maybe we should play something that celebrates life on Earth. Yes. Something that's really pretty punk rock, pretty unexpected.
Jakub:And I won't say anything about it just now, but we'll play a little excerpt of it. So it's a very long thing, but I'll just play five minutes of it. And I think it brings together everything that I love about music and sound and life in general, life and beyond. So here we go from this kind
Larry:of this stuff.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. Let's hear
Larry:it. Sounds good.
Leon:I don't think we need to play any after this. It's good for me.
Jakub:Here we go. So without further ado. And so that was the sound of seals, beluga whales, and killer whales as recorded by Canadian sound technician or sound recorder recording person, Chester Beecho, who had worked for the National Film Board and did a lot of recordings of whales as well. I don't know where I got this recording. It's from some sort of radio station, I think, and there's no release of it.
Jakub:But it's one of the most, I think, celebratory pieces of music that really exists out there. And yeah. So there it is. A way of beginning our episode, I suppose.
Leon:Fantastic. It'd Wow. Had such a it had such a it brought to mind so quickly and strangely the one of my favorite things you introduced me to back in the store, which is the Steven P. McGreevey Yeah. EMF recordings.
Leon:Like, the Yeah. This would yeah. And it it has somehow a super resonant sonically with that. Like, I was like, it's the sounds of the underwater and the outer space and the everything. It's the sounds of the everything.
Leon:It's like everything time is so beautiful, man. What a Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Crazy thing.
Jakub:And they sound so wonderful. These creatures are just so funny, you know? Like, it's just so celebratory. They're it to me, it almost sounds like a mixture of Arthur Doyle and Maurizio Bianchi with, like, some Braxton
Leon:Like, in
Jakub:it almost has that vibe, you know? Like, it it's so free jazz. It's so it's so punk rock. And and in fact, I should mention that Chester Beechel is known for having invite invented the hydrophone, so the microphone that goes underwater because this is recorded under the ice cap, the Alaskan ice cap. And so he was the first one who recorded.
Jakub:So he's a little, you know, precursor, a Canadian precursor. So it's pretty cool.
Mark:Insane. So good. The hydrophone, it reminds me of that this hunt I went on a few years ago. Not sure if I'd had a false memory of or if it was a real event that happened in Montreal years ago. I think right when I'd moved there in the mid nineties, I remembered vaguely that there had been an underwater screening of I think it was 2001 maybe, if I'm remembering correctly.
Mark:In one of the public pools. And I thought, no, that's That can't be for real. Like what are the how would you make that work? It doesn't make any sense. But they actually found the technician whose name's escaping me now, but this was actually an event that happened.
Mark:And so everybody was was I think the Le D'Ivoire covered it. And there's photos of people underwater with snorkels, and then the screen was underwater, and there was there was speakers working underwater so you could you could listen along. It seemed like an amazing event. I can't believe I was doing anything else that day. What a damn shame.
Mark:Yeah. I think they also did the Big Blue as well, which would
Larry:be more important. There there were a
Leon:number of of these events. It's I think it happened at Bain St. Michel and
Leon:Oh, yeah.
Leon:We've also done like non non cinema screening underwater event type things there too.
Leon:Wow. Wow. What a trip.
Leon:But I just wanna circle back to the the recording we just heard. I was a 100% sure that this was not happening underwater but above
Larry:Yeah.
Leon:Ground.
Leon:How do
Larry:you record whales above ground? But I I I was not I
Leon:know each whale. It
Leon:was so I was a 100% sure that he was jamming. Like, he was like
Larry:I thought
Leon:so too. Music. Yeah. And like having the the the He's jamming the seals. Yeah.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Jakub:No. It's a straight up field recording.
Larry:Straight up. Yeah. Wanna know which
Leon:well, I'm not sure if this is like a one take or if it's a multi track thing either.
Jakub:It's a
Leon:one take. Yeah. It's one There's so much life going
Jakub:on. Yeah. Yeah. It's a one take. It's like a pure field recording.
Larry:Yeah. And and I guess the ice cap is like a sound baffle probably. Yeah. That like you do in a studio, you get that super close mic kinda Yeah.
Leon:Yeah. Incredible. It's like where sound artists go to heaven, you wind up on the ice wrapped in a Yeah. That's great.
Larry:And I, you know, I also think of how like John Cage and micro gestural improv and all that has prepared me to listen to this. And this just blows it away. Yeah. For sure. Like, we're just trying to catch up.
Jakub:That's right. That's a very nicely put, actually. Yeah.
Mark:I'd like to think that when Beecher was recording that, he was thinking, let's get this party started.
Jakub:Yeah. Yeah.
Christof:But we don't have videos of the punk rock dancing whales.
Larry:Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man.
Leon:The choreography was next level.
Jakub:Yeah. I think they know how to have a good time in any case, so it's it's the most important. I think the sound really comes across that they're having a good time.
Leon:I think it is very, very appropriate that we pass the baton to Christophe
Jakub:to follow.
Leon:Yeah. I don't know anyone else in the room that could follow that.
Christof:I'll try my best. And by the way, this is this is a cruel cruel podcast. You know? You're in time. You're limited to one choice.
Christof:Mhmm. So I'm gonna I'm gonna maybe write on on Jacob's punk rock whale vibe somehow and pick something that is, I guess, more stereotypically punk, even though this is a band that I don't think anybody would think of as being punk rock. This is from their first album. And I'll I'll just speak more about them and this track right after playing this.
Leon:Wow.
Jakub:What a bullseye.
Larry:Yeah. That's amazing.
Leon:Little bullseye. Yes. I mean, Christophe, you did it again. Like, now it's another the second time where you play a track by someone that I know and have just dismissed totally, cause I've heard the wrong tracks by. And then it's like, what?
Leon:This is so fucking amazing. Holy shit. Wow.
Larry:I had that experience too just now Yeah. With I was in God. Yeah. I agree. Yeah.
Larry:It is Never never got them before. Yeah.
Christof:Is an Still don't. I mean, it's unusual track even for this first album.
Leon:Mhmm.
