Episode 23: Store Time
It really feels like it's almost the end of the summer. And this has a somewhat somewhat of a melancholic
Justin:feel to it. No? It's so beautiful.
Jacob:So that was octave one. The track is called Blackwater, but it's the version that features Anne Sanderson doing the vocals. I haven't heard this in so long, and it really feels like the sun is setting for the summer. So this was my little adios summer track.
Leon:That's so amazing. Just wanted to point out that Jacob really wanted to go first this time, and so we decided to just go in straight. No No intro. No opening. Yeah.
Leon:No intro. No opening.
Justin:What a perfect way to begin an episode, though, man. That was what a beautiful track. Yeah.
Jacob:It's a beautiful track.
Justin:What year is that from?
Jacob:I would say nineties. Am I wrong?
Leon:2000? No. I think this is 2000, but, like, early. 2000. Early?
Justin:Yeah. Story time. Esoterik time.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. Definitely esoterik time.
Jacob:2000. 2000.
Leon:Yeah. Because this is actually, like, a later version because the original had no vocals and no That's right. Extra.
Justin:Yeah. The orchestra stuff is so nice.
Jacob:It's beautiful, the orchestra stuff. I love that kind of orchestra. It's amazing.
Leon:Yeah. Man.
Jacob:Haven't heard When's the last time you heard this? I haven't
Leon:heard that in so long. Really, really long time. I think the last time I heard that was maybe I was actually playing it in a DVR set. And it was at a time when that song had kind of fallen out of fashion in certain circles for being overplayed at, like, every single big, you know, music kinda Yeah. Thing.
Leon:And I was like, man, that's so snobby. You're so snobby. This is such a good track. You know, it deserves to be played every time. Yeah.
Leon:Octave one, they're amazing. Yeah. Their two brothers, the Burden brothers, and it turned I was just looking this up really quickly. Turned out that a lot of their other brothers also collaborate on certain tracks. So if you look up this the credits to this track, it's like burden, comma, burden, comma, burden.
Leon:So yeah. And Anne Saundersen, obviously, Kevin Saundersen's wife. Yeah. Yeah. So this is just like Yeah.
Leon:Yeah.
Jacob:A Yeah.
Leon:Stone cold classic. Amazing. Thank you so much for playing that.
Jacob:Yeah. It's sending me to bed, so it's good. Yeah.
Leon:I I just had my second coffee of the day. I slept twelve hours. I'm, like, really, really primed.
Justin:Amazing. And
Leon:this is actually like a really, really nice surprise because I was actually going to request to start
Justin:because Oh, no.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. Because I wasn't sure that I would be able to plug this next track that I wanna play anywhere. And it's a perfect follow-up. If you don't mind, Justin, if that's okay.
Justin:Go ahead.
Leon:So this is also, like, kind of a a another classic track that needs to be relistened to, staying in the theme of afrofuturism. This guy right here.
Justin:Incredible.
Jacob:Music from the future. That was insane.
Leon:Yeah. So that was Race Paddling by Stevie Wonder.
Justin:So this is the thing about Stevie Wonder that I don't understand what like, I don't understand what we like, what happened. What, like, what happened in the world? You know? Like, that Stevie Wonder went from that to, like, I just called to say I love you. Like, I don't I I wanna understand, like, what what happened there.
Leon:I think well, I think a key to understanding that is this entire album, basically. Stevie Wonder's journey through The Secret Life of Plants. If you listen to the whole thing
Justin:He got he got eaten by a Venus flytrap at the end or something. Yeah. No.
Leon:It just goes from, like, really sappy kinda love songs to really anxiety inducing, like, orchestral the most insane, you know, programmatic classical music to this oddball, like, proto
Justin:Mind blowingly awesome.
Leon:Yeah. It's he he is, like, a world onto himself, basically. And I think all of those facets are are present.
Justin:You know? Sure.
Leon:He's just
Justin:But why lean into the worst of all of them? That's the part I don't get. Like, why pick that one and double down on it? Like, I'm like,
Leon:shit, dude.
Justin:Come on, man.
Leon:Yeah. Fair enough.
Justin:I mean, Rod, like, kept kept kept it going the whole time. You know? Like, I'm like, come on, dude. You could do it. Yeah.
Justin:It's so strange with him. It's such a mystery.
Leon:Mhmm. Yeah. I I mean, I I totally read him. I don't listen, obviously, to his the the sappy pop stuff. But, like, this and, you know, even his his little like, his child prodigy kinda era.
Leon:I like Like,
Justin:Intervisions is fucking brilliant too.
Leon:Like, I
Justin:mean, like, curled blue, like, the production on that track is insane. Like, that's a track I wanted to play on the pod for a long time just because of how fucking wild the production is. Like Mhmm. And I'm like, man, what? How do you like, yeah.
Justin:I just don't understand what happens.
Leon:These are the kinds of people I'm I'm really interested in. Yeah. Like, I really, really like uneven people. Yeah. Think it really and I mean yeah.
Leon:I I can't I can't do anything but respect. I just called to say I love you even though I will never listen to it and never feel the need to listen to it at all. But I'm just gonna rate it because it's Stevie Wonder and, like, you know, he's he's an incredible, very singular person.
Jacob:Yeah.
Leon:Incredibly talented. This album, he basically played all of the instruments except for like the the horns and people guesting for vocals. Wow. But he played everything else. This is also a soundtrack to a film that he also makes an appearance in.
Leon:So, yeah, Stevie Wonder made a soundtrack to a film. So how does that
Justin:happen? You call. Let me say, hey, Stevie. I'm making a film about plants. You like plants.
Justin:Right? Everybody likes plants. You wanna you wanna be part of this? And, like, they got life, man. They got inner life.
