http://www.madelikeatree.com Made Like a Tree Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:38:17 +0000 http://www.madelikeatree.com en http://madelikeatree.com/mlat63-High-Wolf http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat63-High-Wolf Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:38:17 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2810631 [Location Unknown. February 18th, 2012] So... who exactly is High Wolf? To be completely honest, we're not entirely sure. If you read any of the meanderings about him scattered throughout the internet, you'll learn that 1) his first name is Max, 2) is of French origin, 3) is well traveled, 4) collects rare instruments from various cultures, and 5) is considerably generous. Other than that, he has playfully obscured much about himself so that outlets like this one focus on what's really important - the music, and the music alone. A highly passionate and vibrant entity living in a system where an overwhelming amount of the music is not, this highly spiritualized entity brings a much needed degree of warmth and excitement to today's landscape. &#9835; mlat63 - High Wolf.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat63%20-%20High%20Wolf.mp3 A good friend and music journalist here in Seattle referred you to me as one of the most spiritualized musicians in today's music landscape. That could mean a variety of things, but being as connected internationally as you are, and having been fortunate enough to work with other "spiritualized" psychedelic eccentrics like Sun Araw, how do you feel about this statement? Well first of all I'm flattered, because for me it's a compliment, it means that there is something more than just the music at stake here. And that'd be how I see it, being "spiritualized." It's not just making music for fun, so it sounds good, catchy, nice melody etc. Music is also, to my mind, deeply personal, an expression of something that is completely metaphysical, half conscious, half unconscious, that can turn into an energy and a feeling that you can call "spiritual." I think that when you experience this as a listener, when listening to a record you feel that energy and that truth coming from the musician(s), then it becomes a spiritual experience. And of course there are a good number of present musicians that I'd recognize as "spiritual" or "metaphysical." Sun Araw is one of them, but he's also very concerned with a theory of aesthetic that is really really important in his work. Yellow Swans was a good example, Ignatz as well. But I do like some music done in a totally different purpose, which is "let's make people dance." It's good too. You've elaborated quite extensively before about how spiritual you feel the experience of music is. Where would you say your own personal connection with music was spawned, and what early events in your life took place to inspire this genesis? I'd say it goes beyond music. One very early memory that I remember from when I was like 6 years old is that I've been struck by the idea of time and the temporarily of life, it was very powerful. And that truth, slightly anxiotic, was the first sign of the will of trying to discover what's beyond appearance, what you could almost call "denial". The world seems quite simple if you don't question both sides of the relationship (it and yourself). But anyway it's like music have been the right way for me to digest and express all those thoughts. And I really realized it for good in my teen age when I started to listen to modern / free jazz. Coltrane was a shock. That was the beginning of it. I also remember my father playing some Mozart tapes in the car when I was a child and that really helped in creating my imagination, trying to see what this music was describing. You lived in India for a little while. Could you talk a little bit about what your life was like when you lived in India, and why you were there? I didn't really live there, I just travelled there for a few months, moving from one place to another. I settled in Nepal for a while and lived with a family there, so that would be the closest experience to a daily life in this area. I'd been in India for the first time after I graduated. I did some really shitty jobs while I was a student and I saved enough to leave for a while, because India is so cheap you don't need that much. I left with my girlfriend, with whom I still live now. We wanted to experience the world, it's quite simple and understandable I think. See what it's like in a different culture, and see if you can handle it as well. I know some people that really hated India because it's not "comfortable." It's a very good exercise to experience what is living in those conditions, and not to freak out no matter what happens. It kinda helps you to be humble. You need humility because you have to adapt so you can fit, so you can handle the differences. If you're not ready to change, to change your needs, your expectations, your view of things while you're there then you miss it. A very good and simple example : In Europe if your train is like 20 minutes late you're pissed off. In India you're lucky if it's less than 3 hours late. And you don't care. Chaos is just a matter of pre-conception. If you're ready for it, then it's ok. And