Leon:And
Christof:as I was trying to find a track for this, that was one of the places I stopped, I landed, and then I've I've found this track. I mean, I've been listening to Eilish and Gazette since since the eighties, and I don't remember this track. It was kind of new slash old for me. And so this is John of Patmos, who apparently I don't know my biblical history. I don't know if any of you do know it.
Christof:Apparently, he's the author of the book of Revelations.
Leon:Oh, wow.
Christof:And this is from their first album, Photographs Says Memories 1981. Martin Bates, who I believe is on vocals even though he's not credited as such. E guitar, plastic organ, soprano saxophone, stylophone, and Peter Becker. And that's the the band Wasps, which is a kind of synth, apparently, tapes Mhmm. Machine, violin, hi hat, snare, and sirens.
Leon:Wow.
Christof:It's got a bit of a blurt feel, if you know Mhmm. Yeah. And early Peruvian. So it's definitely of the time, but it's got this relentlessness to it.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah.
Christof:And and his singing is kind of just vowels. It's just like he opens his mouth
Jakub:and just says vowels.
Larry:Oh, wow. Oh, that's He's with vowels.
Christof:No consonants.
Jakub:That was very punk rock. That was amazing. Mhmm. So alive with this just everything about it is incredible. This track is fantastic.
Leon:I was thinking too if you stripped off the the sax and the vocals, you'd have kind of the greatest Muslim gods record. Like, it's just, like, the underneath stuff. It sounded like the Iranian ping pong, like, the team Muslim gods record, which is, like, the greatest Muslim gods.
Christof:You're cutting in and out, Justin.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah.
Leon:It was it was on purpose.
Mark:It was it was in audio. Yeah. Like I'm
Leon:trying to actually make look of a beluga.
Mark:It was like the recording we made that one time. I watched.
Leon:Yeah. Handle my so it
Mark:was We made a we made like a forty forty minute or so home improv
Jakub:Man, no pressure. That was a bull's eye.
Leon:How do Yeah. Was incredible.
Jakub:That was incredible. How do you follow that up? I
Leon:think, Larry, you're you're
Larry:Hey. No problem. I got I got it under control. No. It's funny.
Larry:I you know, how the intentional connections happen, but then always the unintentional connections happen as well with the with the with your podcast. And I I was thinking my track is not gonna make any sense after these after the belugas, but you actually split the difference between the beluga whales and what I'm about to play just because I also have kind of some distorted saxophone lined up. And that that's the connection. But I'm gonna play a track by a Chicago artist named Sarah Clausen, and this was recorded this year released this year. I saw her play a set two years ago here in Chicago, just in in store at Tone Def Records.
Larry:And I'd never heard of her before and she she's a solo performer that uses alto sax and tapes and real time processing delays, loops, things like that. And she told me at that set that she was working on an album, and I was excited to hear the set recorded, that type of material. But it's quite a bit different and yet the same. So I'm just gonna get into it.
Leon:Wow. That was beautiful.
Leon:That ending made me gasp. Was like Intaculair.
Larry:Yeah. The whole last couple minutes are almost terrifying. Yeah. In a in a beautiful way.
Leon:It went in. It says so many unexpected directions. I was it started off, I was expecting one thing, and then just went into this other thing, and then I'm going, okay. So this is what it is. And that was just the intro, And then it just, like, takes off into another direction.
Leon:It's really amazing.
Leon:I mean, it's one of the things about experimental music after, you know, it being codified so deeply in so many ways that, like, hearing something that just is like, what did I just hear? Like, such a relief. Like, wow. So good.
Larry:Yeah. I just discovered that she had released this album a week ago and I actually bumped what I was gonna play so I could play this.
Leon:Amazing.
Larry:And, you know, I saw her play live and it did prepare me for this, but it also didn't at all. Because she didn't sing at all when I saw her live, and she only sings on two tracks on this album. And in a way, what we just heard is what she was doing live, but it is so much heavier and Yeah. Like I say, more terrifying in an odd in an awesome kind of way rather than a dangerous way. But, yeah, I'm floored.
Larry:And it really is all generated mostly from alto sax. Wow. Wow. You could even hear at the end when the noise kind of started merging back into the original sax tones. And I don't know.
Larry:Maybe it's not generated from alto sax, but you can hear some of the really crunchy noise sounds were actually coming from this over modulated sax. It's almost like poor Betta Magas eat your heart out or
Leon:Yeah.
Larry:It's like doing all three of them at once or something. She's doing Donald Miller and
Leon:Chicken. Great.
Jakub:Yeah. This is another bull's eye. That was totally weird mathematical equations I agree. To that. What the hell?
Larry:Like like who knew that I was in Gaza was the missing link between Wales and Sarah's class.
Leon:Did it. You did it.
Larry:It's amazing. Christophe did it. You said, I I was like, oh, I now have a perfect lead in. We can keep this fax thing going and
Christof:Yeah. That that kinda the low finess of it just seems also very intentional and very, actually, quite complex and sophisticated. Yeah. I mean, the distortion is very controlled in a weird way. It's it's it's Yes.
Christof:Amazing.
Jakub:What I love about this piece also, Larry, reminds me of the the the other piece you played last time we had you on the the Shutaro Noguchi piece, which also had this narrative that it felt like it lasted an hour and yet it lasted seven minutes. And this one, it felt like like time just crunched. Like, feels like I was I've been listening to it for like an hour. So I'm just so floored by it. And yet it's like six minutes, seven minutes.
Jakub:So it has incredible narrative depth to it.
Larry:It was about eight minutes total. Yeah.
Jakub:Yeah. Amazing.
Leon:I mean, it's super interesting to what you say about like terrifying because for me, you know, if I listen to something like Lingua Nota before this, like, this just crushes that in terms of, like, emotional, like, like and it's it's not it's working in such a kind of more nuanced frame, but it's really, really gutting. Like, it's just so powerful. Wow. Wow.
Jakub:What a discovery. She's amazing.
Larry:She is. Yeah. There's a word she sings, destitution in there that, you know, that that word alone unpacking. Like like what exactly that means. You know?