Justin:Yeah. You did inner vision? This is the inner life of dance. I tell you, man. It's a it's a no brainer.
Justin:You just missed that phone call.
Leon:I I don't I didn't investigate further, but I wonder if this actually exists out on the Internet. But the the filmmaker basically gave him a four track cassette for each scene, which in the left in the left ear, he was describing all the images happening on screen. And in the right ear, there was a technician that was counting down the seconds, the the length of the scene. Wow. And Stevie Wonder would jam and, like, record his gems on to the two other I'm I'm sure that it exists somewhere.
Justin:Oh, man. I wanna hear that for
Leon:you so bad. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So that's, like, one mind blowing thing about this this album.
Leon:The other thing that's really funny is that this well, rather the documentary that this soundtrack to kinda killed all study of plant intelligence for like decades. This is The Secret Life of Plants because it was it was really like a popular thing and that movie kind of
Justin:More popular.
Leon:Yeah. But then all the people like trying to seriously look into it were got all their funding cut because because of this, like, kind of, you know I I don't know how to qualify, but kind of not very rigorous.
Justin:Yeah. It made everything, like like, seem like bullshit, and then it takes away, like, two pop science.
Leon:Exactly.
Jacob:Mhmm.
Leon:But yeah. The the the documentary itself is really an enjoyable watch as an artifact. It's quite it's quite charming in many different ways.
Jacob:It was a it was a crazy piece of music.
Justin:Yeah, was incredible. Incredible.
Leon:Well, you should watch the documentary and listen to the music because it's completely bonkers. It's completely bonkers. Yeah, there's like the opening the opening shot of the documentary is basically like, I guess, Fantasia. Is that like like the earth forming? Like volcanoes erupting and all that?
Leon:So it's kind of a riff on that, but with like Stevie Wonder going apeshit. It's amazing. It's so bonkers. And then there's, like, these little ballads, and they're, like, ballads where the lyrics are, like, recounting historical facts about this, like, Indian scientist, like, looking into it's really great. I really love this album.
Leon:It's a really good one.
Justin:Wow. Wow. It's it's kinda perfect too because, like, Jacob's track started with him saying about how it's going in his head all day. I've had this track that I have not been able to get on my head for a week. Like, it's just nonstop.
Justin:And it's also the renewal of, one of my favorite artists who hasn't done anything in twelve years and just stepped back out in such high fashion that I grabbed I bought the T shirt. I was so excited by the album. And it's like it also helps it, like, always the greatest design. But I was just like, I can't believe that this artist is back, especially knowing how tumultuous the past few years have been for them. I can't believe that they're back at such a high level, and they wrote the song of the summer for me.
Justin:I cannot stop listening to it. And it is I sent it to like, it was great too because I tested on the people. You know? Like, I love testing it on the people, and I give it to the people that, like, I don't expect to like this band. Like, I'm like, can you try this out?
Justin:And I give it to, like, the people that hang out at, like my friend's a bartender at Parquette, and I'm like, what do you think of this track? And I just pay for it, and she's like, wow. That's a fucking banger. And, like, I'm like, this is amazing. So I'm like, how I'm so excited.
Justin:And it kinda sounds a little bit like if you took Jacob's track and your track and mashed them together and put some really badass in it. So it's really, really, really great. Wow. So I'm and I'm so excited. The album's about to come out, and, I can't believe that we're that the album's coming out.
Justin:I'm so excited. So I'm gonna I'm gonna play this track now. I'm very excited about it. The album's coming out right now. It's prerelease.
Justin:Greatest song of the summer. No one touches it. It is, it is yeah. This is the greatest turkey burger ever. I mean, the greatest the greatest idea that they had a new album.
Justin:The greatest. I was hoping to hide it from you guys, but the greatest Oh my god.
Jacob:So good. The
Justin:phenomenal genius that is Jennifer Haraima who never stops, like, delivering. This record is like, the I I heard the other track, Eddie's album, which is also fucking unbelievable and has an incredible video on YouTube. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. The video is spectacular. And, you know, like, what I love about Black Bananas is they've just gotten like, every record's amazing, and they've just gotten better and better and better.
Justin:And it's, like, kind of left, like, the royal trucks kind of, universe, and now it's really in its own universe. And it's, like, just pure genius. And it's cool. She's on fire records out of London, and they're doing a great job of, like, really pushing it. And it's like, I'm excited.
Justin:Like, this is a I hope I hope Jennifer I mean, yeah, she deserves all the accolades in the universe. Such a fucking incredible artist and such a Yeah. Record. Coolest woman ever. Yeah.
Leon:Yeah. That's it's that's a really that is the track of the summer.
Justin:Yeah. It's yeah. I I've listened to it, like, a thousand times, I think. I can't I just can't stop listening to it. And, like, the detail, man, like, the production, what I I really appreciate about her too is, like, she is a genius producer and, like, has just dug so deeply into the history of, like, the worst kind of music production and turned it inside out and made it Yeah.
Justin:Something, like, totally fucking incredible. I got it. Yeah.
Leon:Yeah. I was picking up on the there's, like, a like, an alto sax kinda thing
Justin:Yeah.
Leon:Riff that pops in for, like, a couple of seconds, and then it melts into the guitar stuff. It's, like, really amazing. Yeah. Yeah.
Justin:And and, I mean, just the, like, the total I mean, I love that one of her records was called electric brick wall, like, just how bricked everything is and how, like,
Leon:over But there's still definition. Yeah. Yeah. Still make out the stuff.
Justin:Yeah. But it like, it's just, like, screaming loud, and, like, everything's louder than everything else. It's, like, it's so fucking great. Like, genius. Such a genius.