I like it so much that I went back there. Now it's like 2 years and a half I haven't been there and I miss it, I miss losing all my marks. Losing my self, partially. You mentioned before that you have been hesitant to write lyrics, at least those in French since by nature of the language there are a lot of obstacles. Your agency of English is excellent however... perhaps you've started to experiment more lately with incorporating lyrics in your music in either language? I wouldn't say that my English is excellent, far from it, and you've not heard my terrible French accent! But you're right, I'm slowly considering using minimal vocals, it's like my next big challenge. I felt that it's one of the things I need to improve my music, to change it so it's not going in circles all the time. I've been feeling this ongoing pattern in my creative process that I want to break now, at least a little bit. So it's gonna be a new way of creating music and putting a few words / vocals is part of the things I want to try. The problem is that I'm not good at it so far! Need to find my way of doing it. And it'd be in English of course, it helps that it's not my native language, and drowned in effects so no one can actually understand anything! Your particular style of improvisational psychedelia most certainly is not tied to a French tradition. Regardless of how international music culture is these days, do you feel liberated by the type of freeform music you make, or do you still feel tied to your roots? Well the aesthetic of psychedelic music is not French, I agree, if that's what I do. But if you look beyond aesthetics you could use a long tradition of french philosophers and poets who could represent an influence (and who actually are very important to me). And I think what I do goes beyond aesthetic because it seems to me that I won't make psychedelic music all my life. I see my music change, slowly but surely. And I'm not even sure that I'll make music all my life, who knows if I won't write or paint in the near future and if it won't become my primary way of expression? When I mentioned something deep on your first question about spiritual music, that's what I meant. There is an essence, and this essence goes through a filter that is aesthetic, and in some ways a strong theory of aesthetic. But if the aesthetic change, the essence remains. It evolves as well but it doesn't completely transform as aesthetic does. A few years back I was doing drone improvisation. You could hear it and not feel any link with High Wolf. But I do see the link, it's even obvious to me. So what I mean is essence is metaphysical / philosophical and aesthetic is art. They're interconnected but separated, and art has its influence, so does the essence of your self. Artistic influences are now universal because information is universal, whatever I'm interested into I have the internet and libraries to check everything. So being french is not a part of it I guess. Too many variables exist beyond the social environment. There are billions of co-dependent components of a personality, and those are the roots I'm tied with. 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS 1. Ali Farka Touré - Allah Uya [World Circuit] 2. Goat - Goatman [Rocket Recordings] 3. Master Musicians Of Bukkake - Prophecy of the White Camel [Important Records] 4. Nate Young - Comes Unbidden [NNA Tapes] 5. Blues Control & Laaraji - Awakening Day [RVNG] 6. Pinch And Shackleton - Torn And Submerged [Honest Jon's] 7. Conrad Schnitzler - Untitled (Further Records] 8. Psychic Ills - Transmute [The Social Registry] 9. René Hell - Bending (Voice) [Shelter Press] 10. Alemu Aga - Sele Sene Fretret [Ethiopiques] 11. Matt Carlson - Infinity Canyons [Gift Tapes] 12. Cut Hands - Impassion [Susan Lawley] 13. Colin Stetson - The Righteous Wrath of an Honorable Man [Constellation] 14. Moon Wheel - Four Formless Absorptions [Not on Label] <img src="http://payload25.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2810631/High Wolf.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload25.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2810631/High Wolf_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat62-Explorateur http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat62-Explorateur Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:28:07 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2716851 [Seattle, USA. January 31st, 2012] Valerie Calano, a staple and catalyst of Seattle's re-burgeoning psychedelic rock scene, joins us as "Explorateur" for the second podcast entry this year. She is a resident at the Prog! DJ night and co-produces the Distortions (psych) DJ night with writer Dave Segal. We surveyed her musical upbringing, discussed her DJing experience, and caught a slice of her musical vision. &#9835; mlat62 - Explorateur.