Larry:We we hear destitute, but we don't hear destitution. I I you know, and and just going from there. Yeah.
Leon:Yeah. Goes really far. The also the her melody melodic sense. It's so interesting because Sylvia Toretzee, who I've played on previous episodes, just put on another record, one of the things I was thinking about playing today. And there's a really similar tonal kind of melodic thing that they're doing, but this is yeah.
Leon:It just goes it goes into something more bluesier or something heavier that's really,
Larry:like yeah.
Leon:It's really wow. Wow. Yeah. Thank you. That's incredible piece of music.
Leon:Yep.
Leon:That's great. So the original plan was that I was gonna stand in for for Anne who couldn't make it today. But I think I think if everyone agrees, we can let all the guests go.
Leon:You just don't wanna play something after that.
Mark:I know. I felt off the hook.
Leon:Mark, if if you're okay, Mark, with that. But if not, I can definitely
Mark:I thought my beluga playing saxophone record was gonna feel really redundant now. But I felt like a beluga listening to that last track. The the harmony with the the sounds incredible. Under the ice cap.
Jakub:Under the ice Boy,
Mark:I'm torn. I would have gone in a very different direction. That last track was so beautiful. I don't know that this is as complex a track as that last one. I I feel like this one is a little more simple in my in my memory of it, but I think of this track a lot.
Mark:I can remember this was early days in the store. This was a track that was a connection between me and and Chris Wrench. I remember coming in, and Chris's music tastes were you know, preceded you three working there, and they were they were a little more electronic. But this was an an interesting thing where sometimes there'd be something that mattered a
Leon:lot to Chris, but he was
Mark:he was kind of slow to reveal and share what he was what he what he had. And and this was a nice bridge between the two of us. This was a little mini CD that came out over twenty years ago. And it's it's stayed with me a long time, and I I I I love the the space inside of it. And so yeah.
Mark:Let me let me let me add this to the playlist here.
Jakub:Man, this is totally the Jacques Cousteau episode. Totally is. Everything sounds underwater. It's amazing.
Mark:Esotericos. Do you remember that little mini CD, that release?
Jakub:Absolutely. I remember that. I haven't heard that since in twenty years I haven't heard
Leon:that. Yeah.
Christof:Reminds me, speaking of waters, reminds me of a bit of Gavin Breyer's Thinking of the Titanic.
Larry:That's the piece. I knew. Yeah. I was thinking of a piece and I couldn't name it. That's it.
Larry:Yeah.
Mark:Yeah. Absolutely. With the repetitiveness and the way it kinda lulls you in. Right. So yeah.
Mark:That was Robert Lipwig. Also, Taruko Koko wrote. I think this is the beginning of his solo recordings. This is a raster note on my CD. And I think it got reissued a few times afterwards.
Mark:But that's It's that loop that loop from Moller's fifth. I've seen Moller's fifth performed a few times since. And maybe that's the true of every sample bit of music you hear, but hearing the the the concert again, all I could think of was the buzzing of flies, birds, the looping of that one section. I kinda stopped listening to Moeller after that that that that part. But yeah.
Mark:So that Larry Stroix sort of led me into a quieter quieter space with that track.
Jakub:Yeah. That was incredible.
Larry:That was amazing. Nicely. Yeah. That was lovely.
Leon:There's this cluster of that, The Eckhart Ehlers, John Cassavetes plays, the probably a couple tracks off the the Finesse EP, the very first one that he put out with the Beach Boys track on it. Yeah. There's, like, maybe a Philip Jack record in that cluster that's, like, just this certain kind of, like, melancholy Montreal early two thousands winter stuff that just, like, it just yeah. It's a it's a it's it's a really very particular time and place, that sound. It's really powerful.
Leon:Absolutely. And you're really correct to point it out, Mark, that this this really ties it back to Chris Wrench. I mean, this is
Larry:Yeah.
Leon:And and therefore, like, it's a core esoteric sound.
Leon:Can I get can
Leon:I get? Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Something I that texture, I haven't I haven't bumped into in in very in a very, very long time.
Leon:But, yeah, Justin, you're completely right. It was it just felt like so like, that was the sound. That was what was going on. It was permeating everything. That was the way of of making of making music for for a little bit.
Leon:I mean, it's super interesting. I think about that time, and it was, like, really binary. Like, there was, like, that on the one hand, and then, like, boredom's black dice, gang gang dance, like, you know, ecstatic, free, joy on the other side. And, like, they just kind of work really beautifully together in some way that was, like, basically, three quarters of records we sold at Esoteric were, like, either of those camps. You know?
Leon:Yeah. Some people bought both. Yeah. Some. Some.
Leon:Those are the good ones. It's good.
Mark:As a non musician, I think I think we touched on this last episode that I was I was on as well. But I I I wonder, maybe Christophe you can speak to this. Do you think I may be right with Justin's list there was really perfect? Think that yeah, Endless Summer and and and that Ehlers record. They all did come out sort of concurrently and there was a there was a delicate exploration of sounds that was that was happening.
Mark:Do you think that was something about where desktop audio workstations were at at that moment in time that there was a kind of response to? We could sequence it. We could we could we could do things a little more simply, but there seemed to be an appetite for something a little more subtle and expansive that that those audio tools at that time allowed. Or am I just pulling something out of my ass?
Christof:I'm on the Which
Mark:I I apologize if that's what happens.
Christof:I'm on the I feel a bit on the spot. Mean, I think
Leon:Sorry.
Christof:I think there's so many concurrent things happening, it's really hard to reduce I mean, it's it's reductive for the sake of kind of conversation and moving that forward. Mhmm. And I think we we notice things at different times. Some of them are retrospectively and at the time, I don't know if I can pin it down to a particular development in technology as much as it it seemed maybe less. Whereas the nineties, there was, you know, the big Nirvana thing in the early nineties and that maybe I think by ten years later, the kind of the colic rock ethos was thankfully disappeared and expanded to to all sorts of things.
Christof:Lots of crossovers, lots of overlaps. I mean, I'm being reductive myself in in trying to
Mark:I set that up. Sorry.