Justin:And, like, what a fucking banger. Like, it's just incredible. Yeah. Yeah.
Leon:That's great.
Justin:So bravo, black bananas are back. The T shirt's amazing. It's the best T shirt I've ever bought in my life. Great. The album cover's amazing.
Justin:A bad punch. Hilarious. Hilarious name. And, yeah, continues to be pure genius. So thank you, Jennifer.
Justin:I also have a crazy Jennifer Harima story about her I did I might have told this on the pod before. Did I talk about playing pinball with her on the pod? No. No. She was in East Van.
Justin:Like Wow. I guess they were playing
Leon:and, like But I've actually heard this story, but it was yeah. Was It
Justin:was yeah. The neighborhood was a place to, you know, score the best drugs. And and there was a cafe there that had a couple pinball things. I think it was medieval madness that we played a two player game on, and I was having a particularly banger of a game. And she was like she gave me props.
Justin:Like, she was like, and, you know, I played pinball. It's, like, one of the greatest moments of my life.
Leon:That was Yeah.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.
Jacob:That's amazing. Fucking sick. Yeah. I remember I saw royal trucks at a jailhouse. Did you guys see that show?
Justin:Yeah. I was at that show.
Jacob:That was amazing. And she would just go to the bathroom and, like, just, like, blow her nose and come back. Yeah. Yeah. And she was just towering.
Jacob:She had two she two microphones. She was just towering.
Justin:And the boots she was wearing too, like, had then best style ever. Like, that was It was incredible. Still still.
Jacob:Yeah. She's she's amazing. Yeah. I had no idea I had no idea. I'm so out of touch.
Jacob:It's just coming.
Justin:It's just it isn't even out yet. Like, they only have the two signals. I think the record comes out September 9 or something. Mhmm. So, yeah, September 9 no.
Justin:September 4. It's getting released. So this will be, this will still be in prerelease before the show airs. But everyone, go buy Black Bananas. Buy the entire discography.
Justin:You will not be disappointed. I went back through the other tracks, like, to, like, physical graffiti. I mean, not physical graffiti. Physical what's it called? Oh, man.
Justin:There's that track off of, off of the first one that's, like, so great. The video is amazing too. Physical emotion. So fucking great. Like, yeah, she's yeah.
Justin:What an incredible artist. I'm I'm so glad you guys dug it.
Jacob:I was so excited
Justin:to play that for you guys.
Jacob:She was always a big part of Esoterik as
Justin:well. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. I mean, I think we played that RTX record.
Justin:Like, I know it's amazing how many people would just walk out when we were playing.
Jacob:That RTX is Love that.
Justin:Yeah. I love that record.
Leon:Yeah. For sure.
Jacob:Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Justin:Oh, I was so excited to share that with you guys.
Jacob:That was amazing.
Justin:And it kinda, it was a perfect, like It was. We we just descended, like, into the into the madness. It's great.
Jacob:So I'm gonna share a a summer memory since we're at the end of the summer.
Justin:I'm so excited
Jacob:to share a summer memory. And so this is when in fact Justin and Mark had come to visit. And this is before Justin came, so I was hanging out with Mark and we went Oh, in Krakow called and we went there. And there's like a courtyard in the castle. It's a huge courtyard and you have all these tourists there, obviously, in these groups, like tourist groups.
Jacob:And then there was this group of kids, like a high school group. I guess they were just like on on vacation touring or whatever. So maybe, like, 20 kids just hanging out with their teacher, and it turns out it was, like, Ukrainian kids. And then suddenly, just out of totally nowhere, out of the blue, they start to sing.
Leon:Wow. Oh.
Jacob:And and it blew our mind. And so Mark recorded it right away. Wow. So I'll play this recording just the way it was the way we experienced it, essentially. So it's two pieces they'll sing.
Jacob:And it's it would just it just just thinking about it, I get goosebumps. It's it's really, really, really amazing. So So
Leon:this is an exclusive of CD Esoterik.
Jacob:It's an exclusive. So those were Ukrainian kids singing in the Vafel Castle in Krakow. And, you know, the thing that's so amazing watching them is, you know, given that there's, a war in Ukraine, is the the happiness that comes out of these kids. Like, there's just such warmth and happiness in their character, and it really comes across in this kind of music as well. Apparently, the second piece is, like, a really traditional Ukrainian song, and the first one also, I don't know quite, you know, the source of it or the root of it, but it really beautiful moment.
Jacob:So I figured I'd share that with you guys.
Justin:It's pretty astoundingly weird timing. I don't know if you know this, but I have a friend who's in Ukraine right now and in in Kyiv. And tomorrow is Ukrainians in Independence Day.
Jacob:No way.
Justin:Yeah. Wow. And it's yeah. I mean, it's pretty beautiful. My friend's writing to me that Ukraine has, like, all its eyes turned towards tomorrow and that when she's there, like, older people are singing old Ukrainian songs, songs that are older than the war, and young people are wearing traditional Ukrainian clothes.
Justin:It's just gorgeous. Like and there's this the symbol. It's like a stylized version of the Ukrainian, which is the national engine I'm sure I'm massacring my pronunciation of that, which is the national U emblem of Ukraine. And in the shape, you can see this Ukrainian word kind of hidden, which is like voila, and it means freedom, but also will and liberty. And it's just profound to, like Mhmm.
Justin:Getting it's also something so big. Like, as I think about, like, a couple days ago here, we got pretty fucked over by the Americans. And when you have the enormous hegemon next door to you and you're like, the hegemon is trying to crush you, you just, like it brings it brings such a, resilient joy to the heart even though it needs total shit, like, to face. Yeah. Yeah.