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat62%20-%20Explorateur.mp3 How would you explain the genesis of your musical passions, and what significant occurrences have lead you to where you are today? Like a lot of people, I was really influenced by the music my parents played. I heard a lot of classic rock growing up, and Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and The Doors were some of the first psychedelic artists I came to know well. In high school I went to a lot of punk shows, and I obsessively listened to college radio, which provided a solid education in independent music and labels. When I moved to Athens, GA in the late ‘90s to attend college, the Elephant 6 scene was thriving. Seeing The Olivia Tremor Control play for the first time was a pretty significant experience for me. The way they (and their extended family of bands) blended psychedelic, pop, and experimental music was unlike anything I’d heard before, and influenced the music I sought out from that point on. File sharing networks came along a couple of years after that, and so it was down the (psychedelic) rabbit hole from there. It’s my understanding that you curated a radio show while living in England. What led you to that? I was studying there and found out the student radio station was looking for volunteers. I had never DJ’d or worked at a radio station, but I was confident that the awesomeness of my musical taste would make up for my lack of experience and put me on the fast track to getting on the air. Honestly, I think I was probably selected more for my foreign accent than I was for the collection of CDs and mp3s that I had brought to England with me. Whatever it was, I was thrilled to have my own show and subject the university population to whatever random selection of songs I felt like playing each week. I also played a lot of music from Athens to cope with the feelings of homesickness that would come up. You currently live in Seattle. What sorts of outlets here give you the opportunities to express yourself musically? Since I completely lack any natural music talent to be able to create my own music, I love to DJ as much as possible. Fortunately, there are great places in Seattle that will let me bring my records and play lots of weird shit. One of these spots is the Living Room on Capitol Hill, which has top DJs almost every weekday night, spinning techno, electro, bass music, and prog (the psych night run by the Portable Shrines collective ended last year, but it was a highlight of the Living Room’s DJ schedule). I’ve been doing a prog night there bimonthly for over a year while also spinning semi-regularly for the Valmont’s Pad monthly, which allows me to play a weird blend of sleazy lounge, dirty funk, library music, and cosmic disco. I’ve also been fortunate enough to DJ some events thrown by Portable Shrines, including its Escalator Fest in 2011. Portable Shrines has been crucial in fostering a psychedelic music scene in Seattle, booking lots of great local and touring acts and increasing awareness with consistently high standards. Veins and I have also started a psych night called Distortions that happens every second Tuesday at Linda’s Tavern. The first edition of it drew surprisingly well, and we have ambitious plans to host guest DJs from among the city’s most knowledgeable psych heads. Of the music you curated, would you say that very little of it is contemporary? How do you feel about the psychedelic/rock that is produced today as compared to that of the wonders of yesteryear? I didn’t intend for things to turn out this way, but about half of the tracks in the mix are contemporary and half originate from the late ’60s/early ’70s. The Spacemen 3 cut is in between those poles; it was released in 1987, but it’s a cover of a 1967 song by the Red Krayola. The contemporary bands obviously are inspired by the initial wave of psychedelic music and the spirit of the genre’s originators, but they aren’t engaging in sheer mimicry. In a way, today’s psychedelic musicians have it tougher. With over 40 years of this type of music out there, it’s never been harder to make psychedelia sound fresh. I think the newer artists in this mix—Applehead, Voice Of The Seven Woods, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Cloudland Canyon, Sun Araw, and High Wolf—have risen to the challenge. The music is just as transcendent and disorienting (if not more so) than that of their forebears. On that note, could you finish by talking a little bit about the selections you made for this podcast? I knew it would be too daunting within the compressed time span of this podcast to attempt an overview of the wide expanse of music that falls under the umbrella of “psychedelic.” Instead I offer a selection of tracks that move me in some way and are great examples of different styles: the funkiness of Applehead, the monastic chants of People and Between, the dramatic psych-prog of Brainticket and Ramases, the Eastern-influenced Voice Of The Seven Woods and Vibracathedral Orchestra. Many of these tracks I’ve DJ’d out a lot and provoke strong responses from people. (I’ve never played that Voice Of The Seven Woods without having at least one person ask me what it is.) I wanted to include “Cellophane Symphony” by Tommy James And The Shondells because when I first heard it via a DJ friend, it was a total “WTF?” moment. This track might be a surprise to those who only know James’ more pop-oriented radio hits. I ended with Spacemen 3’s cover of Red Krayola’s “Transparent Radiation,” which is off my favorite album from one of my favorite psych bands. It’s a nearly 10-minute suite that has an epic sweep to it. This seemed like the best possible conclusion to a mix that takes you into a lot of different mindsets and sonic destination points. 