Christof:Set that up. But anyway, that's that's my kind of quick quick thought on
Jakub:that. Mhmm. I think also there was a huge kind of and I would I would name Bernhard Gunther as like one of the precursors of that kind of quiet experimental sounding kind of stuff that was very influential in the nineties. And especially with this label, comp was always really
Christof:I don't
Jakub:I mean, those records really made me listen to sounds that you can hear bear barely hear, essentially. Yeah.
Larry:It was kind of the April of the twenty first century. Yeah. But I did there.
Leon:Also, the RLW box set that came out in the late nineties too, the Ralph Viejewski box set just kind of set the ground for a whole bunch of stuff too that I think that was, like, a really pivotal pivotal thing.
Mark:I haven't thought of that in a long time.
Christof:Don't think these things would have existed without CDs because one vinyl Yeah. Doesn't work.
Leon:Yeah. Basically, you could have just a blank CD playing blank vinyl playing and you'd have like a record. Especially That must exist. Table.
Larry:That must exist. Yeah.
Mark:Yeah. I hope so. Gotta be disappointed if there's not a few competing copies of that.
Larry:Well, it's like
Leon:there's like the Lathe Cut edition also, which is like a different record.
Christof:Like Raynaud's and their blank blank tape.
Leon:Yeah. I It also
Leon:reminds me of this beautiful thing I picked up just at the peak of COVID. And I I'll I'll track I'll grab it out of my records and put it in the show notes, but it was like field recordings that someone did in or they got a group of people to do in major urban cities during the peak of the shutdowns of COVID. And it was, like, it's just and it's on vinyl, which is hilarious. And it's just the silence of Oh. All of the major cities.
Leon:It's, like, super Wow. Yeah. It's a really, really, really powerful sound art piece. It's super great. I can't remember the person off the top of my head, but I'll I'll put it in the show notes.
Leon:But so you can do it on vinyl. It's true. It's great. So, Leon, would you mind going last? Because the thing I had queued up for last just follows, like, Lozier tipped it up pretty great.
Christof:Sure.
Leon:Mark Lozier's moller brought me to a thing that I wanted that was kinda gonna be my, like, rallying call for next year and nice way to end this year, but I have to do it ahead. We're gonna keep going. We're gonna plow through. And it's nice to plow through on this note too, but it's also partially I I really wanted to place because the conversation we had in the last episode about Jacob's guy influencing Stravinsky and visiting Alice Coltrane and the the whole the whole track traced through that, and then Alice Coltrane visiting me in my dreams. And and we have the other great, great piece of music that's unheralded of the, like, smashing spiritual music into western classical music.
Leon:And I think, like, to me, as strong as anything else culture never did, Totally under appreciated by the those ears. Appreciated by other ears, but I I think the the ears that listen to house culture aren't listening to this and they need to. And it's also, again, a great healing entry into the next year. So I'm gonna drop this.
Jakub:What a mammoth.
Larry:Love it. Yeah.
Leon:It's really tempting to let it go into the next track because it's someday we'll all be free, which is an incredible, incredible song. And it's they're pretty powerful together, but I, you know, don't wanna take up too much space.
Jakub:Man, but this episode is killing it. It's
Leon:that was so beautiful. I I I have to admit that I don't really know Donny Hathaway. I think the only reason I know his name is through an Amy Winehouse song. Yeah. But I've never I've never heard his music.
Larry:He's under sung. Oh, man.
Leon:He's so deep. He's so deep. Yeah. I The best live recording I've ever heard in my life is the live recording of You Got A Friend, his cover of that that he does. And him and Roberta Flack did a single of it.
Leon:That's great. But there's this live version where it's like the concert you've always dreamt of being at. The audience everyone in the audience can sing better than anyone you've ever met. They're seeing all the Roberta Flack parts back at him, and it's like he's just losing his shit because it's so great, and it's such an amazing thing. It's like it's so ecstatic.
Leon:I'll probably drop that on an episode sometime, but he's yeah. He's he was incredible. And he had a lot of mental health issues and suffered quite intensely. And the the track after this, the someday we'll all be free, has been really taken up as a kind of, like, civil rights resistance track, but it was written for him by a friend who was really concerned about him and and just to help him get strength to get through what he was going through. And it's a it's a super super profound profound piece of music too.
Leon:He's amazing. I love Donny Hathaway.
Larry:Another great Chicagoan. Indeed. Indeed. And that extensions from a Man album is readily available in the cheap ends in Chicago.
Leon:So that's
Larry:how I know it.
Jakub:I've never heard of him either actually, but they sure don't make music like that anymore.
Leon:That's a reactionary drink. That's that's yeah. That was really, really, really beautiful. And, yeah, the the Alice Coltrane tie in really, really makes sense. That was phenomenally moving, the the the first part.
Leon:Well, I mean, the whole thing, but the orchestral arrangements. So is Donny Hathaway, he plays the the keys?
Leon:I Yeah. He composed it, plays the keys, and also is most most famous as a singer. Yeah. Like, he's
Larry:a he's incredible, incredible singer. The the live album you referred to is him on keys with
Leon:a And singing at
Larry:the bass and drums. Yeah.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. And he's singing at the same time. And it's just like so much stripped
Larry:down, small club. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Great.
Larry:I mean, that might be his best album.
Leon:There's Yeah. That album is off the hook. It's off the hook.
Larry:Yeah. The In the Ghetto is a great track on there. Yeah. Yeah. I am so glad you dropped some Donnie Hathaway.
Larry:You know, he has a Christmas song. You might hear him this season. This Christmas?
Leon:Yeah. I almost dropped that.
Larry:It's kinda nice to see him getting some airplay with that at least.
Christof:Yeah. Well, maybe maybe to counter what Jacob was saying, I think maybe maybe a kind of contemporary could be Sam Shalabi's Land of Kush.
Larry:Indeed. Wow. Indeed. You just made me have to listen to that. That was a great record.
Larry:Wow.
Leon:Jacob, do you play on that record? Aren't you on that one? No.
Christof:But I
Jakub:thought you were No.