Justin:And it's just, like, the injustice of it and the clarity of the injustice of it is just, like, fuck you. Like, it's just so obvious, and it brings people together. Like, because it I've never seen I've never seen Canada so united. Like, we're everybody's just, like, in agreement. Like, fuck these people.
Justin:And Yeah. They're like, it's just so clear that there's people trying to fuck you. Yeah. So it it certainly brings that kind of thing together, but it was it was just eerie timing to have my friend there running. Those are texts I got this morning from my friend
Jacob:that's there.
Justin:Yeah. It's
Jacob:like astro collab astro
Justin:collab Total astro collab.
Jacob:We had also like, I was thinking how we we were mentioning music as the healing force of the universe. And what was what was amazing about this is just they they came, they hung out there, and they sang, and then
Justin:they And danced. And danced.
Jacob:And they and danced. And they left. There was like and and it was such an amazing way to experience music just kind of out of the blue like that. And that's why Right.
Justin:Yeah. What music is. It's what music is.
Jacob:It was amazing. To be.
Leon:Yes. Yeah. That's beautiful. Just the the spontaneous eruption of something so crystallized Yeah. But still, like, open to being, you know, shared with everyone is yeah.
Leon:Yeah. That's really, really moving.
Justin:Yeah. It's it's it's joy in the face of hell. Like, it's the most important thing. The only way you can survive this is to meet it with a joyous heart. It's beautiful.
Leon:Oh. Yeah. What an amazing an amazing moment that was captured. Yeah. Thanks to Mark.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah.
Jacob:Well, it was great because Mark what's so nice with when Mark came to Poland and he was in the at Edinburgh before that, he just started recording things that he saw really in a way. And it was in fact more interesting just to hear he would like, you know, make me listen to some of the recordings. To just travel with not images, but just sounds. It's such a profound experience of the world through music and sound and field recordings. And I hadn't really experienced field recordings like that in quite a while because it almost became like a genre in the experimental music scene, you know.
Jacob:Like, oh, field recordings field recordings. And the way that Mark started just recording these things and then we would listen to them, it was completely different. It was amazing.
Leon:It's an interesting point. I mean, kinda to to use the the word that you just used, Justin, the hegemony of vision over the world, over the sensing world is, you know, when you dislodge it, like it a Yeah. Yeah. A completely new world opens up to you in
Jacob:such It's incredible.
Justin:Yeah. Such a
Leon:different way. So, yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I have something lined up that I wanted to play, which fits kinda follows in the same theme. It's a duet by Kyoko Kuroda and Masami Shinoda. The piece is called him to freedom.
Justin:Hell, yeah.
Jacob:That was beautiful. Yeah.
Leon:Yeah. Hymn to Freedom by Kyoko Kuroda and Masami Shinoda. Two two Japanese improvisers who've been, I think, around the scene, Kyoko Kuroda on piano, keyboards, etcetera. She she also often will sing, will play small percussive instruments. And Masami Shinoda, who has played, I think, in she she's Shizu?
Justin:Oh, beautiful.
Leon:Yeah. I think I I I can't remember how to pronounce that, but yeah. So I think this is a tape from the late eighties that came out, and it's basically just a a live, you know, a live session that was that was taped. But, yeah, him to freedom for all the freedom struggles out there.
Justin:Yeah. And just such yeah. Just such a there's, like, a there's not enough of that in the world, that freedom. Wow. What a
Jacob:beautiful That piece is so intense too. Like, if you So beautiful. You barely I think I don't if he's singing a little bit, but you can barely make out the person in the first half.
Leon:Yeah. Oh, I think there's, like, some some synthesizer, like, voices.
Jacob:And and
Justin:it's like
Jacob:but it's
Leon:possible that she might be singing also.
Jacob:Well, there's something like it's just this, like, barely audible kind of really faint and really tentative. Yeah. And then it just explodes into this incredible ferociousness. It's amazing.
Justin:It's it's incredible.
Leon:Yeah. I can't when I heard this, I couldn't help but think of the the Charlie Hidden
Justin:Liberation reason.
Leon:Yeah. That whole kind of tradition of, like, the the song, you know, the song as as unifying force. I mean, there's music as the healing force of the world. The song is like kind of a a unifying force as well, I think. Something that that cuts across literacy, I think.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah. That appeals to something like much broader.
Justin:So,
Leon:yeah, the song is is is really strong, and I think it's, you know, it's it's like a very, very powerful, the song is a very powerful instrument.
Jacob:Yeah. The song is a powerful instrument.
Justin:Goddamn. You're making me go new directions. I got new directions. I got new directions. What do I do here, guys?
Justin:I gotta find it. Oh, man. Hopefully, I can find it. It's gonna take a minute.
Leon:Sorry. Nothing.
Jacob:I got us into this it's I got us into this heaviness. Oh, no.
Justin:It's Yeah. We were in the summer, and then we were in summer.
Leon:But it's it's also, like it's a heaviness that's, like, filled with with possibility also. You know?
Jacob:Yeah. I would say.
Leon:Yeah. Yeah.
Justin:I gotta see something. I gotta see something if if some works. Keep talking, guys, because I'm I'm thinking of something here.
Jacob:Oh, no.
Justin:And I wanna see if something can work.
Jacob:You can bring it back to whatever you had in mind.
Justin:No. I got well, I mean, the obvious choice after that, right, is Albert Ehlers. And we've never played Ehlers on the show, and there's a I've I'm really been on a trip for the past little while with Sonny Murray and how incredible Sonny Murray is and, like, reading about his biography and, like, what a motherfucker that guy was. And, like, what a like, in such a a great way. I don't mean as an insult, like and just how I think that the free music has changed my life and is the secret ingredient that has made my life amazing because I understand everything through pulse instead of through, linearity.