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS 1. Alan Watts / The Time and Space Machine - Vision Om [5D] 2. Applehead - Apple Head [Pre-Cert] 3. Brainticket - Watchin' You [Lilith] 4. Voice Of The Seven Woods - The Fire In My Head [Twisted Nerve] 5. Vibracathedral Orchestra - A Mirrored Pyramid (For JS) / Es Inaceptable Para Mi [VHF] 6. Cloudland Canyon - Holy Canyon (Vanquish) [Tee Pee] 7. Sun Araw - Get Low [Not Not Fun] 8. High Wolf - Bizarre Moonlight [Sergent Massacre] 9. People - Shomyo Part 1 [Phoenix] 10. Between - Devotion [Wah-Wah] 11. Ramases - Life Child [Mexican Summer] 12. Tommy James And The Shondells - Cellophane Symphony [Roulette] 13. Spacemen 3 - Ecstasy Symphony / Transparent Radiation (Flashback) [Fire] <img src="http://payload20.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2716851/Explorateur.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload20.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2716851/Explorateur_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat61-Veins http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat61-Veins Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:58:50 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2580319 [Seattle, USA. January 10th, 2012] Dave Segal (Veins) has been offering the city of Seattle incredibly savvy musical insight as a writer for The Stranger for years now. He is one of our absolute favorite musical resources the world over. Because of this, he's been asked to submit another podcast since our last request, and this time we wanted him to be a little more specific. Given our knowledge of Dave's fondness for top shelf vinyl gems (particularly those of the pretentious ilk), we asked for and he delivered an all progressive rock podcast for your listening pleasure. Enjoy. &#9835; mlat61 - Veins.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat61%20-%20Veins.mp3 Welcome to 2012. Thanks for starting the year off for us with another one of your glorious (and pretentious) musical visions. When you were originally planning this mix, you were essentially going to commit to doing a "progressive rock podcast" - a "progcast," if you will. Are you stoked with what you made? I’m fairly pleased with the result, and also somewhat frustrated that I couldn’t squeeze in all the tracks I wanted to, but I realize that attention spans are diminishing before our very eyes and even this 88-minute mix will be too long for many 21st-century earthlings. I think there’s a solid blend of familiar and obscure names, with nothing too obvious. I sincerely hope it will take people’s minds off their worries and coax vividly surreal imagery in their mind’s eye. "Progressive Rock," many would agree, has an enormously bad reputation. What exactly would you define as being "prog rock," what direct/indirect factors contributed to its reputation, and how does the material you chose for this podcast fit into its legacy? Several books and magazine articles have been written about this subject, but we don’t have a lot of time here, so I’ll attempt to condense things. Re: prog rock’s lousy reputation, it can be attributed to a couple of major factors: 1) The prog that most people have heard is typically the most watered-down, cloying version of the genre. The best prog music generally exists far below most people’s radars and therefore requires them to dig deep to locate it, and most folks don’t have the will to accomplish that—even now, with an entire internet at their disposal to ease the search! Ergo, they have a misguided, degraded notion of what prog can be. That being said, the prog I heard on the radio as a lad in the ’70s—Yes, King Crimson, ELP, Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Focus, Rush—wasn’t bad at all. It just wasn’t the best stuff available. Magma, Heldon, and Stomu Yamash’ta were not in heavy rotation on American radio. Pity. 2) The rock critical establishment largely dismissed or outright denigrated most prog rock as “pretentious wankery.” Apparently to these cultural gatekeepers, rock was not allowed to have stratospheric ambition or songs that last more than five minutes or possess complicated chord progressions and time signatures. These critics—I’m thinking of certain writers for Rolling Stone, Creem, and Trouser Press (although Lester Bangs often gave props to some prog bands)—generally had a narrow view of what constituted great rock, and prog clearly did not fit into their constricted vision of that. And these pundits had a profound impact on the way the American public reacted to prog. To my shame, I swallowed their bullshit, too. What is prog rock? It’s kind of like pornography—hard to define, but I know it when I see/hear it. I have a very broad view of prog. Sure, Yes, King Crimson, ELP, Rush, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd are its best-known artists and did some mighty important work. But prog, to me, is much more than extravagant, complicated rock that goes to art school and harbors overblown literary pretensions. Much more. Prog can be celestial ambient tone poetry; warped drones; sinister new-age symphonies; fiery jazz fusion; dark, skewed folk; Tropicalia’s stranger zones; malarial