Leon:I thought you were on that one.
Jakub:Not that I know of. No. No.
Leon:I know Gavin's on it. Not that I know So are you
Larry:on that? I just thought He he might have mixed you in.
Jakub:You never know his head.
Leon:You never know his head.
Larry:For sure. Yeah. For sure.
Christof:Took some
Larry:tape off the cutting room floor. Yeah. Like I Threaded it back in.
Jakub:I remember one of the sessions, recording sessions I had with Sam, he made me drink like a a huge milkshake. Like huge. And I think it took an hour to just he had mic'd the milkshake. It was with a straw. And that lasted like an hour and I was sick afterwards.
Jakub:Well, that's sick, you know, a whole milkshake. So that was it.
Mark:What record is that, Jacob?
Jakub:I think it was a I think it was a it it wasn't wasn't on a record, but I think it was a performance and maybe he released it, but it was a remix he did of Brandy's Full Moon.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. I was on that too. That's true. That's on his that's on his Spotify.
Leon:Me and Colin were singing on that.
Jakub:Yeah. It's great. Yeah. Sam's great.
Leon:Yeah. He's the greatest.
Leon:So we're we're gonna take on round two with the guest host, Christophe, you're up.
Christof:Thank you. Yeah. I'm very glad that we ended up having a second choice. And this one, I've been obsessed with this particular track and and this album for the last while. And I don't have the advantage like Larry of having seen her play live, but Larry's first pick kind of reminded me of has a similar feel in terms of being solo and there's a bit of unknowability to it.
Christof:I think I'll I'll leave it at that for now.
Jakub:Beautiful. Oh my god.
Leon:You look so good. Hey. Like, just the greatest thing ever.
Jakub:That just gave me goosebumps. What a piece of music that was.
Christof:Tal Cole, who's it's not the name of the person, but it's a project by Maude Herrera and from France. And the TAL Cole name comes from a time where she took a poem by Audrey Lord called Cole. So that's the Cole part. The towel, I suspect that it came from there was a painter called towel coat, so I think that's an album of those two things. And there's a bit of a Montreal connection in the sense that it was mastered by Harris Newman at Green Green Market.
Christof:And also, this is co produced by Eric Chaneau, who's a Toronto person but with a Constellation connection.
Leon:Mhmm.
Christof:I don't know what language she's singing in, to be honest. There's a lot of there's a group of people, and she's one of them, that are inspired by folk music from the Southwest area of France. So it could be it could be a language, I'm speculating on that. Yeah.
Jakub:And that's really really really really really beautiful. No. It's really what a trip.
Christof:Yeah.
Leon:Amazing. Agreed.
Leon:It really ties the the violin back to this tradition of of oral history of, like, passing down music not through notation, but just through through living it. It really yeah. This kind of music really reminds me of of of that other way of of of making and listening to to music.
Jakub:What I think is also, to me, so amazing, it it has such a full beginning, almost like a Henry Flint beginning. And I think it's incredible that after this fullness, she manages to be so so delicate. Like, from this fullness, it just kind of it's incredible how she manages just to kind of drop everything, and it becomes this really, really, really sparse and kind of delicate sound. It's kind of amazing that jump she does. Really beautiful.
Christof:Yeah. And then when there's just the violin picking, it almost seems like it's falling apart. Mhmm. Temptative and frail.
Jakub:Yeah. Amazing.
Leon:Beautiful.
Jakub:What a show.
Leon:There's also this thing I love about it where there's this, like, this wave these waves of these, like, kind of solo string avant garde people. And it kind of like, it gathers a momentum, and then it drifts. And I'm like, oh, is that music gonna come back? Like, I think about Eva Batova or yeah. Eva Batova or Tom Cora, you know, and, like, this really nice solo approach to these instruments with that are really avant garde and but still rooted in tradition.
Leon:And then they kinda disappear, the momentum around that disappears. And it's so nice to have that back in in another wave of that.
Larry:And it almost sounds like a Smithsonian folkways record too.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Leon:But I I feel like that this this music is never will never go away. I mean, it's like the the fundamental music, you know. The fundamental mean, Well, I don't know. I think singing is the fundamental music, possibly. The the one the one means of expression that that won't really go away.
Leon:But the one person with their instrument, I think, is, you know, once once the big energy grid collapses, I think I think that's gonna make a comeback for sure.
Larry:As long as the instrument can be fashioned from wood Yeah. And and some sort of string.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah.
Larry:Gut cat gut. I don't know. How how do we make strings?
Leon:Yeah. Or maybe like an old boombox plastic casing, you know, like a rubber band on it.
Leon:Yeah. We'll do the trip. I mean, canceling stamps. Right? The fundamentals.
Larry:Yeah. That that was a great track. Good callback. Gosh. Am I next?
Larry:Yeah. I hope so. Well, it's funny. Yeah. I I I am gonna have to invoke the vibe shift clause.
Larry:It's funny, there was a connection because I just mentioned fashioning an instrument from wood. And this next the artist I'm gonna play did build a stringed instrument from wood on his property, which he homesteads in Northern California. And this is this is another of my best of 2025. And just just to plug, in about an hour, my best of 2025 post is dropping Amazing. At blastitude.substack.com.
Larry:But enough of that. But this record is on there as is the Sarah Clausen. This is a magic whistle, the artist. The record is called The Solar Cell. Yeah.
Larry:And I I reviewed it last week if anyone read it. But
Leon:I bought it right after.
Larry:Did you?
Leon:Yeah. It was great.
Larry:It's really good. And it's funny because I thought I had never heard of this person before, Andy Pools working solo on his on his property in Northern California. But turns out he was in a Milwaukee based no wave band in the early two thousands called Neon Hunk. And I don't know if anyone knows Neon Hunk, but I they were on Lode Records, and I used to see them play all the time at the empty bottle here in Chicago. Just costume rock, totally nuts, neo no wave synth madness.
Larry:So he it's really interesting to hear what he's up to now. Right? Yeah. I'm gonna try to play three short tracks in a row.
Leon:Wow. So great. So underwater. It's great.