Justin:And and, like, that really changed the whole way I read a room, read a situation, read a, like, existence. But I'm not gonna play that because there's something else I have to play that But wait. I should add Yeah.
Jacob:I should before you do, I should add a really great anecdote with Sonny Murray. Yeah. I saw I don't know who was with me, maybe Mark, but we were sitting right next to Sonny Murray when he was at Casa with Sabir Mateen and
Justin:Oh, yeah.
Leon:Was that
Justin:Daniel Garter. Oh, no. No. Was it Matt Haynor?
Jacob:No. It's that bass player that's like that made these huge orchestral pieces with
Justin:Oh, Alan Silva.
Jacob:Alan Silva. Yeah. Yeah. That show
Justin:was incredible.
Jacob:And they were playing it at some point. Sonny Murray just says to Sabir Matinee, he's like, hey, Sabir. Sabir, slow down. I can't keep up. Speaking of pulses and stuff like that.
Jacob:It was pretty great.
Justin:That's awesome. It was pretty great. So in the tradition of us talking about shit and not playing it, I'm gonna not play that, but I I will play Sunny Murray one day. But this is something really dear to my heart because it's a people that I have a close relationship to, and and the astonishing beauty of their world keeps evolving through time because I I kinda keep studying them and learning more, and I'm I've gone from thinking of them as a curiosity to, like, thinking of them as some of the most noble, phenomenal humans that ever walked the Earth. So, yeah, here's a nice thing to play.
Justin:So that's some powerful shit. That's that's really, really, really powerful. It's the so much to say about this.
Jacob:This is the Sorry. It's okay. Hi,
Justin:This is this is Hello, How are you? Nice to see you, It's sore. It's sore. Pardon? Do you know a movie, Bellfagger?
Justin:No. The ghost over and over? No. I don't know. That's fantastic.
Jacob:That was part of the show.
Justin:We have to include that in the show. We have to include that in the show. That's fantastic. So this was, the USCC dukkobor friendship choir for 1979, and I'm not gonna say the name of the track because it's in Russian, and I can't get it right. But the and this music are particularly special.
Justin:Are really special to me. I grew up amongst many, and I realized as I age what a huge impact they had on me and on how I understand life. Really positive impact. First about the song, the the have no written history of their culture, of their philosophy, of their way of living, of their religious tradition, it's all song. And they all it's the living book, it's called, and it's all done in song, and it's passed on from generation to generation through song.
Justin:Very, very powerful. It's disappearing quite intensely right now, which is really heartbreaking. And they so this is part of the living book, and it's it's a song about resistance and quite powerful, like, about, you know, the persec being persecuted and surviving through faith and love. And their religion in particular was quite extraordinary. They and and their pacifism.
Justin:They were extreme pacifists and extreme vegetarians and extreme friends of animals. So, for example, they refused to have animals pull plows for them. So they designed plows that they could plow their garden their their fields with manpower instead of with animal power. And they were phenomenally, rigorous in their resistance to exploiting animals, exploiting anyone, exploiting anything to the point and and wonderfully anarchist, like, no hierarchy, no power structures. It got a bit complicated sometimes, but they were they lived it so well that Tolstoy, they were always a threat to any country that they lived in.
Justin:Tolstoy, they were very persecuted in Russia, and Tolstoy recognized them as kind of living the principles that he believed in more perfectly than anyone else could. And so he helped them emigrate to Canada, and there was a huge influx of into the Prairies and into rural BC. Eventually, they got persecuted quite severely in Canada too, including residential schools like the First Nations faced. And, yeah, it's really horrifying what they went through here too. And they are beautiful.
Justin:Like, they're one of my favorite things about the was their their religious symbolism was bread and salt and water because they they said fuck the church. Fuck all the hierarchy. Fuck any symbol of God. God is too big to be symbolized, and God is too present to be symbolized, and God is inside of all of us. So we need bread and salt and water because it is what it takes to be hospitable and to invite someone into your community and into your world.
Justin:So you need water and bread to feed them and salt for flavor. So beautiful. And that would be the church. That was the that was their religious symbolism exclusively. They also were wild wild resistors of any kind of, oppression or any kind of, like, anyone trying to change their way of life but pacifists.
Justin:So what do you do when you're a pacifist and you can't, fight back? You burn down your own house. So they would consistently burn down their own property whenever they'd be in resistance. And they did this really brilliant thing that I love where, and I actually have a couple of these, which is really cool. They built these windows because they could put up a house in about ten like, a half a day.
Justin:They were really great at it, and the only complicated part was the was the windows. So the windows come in these frames that you just flick these things out and pull the window out. They keep they pull out all the windows and then burn down the houses. And I have a couple of duke of our windows. It's really special.
Justin:And and they also would get naked and parade around the uptight English communities that they lived in to as a way of protesting. So they just, like, walk around the town buck naked until people and be really stressing everybody out, and that was their nonviolent way of protesting. And, eventually, there became a kind of more militant arm called the sons of freedom, which a Canadian punk band named themselves after in the eighties. But they're a phenomenal history, and and the great Canadian anarchist scholar George Woodcock wrote a fantastic book on the that is really worth reading, a history of them and a history of their thinking that's really a fantastic, incredible book. So, yeah, they're they're pretty, phenomenal people and more in the spirit of everything we're talking about about resistance and joy in the face of and they were, like, continuously persecuted.
Justin:And and they're they had, like, such gorgeous, beautiful lives that they built, and their community was incredible. People were weddings. They're, like, just the most beautiful thing on earth. Yeah. Really, really special people.
Justin:There there's still, a few small communities around, but it's it's really becoming very, very precarious and just really grateful to have met those people and have them be a part of my like, a very inspiring part of my worldview. So, yeah, bravo. Thank you, Duke of Horse, for being so fucking awesome and continuously resisting everything.