world-music hybrids from countries not yet discovered (see Jon Hassell and his acolytes), et cetera (especially Et Cetera). Not everyone is going to agree with my conclusions here, but I’d rather err on the side of expansiveness than be a tightwad with the musical progressiveness. I’m offering y’all a banquet; don’t quibble over the condiments. The material chosen for this podcast embodies what I think is the ineffable spirit of prog—a zeal for twisting old songwriting formulas and/or breaking new sonic ground while striving to create heretofore unprecedented strains of beauty. (Is that pretentious enough for you?) What bands (to you) uplifted the artform, and which ones degraded it? Uplifted: Magma, Lard Free, Soft Machine/Matching Mole/Robert Wyatt, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Düül II, Can, Aphrodite’s Child/Vangelis, Heldon, Goblin, Jean-Claude Vannier, Et Cetera/Wolfgang Dauner, Franco Battiato, Pierrot Lunaire, Il Balletto Di Bronzo, Brainticket, Gong, Egg, Embryo, Area, Taj Mahal Travellers, Bo Hansson, Sensations’ Fix. I know I’m omitting some crucial artists. Sorry. But, honestly, this list could go on for pages, until every last reader is put to sleep, and still somebody would say I forgot about a prog superhero. Degraded: Marillion, Queensryche, Dream Theater. A lot of prog from the ’80s just didn’t cut it for me—too ponderous and pompous, too much bluster, not enough luster. 4. You undoubtedly grew up with it (what year were you born?). What particular place does this genre have in your heart? I was born in 1962. Like most people, I was bamboozled into thinking prog was a ridiculous waste of my time; I had to overcome years of brainwashing to give the genre a fair shake. Punk-rock fundamentalists wanted you (STILL want you) to burn all of your classic- and prog-rock records, and for a nanosecond in 1977 they may have had a solid point. But from a 21st-century perspective, I think the best prog generally offers richer rewards than the best punk does. As I get older, I appreciate prog more and more as a necessary expression of rock musicians seeking to expand the prevailing rigid strictures by radical means. Like its close cousin, psych rock, prog at its best can propel listeners way out of mundane consciousness and into fantastical realms that are colored more by H.P. Lovecraft and Philip K. Dick than by J.R.R. Tolkien. Prog is overachiever music that requires a greater attention span and a tolerance for bizarre tangents. That being said, sometimes it’s straightforward and relatively easy to absorb (check this podcast’s Caravan track for proof), but not often. 5. Could you talk a little bit about the tracks you chose for you mix and why you assembled them as you did? With this mix, I strove for a variety of styles while trying to maintain a semi-logical flow that wouldn’t jolt you out of the ecstatic dream state in which the first three tracks undoubtedly will put you. (RIGHT?) All I knew is that I wanted to start with something off Et Cetera’s self-titled album, which is my favorite of all time. “Lady Blue” is a world-class attention-grabber, a weird choral ballad/beat poetry/acoustic jazz triple-decker sandwich of the gods. If it doesn’t hook you from the get-go, we can never be friends. From there, we get into some French headfuckery and drone sorcery with Lard Free and Heldon (two artists whose entire catalogs you need). The next three tracks by Passport, John McLaughlin, and Sonny & Linda Sharrock veer into sublimely frantic jazz-fusion territory. They’re the sonic equivalent of roller-coaster rides experienced on the finest trucker speed, executed by virtuoso players. I expect a lot of WTF?ing going on with this triumvirate. The Valerie Lagrange chanson is a little respite from the madness, reveling in a kind of classical Gallic beauty. Spectre takes things into analog-synth-heavy heaven and then 801 (featuring Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera) somehow fling the Beatles’ most psychedelic track into a shinier, equally far-out future. Godley & Crème’s “Foreign Accents” is just utterly demented quirktronica by the guys responsible for 10cc’s hits. It’s a total anomaly of a track, and there are few things I like more than anomalous music. The stretch from Gong to Deuter touches on somewhat traditional prog-rock tropes, though each one in a distinctive manner (maybe that makes sense, because the musicians come from France, England, Greece, Italy, and Germany). There are even some catchy choruses that won’t give your ears diabetes after two listens. Collin Walcott teases us out of that bit of conventionality with an idyllic Indo-jazz meditation, which leads illogically to Tim Buckley’s unheralded “Lorca,” an unnerving ballad whose elegant turmoil is swept away by ELO’s “The Whale” (talk about anomalies), a gorgeous instrumental that invented chillwave about 30 years before it was a faux-nomenon. I put this one last because I wanted listeners to come away from the mix with a sense of an absurdly happy ending, almost a kind of heavenly ascension. Did it work? 6. When I heard you putting the mix together, Passport's Looking Thru really stood out as a defining moment. The French-origin tracks were quite special as well. Thanks. Passport were only sporadically brilliant, but when they were on, they were among the best of the German prog bands. And the French contributed greatly to prog’s storehouse of essential sounds, despite using a flawed language with too many silent letters. 