Jakub:It totally felt like like Flemish medieval dance music through electronics. Like, what the hell was that? That was so unique. It was incredible sounding.
Christof:Don't forget sunrise. Sunrise in the mix of Yeah.
Larry:For sure. For sure. Yeah. The way he his sense are so musical and yeah, invoking things like Flemish dance and and then and then layering in these kind of folky slide guitar, lap steel parts. It's just and then the vocals too.
Larry:Yeah. Yeah. Wordless vocals. He's doing all this in this weird little hut that he built to record and make instruments in on his property. So We got a mosque house.
Larry:This
Leon:is fantastic.
Leon:Saved by the mosque house.
Larry:Either one.
Moskos:Better late than never.
Larry:Sure he is.
Jakub:How
Moskos:is everyone?
Leon:Good.
Leon:Good. Good.
Jakub:Good. How are you? Good.
Moskos:Good. Thank you. I'm great. What are we discussing?
Larry:Magic whistle.
Moskos:Okay.
Leon:Flemish dance folk music from me. Awesome.
Larry:Neon You Hunk, Alex?
Moskos:I do. Absolutely.
Larry:Yeah. This is a new project by the guy from Neon Hunk. Okay. Two years later. And it really is not comparable.
Moskos:Oh, wow. Okay.
Larry:Yeah. Cool.
Jakub:I mean, it almost sounds like you would wish that computers were much slower these days and you would kind of generate and ask the computer for a piece of music. And after like two weeks of processing, it would come up with this and it'd be
Leon:like, wow.
Jakub:Like, this is pretty amazing. You know, in a better life. Yeah.
Leon:Probably it's got the Yurt core vibe too, definitely. So shit. You can't computer's gotta be in a Yurt. It's great.
Jakub:So it's your turn, Alex? It's your turn.
Leon:Yeah. I feel like you
Mark:you dropped in right at an opportune moment.
Larry:I'm in a blind.
Mark:You're ready to go or you think it's in time? Give
Moskos:me a sec. I I not only did I forget about this, but I forgot to digitize the piece of music I wanted to play well.
Leon:You got time. We can let Mark go. We can let Mark go while we Yeah. Yeah. Get ready.
Leon:That's great.
Moskos:Yeah.
Mark:Oh, no. Okay. Well, I think I'm flummoxed. Things I mean, I think Larry's last choice there really moved the needle somewhere else completely. I think that what I might do is play something from one of the the other absent hosts here, Olivier, every now and then when I've seen him over the years, I'd ask him for what's the new stuff that he's been working on.
Mark:And I haven't heard this track in a while, but based on that that last bit of music, Larry talking about the the the the artist making instruments and and being resourceful. This is something that is an edit of a of a YouTube video recording from Malawi of a band that is called the refuse stealing band. And I think Olivia's maybe tightened it up a little bit. I thought until right now, actually, in my head it was always the refuse stealing band. Like, some street musicians are their resourcefulness, somebody else's trash is our treasure, but I suspect more it is refuse stealing band.
Mark:There you go. From absent host, OJPB, Olivier Borzacs. You don't show up, you get represented anyways. You might want to put the link for the original YouTube video in the in the in the show notes because it's it's it's pretty neat too. But
Leon:yeah. I I
Jakub:was Yeah. That was wonderful. Track again.
Larry:Yeah. Yeah. Was great.
Mark:Sounded like you could hear the Ghana mail room a little bit working
Larry:on the percussion at the back.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. I love the just the street sounds. It sounds like the cars going by and everything. It's great.
Leon:We're living in a new age of sampling where we're digging for YouTube clips, and you never know what's what's gonna show up. And that that sound quality is is, like, completely other. So we're working in a in a new age right now.
Jakub:I was just gonna say going back to the nineties, it totally kind of reminded me of the kind of Yamatsuka I DJ mixes that he made. Oh, wow. Stuff like that. It really has that kind of ecstatic kind of rhythmic African or whatever. It's really really wonderful.
Leon:Yeah. It really
Jakub:reminded me of that.
Mark:It reminds me a little bit too Jacob of I I don't know how commonly known these were but remember we were very fond of some some YouTube videos of I think it was some cabbie association in Myanmar or something. There was this amazing street musician performances that were just like incredible. Yeah.
Jakub:Yeah. Yeah.
Mark:It felt on the outside of a really amazing party. It also seemed very loose and very casual, and it was it was amazing stuff.
Jakub:Mhmm.
Moskos:I should revisit those Yamatsuka Ai mixes that year of his DJ, whatever he called that. I don't know if he's playing records or just sampling, but I remember those being fun.
Leon:Yeah. Were.
Moskos:Did he use a a diff what was the name that he called that stuff again?
Larry:Was it DJ Hellshed or that
Leon:DMC Hellshed. Well,
Larry:was DMC Hellshed.
Mark:DJ, is that
Larry:a different project? That was another project he talking about.
Mark:I don't know if I know these. Yeah.
Larry:Yeah. Funny thing too, I was googling the refuse stealing ban while listening. And I think that original YouTube was uploaded by Pete Larson Wow. Who Michigan heads will know as co founder of Couch Yeah. And Bob Records who who lived in Africa for many years as an epidemiologist.
Larry:Wow. I don't know if he recorded it or but he definitely uploaded it fifteen years ago. Wow. What looks to be the original.
Moskos:Wow. He's on Facebook is probably an easy answer to get.
Leon:Could hit him up.
Moskos:I like the name.
Larry:Yeah. I do too.
Moskos:I'd be real confident if that was my bad name.
Larry:Yeah. Refuse or Refuse. Yeah.
Leon:I mean, they both work. Both work. Still not settled.
Leon:Yeah. It's a double edged stealing. Wazkos, are you ready? Are you ready
Larry:for that?
Moskos:Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I picked something that I'm just gonna play it, I'll see if the locals can guess what it is.
Moskos:Maybe I I hope I'm not playing something you've already played on the show.
Jakub:What was that?
Moskos:Artist artist name is Server Farms.
Leon:Of course.
Moskos:It's someone we know, but I don't know if I'm allowed to reveal.