Jacob:That's right. We should just we should just end the show now. That was amazing. That was incredible. I'm I'm I'm ready to go to bed.
Jacob:That was that was so amazing. And and the way you've described them was so amazing and informative and inspiring. Really amazing.
Justin:Jacob, that book is the George Woodcock book on them is incredible. You would love it. It's I'll send you a link to it. I gotta I gotta backup of a bunch of books to send you, but that's a really I know you would eat that book up. Like, you'd read it in two days.
Jacob:Yeah. I'll check it out.
Justin:That sounds amazing. And there's there's a lot of music out there. Like, there's there's a few old records from the seventies and sixties that you can pick up that are really special.
Leon:Yeah. There's something about devotional music that's really that's also, like, going back to the power of song. It's like Yeah. Just some you know, it's programmed to really speak to very specific parts of you.
Justin:Yeah. It it hits hard. Hey. It hits hard.
Leon:It just goes in and turns the faucet on.
Jacob:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Leon:Yeah. It's beautiful stuff. Yeah.
Justin:Yeah. It's pretty great. And I think too, like, this idea of your history and your entire education, like, their education system is so. Oh. Like, how incredible.
Justin:You know?
Leon:Yeah. Yeah.
Justin:And I want I wanted to grow up like that. That's Well,
Leon:it this is yeah. This is it. I mean, we live in a society that that relies on the written word. If you if your worldview if your worldview is that you are your history, it completely like, that's your life, you know? Mhmm.
Leon:There's like some you know, it's a completely different way of of looking at the world. I mean, yeah, if you can just fall back on books to tell you what you're missing or whatever, there's like some agency that's not quite as present as if if you have to actually are actually actively participating in in you your life and so many others' lives and even in in the lives of people who've come before you. So, like, it's like a completely transversal thing. It's yeah. It's incredible.
Leon:And no wonder, you know, society is trying to wipe these people out.
Justin:Yeah. Because it's like So dangerous.
Leon:So dangerous. Exactly.
Justin:I mean, I think too about the way that and it's so interesting because no one like Canada. Canada was horrible to them. You know? Like, it's like, you know, even even yeah. It's like our nice little self illusions about what we are as a country.
Justin:Yep. But the, yeah, the other thing that I think about is, like, I think about the past year and a half or two years or whatever that we've been doing this podcast. And just getting together with you guys once a month, you know, talking, listening, engaging has created this layer of, like, I would say emotional security in my life. Like, there's something, like, that's just so beautiful and resilient about the friendship and that just kind of reenacting that on a monthly cycle that, like, is this really beautiful ground. Imagine singing with
Leon:Yeah.
Justin:40 people from your community Yeah. Every fucking day. Yeah. How deep that goes and how profound that goes? Fuck.
Justin:Like Yeah. We have no socials anymore. You know? Like, it's really, really so moving, like, the depth of of a feeling and and feeling for community that that creates and and security. Absolutely.
Justin:And one of the things, like, even there's this, like, really lovely gentleman, who's an old who lives in the care home that my mom lives in, and he is the the charmer of the care home. Like, everybody loves Philip. You know? And he and it's because there's just this immense warmth that he grew up in that transmits through him. You know?
Justin:And and most of the Duke of War folks that I know at who are in their sixties or seventies just carry this, like, vast spiritual generosity that you just, like, you get in the field of, and you're like, oh, I wanna hang out with this person. Like, this is so great. So, yeah, thanks, guys, for listening to that one.
Jacob:No. Thank you. Thank you.
Justin:Yeah. Wanted to have that on the show for a long time, so that's nice. That was a good lead into that. Leon, what you got?
Leon:Is it me? Yeah. I thought you're taking me. Jacob. Yeah.
Leon:No. I'm taking Jacob. Yeah.
Jacob:It's Jacob. I'm just quietly, like, sapping.
Justin:I'm not
Jacob:wanting to not wanting to go next. Next.
Justin:Nope.
Jacob:Nope. I'm gonna try something, but I don't have a feeling. We'll see what happens. But that was beautiful.
Leon:Yeah. It was beautiful.
Jacob:Oh, wait. I'm thinking I'm pressing the wrong buttons now. Okay. Share. Let me just try this.
Jacob:So that was Fog Tropes by Ingrid Marshall. I think some of it was used with foghorns. I think the piece was mostly done with foghorns and in other instruments. But after your speech, Justin, I could just play this.
Justin:It's beautiful. I I love it's funny. This has been on my list to play on the show
Leon:Oh, it's interesting.
Justin:A long time too.
Jacob:It's a beautiful piece.
Justin:I have the I love that piece. Yeah. It's to me, this is, like, a classic. Like, this is, like, one of the, like, absolute kind of it's funny. I have a complimentary piece to this that I thought about playing today that like, there are two that I always kind of go, shit.
Justin:Should I play this or that? So it's really interesting, and it's the same kind of, like, mix of adapted real world sound with live instrument scoring that was, like, a really nice thing happening at a certain time in music that I feel has drifted away that I wish would come back a little bit. Like
Jacob:I love the poetics in this. Like, it's just there's such poetics, and you can almost imagine this whole poetic idea of, like, boats in the oat like, in the sea in the fog and not sure if they're gonna reach land and they're just listening for you know, with all these popcorns. It's really beautiful. It's very poetic music.
Justin:I mean, it's pretty perfect after the whole survival comp, like, you know, dialogue that we're having then. But you're left with after that.
Jacob:Right? Something solemn. Just something solemn.
Justin:You're just like Yeah. Okay. We're just boats drifting.
Jacob:In the fog.
Justin:Yeah. It's more it's pretty existentially real.
Leon:Yeah. It's really beautiful. I I I'm not familiar with Ingram Marshall's work. I was just reading that he was he studied with
Jacob:The Morn Subutnik. Right.
Leon:I guess you can hear some of the electronics in there, the the electronic treatments. But, yeah, that's that's really, really beautiful.
Jacob:I might be mistaken, but I think that label that released this is Mantra on that label as well, or am I wrong?
Justin:I think I think so.
Leon:Oh, really?
Jacob:Yeah. I might be wrong. No.
Justin:No. I think you're right. I think you're right.
Jacob:Let me see.
Justin:Is it, like, New Albion or whatever? What's the name? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's New Albion, which is great because that's a reference to Blake or Kenneth Patchen.
Justin:I'm not sure.
Jacob:Yeah. You have him. Yeah. Yeah. Totally
Justin:Makes me think I went back to reading actually bought a hardcover book. I was like, it's like something about middle age. I'm like, I'm going back to the things that were fundamental to me and buying them and, like, putting them somewhere. And I got this I I got this beautiful 1940, whatever, first edition hardcover of new the journal of Alvy and Moonlight by Kenneth Patchen.
Leon:Wow.
Justin:Which, if you haven't read, is it's it's actually kind of this most astonishingly perfect book for right now. Such a special book, and he's such an interesting character. We had the records of him and John Cage, like the city where it's a slow chat that they did, that radio play that they did. That that was really interesting, but he's like yeah. It's it's really a book for these times.
Justin:It's it's he wrote it during, I think, the peak of World War two, and it's just this kind of fever dream of survival. And it's it's very similar to what this music is. It's like Mhmm. It's such a such a gorgeous, gorgeous book. Yeah.
Justin:And I'm not sure people read Patchett all that much anymore.
Leon:I'm, yeah. I I guess we're staying on survival. But
Jacob:Where has this podcast where has this podcast letter podcast letters? It's incredible.
Leon:But you know what?
Justin:It's a big journey.
Leon:Really incredible is that I'm able to plug in all the tracks that I wanted to play exactly in the order that I wanted to play them in. And it totally works.
Justin:You're psychically controlling this episode the whole
Leon:time. No.
Justin:No. I think
Leon:it's just, you know, it's it's just what happens when we get together. But yeah. So I I wanted speaking of
Justin:survival No. Oh my god. I was wow.
Leon:So let's go. This is a track called Kicked by Gates.
Justin:So good. Well, there you go.
Leon:Respect to Michael Morley, survivor. It sounds like it sounds like he he took all of our tracks from this episode and remixed them. Yeah.
Justin:It's incredible.
Jacob:It sounds like a journey to me. Yes. It's like this whole thing is just such a journey. Jesus. It totally makes sense that you're playing that.
Justin:It's it's such a like, I mean, what I love about him is the mix of complete mournfulness and complete ecstaticness.
Jacob:It's just,
Justin:he's the only guy that pulls that off. Like, consistently, it's incredible. What a, like, fucking maniac. That's I have that on vinyl, and that record actually sounds really, really, really great on vinyl. That's like a really
Leon:I just didn't know that it came out on vinyl.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really it's a really, really good one. And it's foil.
Justin:Like, there's a foil.
Leon:Oh, nice.
Justin:Yeah. It's so I mean, what a what a special special record.
Leon:Yeah. So this came out this is taken off the Saturday Night Fever record that just came out earlier this summer. So this is kinda like a beginning of summer track, and then we're like
Justin:This record came out a long time ago.
Leon:Oh, really? So this is
Justin:like a reissue? Reissue. Yeah. Yeah. I bought, like, maybe ten years ago.
Justin:It's quite an old it's an older gate record. Like, it's between, like, peak commercial gate, you know, which was hilarious, like, table of the elements, era gate, like, whatever. And and, like, where gate was a thing a little bit and and, like, it kind of post the Dead Sea. Like, I wanna place this right around the time of like, when when all the reissues were happening on that one label that like, I can't remember which label, but they just started putting out all the Dead Sea I mean, all the Dead Sea records again, like Family Vineyard or somebody like that. And, yeah, around that time.
Justin:So probably, like, 2010, I wanna say, maybe, 2012. Yeah.
Leon:But it's it's
Justin:a great record. It's an
Jacob:incredible record. He's amazing. Yeah.
Leon:It's I I also yeah. I I also love how this is obviously computer music, but it's, like, such fucked computer music.
Justin:Yeah. Yeah. He's the best at fuck computer music. He's the king of fuck computer music.
Leon:It may sound like he's got one computer for each sound that he's running. Like Mhmm. Like, he's triggering them by hand when I at the same time because nothing is synced. And yeah. It's just so it's it's just such a a beautiful mess.
Leon:It's really, really great.
Justin:I remember seeing him live when which was amazing. Like, I he came to Vancouver because he had this project with a two foot flame with some of the Mecanormal or with the two people from Mecanormal. And, like, him and Peter Jeffries came over from New Zealand and played a show, and it was fucking amazing. And this tiny little bar that had previously been a strip bar, and people were still coming in to see the strip strippers, like, called the called the Malcolm Lowry room, which only lasted, like, maybe a year. It was a really special bar.
Justin:And he did a show with just a guitar and a laptop, and I was really against laptop music at that point, and it just changed my mind totally. I was just like, okay. You can use laptops for music. This is great. This is great.
Justin:Yeah. Epic. He's pretty awesome live. And then my friend Anita got him high afterwards, and he was really happy about that.