Leon:Yeah. We're not allowed to reveal, don't think. But it's yeah. It's yeah.
Moskos:You could probably play 21 questions.
Leon:Someone very close to the family. It's great. That's yeah. That's a great project. This is was that of the new tape?
Moskos:Yes. Yeah. That's tape. Totally I like I said, I I wanted to play you guys something else completely, but I forgot to digitize it. And so this file was just sitting on my computer, and I improvised the choice, but this was really beautiful.
Moskos:I actually hadn't sat down and listened carefully to it in a while, but sounds like sound design from the future.
Leon:Yeah. I was gonna say that it kinda loops back to the Robert Lippock track, Mark, that you played at the beginning where that was so so much a representation of a certain sound at a certain time. And I feel like this is that sound now. This is what people are like, both are kinda reaching for the same thing, but this is, like, the means what the means are are allowing now or allowing rather producing. But I feel like that they something in the emotional tenor is is very similar.
Leon:It is all over the tape release online, so we can't say who it is. It's it's you should say who it is, Alex.
Moskos:It's Roger Tellier Craig.
Leon:Yeah. Oh, Roger. Oh. Yeah. Cool.
Leon:Yeah. And for you who are not part of the scene here, Roger has been like a like a pillar of the music community here for decades. Had an incredible band called Fly Pan Am. Had a great band with Alex earlier that I briefly played a little bit with. Is he's been in many, many, many great of the Constellation bands and is, like and also outside of Constellation has an incredible project called La Relevature with Sabrina Ratti, who's a pretty famous visual artist.
Leon:And, yeah, he's just like a he's like a cornerstone of the Montreal music world. He's a really, really special guy and like makes incredible, incredible music Yeah. For decades.
Moskos:Really, when you read his biography like that, it Yeah. I'm just blown away by how productive he is.
Leon:And it never stops, man.
Larry:It never stops.
Leon:Kind of one of those Sorry. Go ahead.
Moskos:Oh, just how he's he's always been there's always been a sort of a sci fi aesthetic in his work. Mhmm. Even when he's looking backwards. And I think that the the digital tools that electroacousticians have access to have really unleashed something in him.
Leon:Yeah. Dad loved this project so much. It's such a great project.
Larry:I may be over connecting to what we've played this episode, but it also sounds almost like the future version or a future memory of the kind of orchestral fanfare we heard from Donnie Hathaway.
Leon:Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think Roger would be very happy with that read of that.
Moskos:Yeah. Sorry. Missed Donnie Hathaway.
Larry:Yeah. Yeah. Opening track on Extensions From a Man. Yeah. Extensions From a Man.
Christof:And Roger's pseudonym for his two CDs on Squint, Edgar, Olivier, Charles.
Leon:Yeah. Of course. That too. Yeah.
Christof:Right now.
Jakub:I'm trying to do
Leon:that one.
Christof:Pre composers that he was referencing or paying homage to is I think they they appear here in in implicit form,
Leon:I think. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure.
Leon:Oh, I've been dying for that to get played on the on the show. That's amazing. I actually asked because I got a pre release copy of that, and I asked him if I could play it before the tape came out, he's like, no. No. He wouldn't have me do it.
Leon:He
Moskos:also along with that tape, there's what's his name? Christ. The other fly pen.
Leon:Jonathan?
Moskos:Jonathan. I think the other artist on the there's two releases on the label, and it's this and then one of Jean Etten's projects, which may be in a similar zone. I haven't heard it yet.
Leon:I think that's the one that Roger mixed too, actually. I know he was working on a record for Jonathan for a while too. Yeah. These guys are incredible. It's the best.
Leon:Such a great crew.
Leon:Yeah. Shout out. Yeah. Jose, Jonathan.
Leon:Felix. Can't leave Felix out
Leon:of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Leon:Absolutely.
Leon:Yeah. It's great.
Christof:I
Leon:think I'm rounding it out.
Leon:Yeah. Leon. It's all on you, man. Yeah. You're gonna bring $20.25 to a close here.
Leon:Yeah. I think I have a a good closing track and beginning track for 2026. I wasn't planning on on on closing out the show, so this is not my first pick, but it's probably a better pick. It's a little on the long ish side, but I hope everyone is okay with that. I actually bumped into this record yesterday after having wanted to bump into it for many years.
Leon:This is Archie Shepp's Things Have Gotta Change. Man. Love it. Damn. Yeah.
Leon:So I think it's I I actually in my mind, that record was really like the the Money Blues track. Like, that's the the one song that I keep remembering from that track. And then listening to the record again yesterday, the the title of the track, Things Have Gotta Change, is pretty phenomenal. So I think we're gonna go out with that. Sweet.
Leon:Well, that was Archie Shep with the title track from Things I've Got to Change from 1971. Yeah. I I listened to this track Anew yesterday and had completely I don't know how, but I had completely forgotten the electronic aspect of Oh, yeah. Of
Moskos:it. That's amazing.
Leon:Yeah. It's it's so otherworldly. Like, I I don't really understand how how it works, but it's it really feels like this kind of benevolent, like, kind of like an Octavia Butler book with, like, this benevolent but still alien presence, like, supervising human events, you know, like, making sure that things turn out alright.
Leon:That things are gonna change.
Leon:Yeah. And another thing that I I found out yesterday is that that last electronic bit is actually a locked groove on the record. So you can have it play for as long as you want. And it's like, I would definitely listen to that for a really long time.
Larry:I have it on final.
Leon:Yeah. You should check it out.
Larry:Check out the I need to dig it out. It's it's no exaggeration to say that's one of my favorite pieces of music ever recorded, by the way. I've loved it for many years. So thank you, anyway.
Leon:Leroy, man. Keep showing up on all the tracks. And every time every time Leroy's there, you're just gonna be like, yeah, it's alright.
Larry:Yeah. Not a great Chicago and and man, I love the way violin and soprano sax sound together.
Leon:Mhmm.
Moskos:Absolutely. I did some quick googling to find out who was responsible for the electronics and it's a guy named Romulus. Franceschini. Franceschini. Great name.
Moskos:Another guy named Dave F Cooper who I've I feel like I've come across Romulus before, but Yeah. Dave F Cooper might just be a studio engineer. Possibly. His only credit I can find is on this record. So
Leon:Romulus Franceschini is one half of a duo that arranged the pieces on the on side b of of this album. So he does a lot of arranging. I think he shows up on he's arranged some stuff for Attica Blues also. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Leon:Two great record. Mhmm. It's funny in my mind because of the Sonny Shiroc record, I was thinking for years, I thought this was Ilhan Mehmaroglu who that did the electronics on this, but so that that fantasy is shattered.
Moskos:Someone could put together a great mix of records from this era that mix jazz and electronics. There's not many. It'd be a short. It'd be this and sing me a song of sing me, but I'm sure there's others. I'm sure there's others.
Larry:Homage to Charles Parker.
Leon:Right? Yeah. For sure. Yeah. That one we played.
Leon:And the also the the Sonny Sherlock with Linda that's got the crazy electronics in it too. What's the name of that track?
Moskos:Bird of Paradise or whatever.
Leon:Yeah. Bird of Paradise. That'd definitely be on there.
Moskos:What's homage to Charlie Parker?
Leon:You gotta check out the last episode, dude.
Larry:That's how I discovered
Leon:it. George Lewis track.
Moskos:Oh, is that the computer?
Larry:Richard Tiegelbaum. Mav actually.
Moskos:Yeah. A friend of mine got to visit the GRM studios in Paris, and he said it was really funny that they just like took him down to the basement. There's some guy that's got a little room. He's just been trying to program a computer to play like Charlie Parker for like the last like twenty five years. He's just like, oh yeah, that guy.
Moskos:He's just there.
Jakub:He's doing it.
Moskos:Still working on it. And I was
Mark:like, wow.
Moskos:George Lewis already did that. Like, think it took George Lewis like, you know, half a year or whatever.
Larry:Do the same thing. I'm glad they're still funding him. Yeah. And
Jakub:I don't know about you guys, but, you know, maybe because Poland has, like, a thin hair Internet connection, but some of it, when it was playing, it just totally crunched into sounding like beluga whales and then a broken minibisc player as well. And it sounds
Larry:like beluga whales now.
Jakub:I wasn't sure if it was the electronics that were just part of the distortion and all the power grid and crackle was going out as it was playing all this band going through one little Internet wire, but it was quite a unique experience, must say.
Larry:Beautiful. There's all kinds of strange resonance in that track that comes from the electronics, the bass
Leon:Yeah. Yeah.
Larry:The violin and the the background vocals.
Leon:Yeah.
Larry:So many things like There's like five ships credited
Mark:with vocals.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. They they
Moskos:Gotta be there.
Leon:Yeah. The the little the little ships.
Larry:Yeah. The little ships.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. So I was thinking about the the the bass playing, like, just the bloody fingers
Larry:after this Just this locked in mantra bass playing.
Moskos:Oh, man.
Leon:But Jacob, you probably got got the Robert Lipac remix.
Jakub:I think so. That's incredible. That's incredible.
Mark:Well, just like Leon. I I can't believe knowing that record pretty well over quite a few years. I'd forgotten the electronics
Leon:as well. So I
Leon:feel it's
Mark:it's startling to hear it. And I was convinced because of maybe a little bit of the motif of this episode. I thought, oh, somebody's playing something else Right. At the same time.
Larry:And I didn't mind. Yeah.
Mark:It kinda sounded like it was gonna make an interesting track, but well, was good hands all along.
Leon:I really have a theory about that. I I feel like just the the the emotional tenor of the track is so overpowering that it just bulldozes everything. Yeah. And and you're just left with the the motif. But the the the sonic texture, I really I I still am not a 100% sure what to think of.
Leon:I think it's brilliant. I think it's absolutely incredible, but makes for such a strange combination that is not a 100% it doesn't seem like a natural fit at first, but it it just feels like this thing that kinda hovers over everything. It's not completely mixed in. You know, you're, like, stirring the soup, but this thing is just still kind of its own you know, it's not it's not integrating, but it's still overlooking everything. And the pulse is is every everyone is still following that pulse, But it's such a strange presence, the electronics.
Mark:I think you're right too. Just the emotional tenor of it. I think and and if I think of Archie Schiff, generally, you're thinking of something that isn't necessarily those electronics. But I'm Larry, is is there more electronics hiding on that record that I've forgotten, or is that track unique in that regard?
Larry:Yeah. I think side a, Money Blues, is quite a bit different. Different lineup. Yeah. No electronics.
Leon:Yeah. It's really just that track.
Leon:Yeah. I would like to thank all of you amazing guest hosts for your original episodes and for your visitation to this podcast and what you brought to it. It's, like, hugely incredible to have you all here. And, like yeah. Alex, thanks for sneaking in in the end there.
Leon:Yeah. Thanks for having me make it, I'm I'm
Moskos:I'm glad I'm really glad I got to make it.
Larry:It's very well timed and
Leon:Yeah. It was perfect. You landed right at the right moment.
Jakub:It's great. Perfect. The music was incredible too.
Leon:Yeah. Everyone, thank you. Like, one of the best episodes ever for sure.
Leon:For sure. Shout out to the the absent hosts Anne Jacques and Olivier Balzik. Yeah.
Leon:And thanks for virtually bringing him in, Mark. That was great.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Olivia.
Leon:Leon, I'm wondering if I could close the with different and outro music just because it's seasonal, and we you know, it's seasonal. And I think it's important that we play some religious music on the way out Sure. Because it's a it's a good way to end the season. So I'm gonna gonna take it out with the West Virginia snake handler revival.
Larry:Nice.
Leon:Yeah. That's a
Larry:bunch of frequencies.
Leon:End the year. Little bit intense steak revival. Here we go, guys. Thanks everybody for joining.
Larry:Thank you.
Moskos:Bye. Bye.
Leon:Don't worry about him. He's just a snake. Brother, like, look what god. Hey. He's worth everything.
Leon:Every trial,