Jacob:It was great. I spoke to someone in Montreal. I I don't remember who, and they went on a I think they played like a show at a festival, and I think Dead Sea was playing as well. And the only thing that I remember him telling me was that they arrived with these little mini amps. They had like
Justin:little mini amps. Pignosis.
Jacob:Yeah. Like a little little and that was their like setup. They're like, there's, like, blank through these, like, little mini ants.
Justin:I love it. I love it. Fantastic. It's really
Jacob:Such an unmistakable sound, though, that have. And and Michael Morley too. It's amazing.
Justin:Yeah. There's, like, a emotional world that his music lives in that nothing else lives in. It's really great. There's something you know, there's a little bit of overlap with Jennifer Harrema there, but, like, she's, like, the joy end of the spectrum. I don't know.
Jacob:This epi this episode is incredible.
Justin:Yeah. It's a really, really good one.
Jacob:What the hell? This is totally like the Jennifer Harema. It's amazing. It's like a it's like a mirror image of and and what your speech and the whole thing, like, that's the middle. Yes.
Jacob:And and it just kinda it just kinda like Yeah. You know? Refractions. It's a refractions are insane.
Justin:I've got I've got the perfect one. It's is it my it's me, and I'm closer. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Leon:That's amazing.
Justin:And I've got and I've got maybe the perfect track
Jacob:to close. I'm sure you do.
Justin:Because it Of
Jacob:course you do. Of course you do.
Justin:I'm going to the once again, my thesis that nothing is as good as live music and live, like, extreme live music that really pushes, like, full experimentation to the edge of total catastrophe is the greatest music. And, like, when you can ride that and not leave it or maybe fall off it a little bit and come back, that's the greatest music. And I have a wonderful example of that. Then I think then I think, like, all music or, like, Penguin Guide to Jazz gave, like, one star to this record. And I love this record so deeply.
Justin:K. So are we ready for this, guys?
Leon:Let's go. Yes.
Justin:Let's go. I love it. And I can't believe I don't think we've ever played her or him on the podcast yet, and I'm so excited that I get to knock down two stones with one track here. Three, actually, the drummer also counts. And nothing really That's what love's about.
Justin:And just Well, come and go. You'll wonder if it's real. Yeah. So that's something pretty great to close the episode with.
Jacob:That's perfect.
Justin:Oh. That's that's a special one. That's a really special one. It's, MJ, mister Joy, Annette Peacock, Paul Blay, couple other folks from a record called Dual Unity, which was a recording of a live concert tour that they did where they were just dumping all these crazy moog synthesizers onto stages and, like, touring them all over Europe, like, huge, like, thousands of pounds of equipment. And, like, none of it was working.
Justin:It would always be breaking, and and they'd just be, like, improvising with whatever they had. Two drummers, two two drummer lineup. I can't remember the name of the other drummer. Maybe Dennis Chamber. No.
Justin:He's a bass player. I can't remember. But, yeah, this is like, I realized listening to this what a huge, huge impact, like, the compositional strategies of Paul Blay had on my music when I was doing rivers and mountains and, like, just, like, picking these one riffs and two drummers and crazy, like, one the one thing over like, I was just trying to make that record. Like, and fuck. What an incredible thematic connection to everything too.
Justin:Like, the words of that song and the the vibe and the like, there's a yeah. And I also think so, you know, how, maybe you don't know in in the in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, when a lama dies, he comes back as a, like, in as a child, and you have to find the child, and then the child's the lama reincarnated. So, like, when the Dalai Lama dies, they're gonna have to go in this big church. It's getting really political with China. Whatever.
Justin:But this is how it works. I sincerely think that some super powerful tantric lama died, and his body was split between an Episode and and Jennifer Arama. And they're, like they're kind of one being. You know? Like, they're definitely one being.
Justin:And yeah. And holy shit. Also, incredibly great live concerts. Like, the Nat Peacock concert I saw was earth shatteringly great, including her playing a track. She was playing with the piano in these crazy dark lighting.
Justin:She played a track. The last track had these, like, kinda jungle beats, and she was playing piano with it. She, like, started playing the jungle beats and, like, doing this crazy vocal thing. And she just got off and walked off stage, and the vocals piano and the jungle beat just kept going. And I was like Oh, wow.
Justin:Yeah. I didn't know if the whole concert was a recording. It
Jacob:was Woah.
Justin:So fucking amazing. And, also, there's some video clips. Yeah. She's such a genius. There's some video clips of this on YouTube of this tour, and she is like, there's never been anyone more beautiful on earth than her.
Justin:Like, she's just startlingly, dazzlingly beautiful, and they're so fucking cool. Like, Han Benic, all of them, they're just like it's before Han Benic just became a parody of himself, and they're just, like, the coolest motherfuckers on Earth. Like, I'm just like, how could you be more cool than these people? It's so amazing. So great.
Justin:So, yeah, my heroes. What an incredible I wish I could have seen that tour in real life.
Jacob:Mhmm. Yeah. It sounds amazing.
Leon:That was super good. So good. So good. Such a great way to close out the this mammoth
Justin:Yeah. Charity. Yeah.
Jacob:The whole show is one being.
Justin:Yeah. It really
Jacob:was. The whole thing.
Justin:I think it might be the most coherent episode we've ever done, including the Eliane Reddyk one. Like, this was just, like, so singular. It was really, yeah, really really was we had to do this more often, guys.
Leon:Yeah.
Justin:I guess that's great.
Leon:Yeah. Wow. There's not much to to say
Jacob:after There's nothing to say after that.
Leon:Yeah. Well, that was a beautiful summer.
Justin:That was a good summer.
Jacob:Summer. Yes. That was a wonderful summer.
Justin:Yeah. We had some silence, some not silence. It was great.
Leon:Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess we'll we'll catch you next time. Yeah.