7. What is your favorite Rush song? Trick question? But seriously, I really only like the intros to two Rush songs: “Spirit Of The Radio” and “Tom Sawyer.” However, I’ve not listened to much Rush, because I have insurmountable problems dealing with Geddy Lee’s voice. Maybe I’ll get around to them in the next lifetime. 8. Well thanks for sharing some of your collection with us... what awaits you this year? Lots of DJing at the Prog! and Distortions nights at the Living Room bar and Linda’s, respectively, and if all goes well, lots of other DJ gigs at various Seattle venues and house parties (my rates are very reasonable). Beyond that, I suspect I’ll be committing a lot of music journalism/criticism, and, I hope, penning more album liner notes for labels like Medical and Light In The Attic, and anyone else who issues quality records who wants my words to accompany their wonderful sounds. I have some book ideas, as well, which I’m not at liberty to divulge now. As I’m turning 50 in April, I also anticipate plunging headlong into a midlife crisis, which might instigate a career change or splurging on some absurdly posh hi-fi equipment. 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS 1. Et Cetera - Lady Blue [Cosmic Nuggets] 2. Lard Free - Acid Framboise [Wah Wah] 3. Heldon - Perspective IV [Aural Explorer] 4. Passport - Eternal Spiral [Atco] 5. John McLaughlin - Miles Out [Columbia] 6. Sonny & Linda Sharrock - Apollo (Atco) 7. Valerie Lagrange - Si Ma Chanson Pouvait [FindersKeepers] 8. Spectre - Arkham [B-Music] 9. 801 - Tomorrow Never Knows [Editions EG] 10. Godley & Creme - Foreign Accents [Phonogram] 11. Gong - Dynamite [Virgin] 12. Aphrodite’s Child - The Lamb [Vertigo] 13. Jade Warrior - Psychiatric Sergeant [Vertigo] 14. Caravan - Golf Girl [London] 15. Area - Gioia e Rivoluzione [Cramps] 16. Deuter - Der Turm/Fluchtpunkt [Kuckuck] 17. Collin Walcott - Golden Sun [ECM] 18. Tim Buckley - Lorca [Elektra] 19. ELO - The Whale [United Artists] <img src="http://payload14.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2580319/Veins_2.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload14.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2580319/Veins_2_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat60-Night-Gallery http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat60-Night-Gallery Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:54:21 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2525775 [Seattle, USA. December 31st, 2011] Great friends of the MLAT blog - two dudes who have been around since the beginning, in fact - have taken the time out to pull together their favorite tracks of the year for this specially catered BEST OF 2011 podcast. Shawn Kralicek and Kuri Kondrak who jointly run the crisp house label Night Gallery, have some of the best taste in sweet spot dance music in the Pacific Northwest, and have dug through just about each and every gem they've found this year specially for your listening please... enjoy! &#9835; mlat60 - Night Gallery.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat60%20-%20Night%20Gallery.mp3 Thanks for closing out the year with your selection of the year's best. What is it about these tunes that made the cut? S: I think 2011 was a great year for music so it wasn't difficult to find tunes for this mix. We basically had a big stack of records we agreed on and this is how it turned out after about two hours. The only problem is that there were so many more that we just couldn't fit in. K: Yes, we had a few more tracks that would have been great to showcase but we let this mix flow pretty naturally and this is what we ended up with. After we finished I realized that we hadn’t dropped a favorite Night Gallery track. Still kicking myself for that omission. Care to focus on a select few that were especially important finds, and why? S: I've always been a big Juju & Jordash fan, but I think they really crushed it this year. Their two tunes in the mix are so good and so different from each other. Such versatile artists, but have a style and sound all their own. Our friends at Further had a great year and released a great variety as well. The Tabernacle and M>O>S labels released a lot of good stuff too. K: I really like what Future Times have been doing and Protect-U’s “World Music” was a knockout that stayed in my box all year. That Esteban Adame track really hit all the right buttons for me and was really slept on. Plus Eduardo De La Calle re-imagined techno’s past and delivered some of the most intricate work of the year through his Analog Solutions label. It was great to see Kevin Reynolds getting back into the swing of things, releasing more music again this year. And his “Liaisons” was terrific: mechanical sounding percussion juxtaposed with a halcyon melody. What are your respective histories as deejays? S: I was very lucky to have somehow been exposed to underground electronic dance music in the middle of Kansas in 1989. I started playing records in 1993/94 and that's about it. K: I discovered electronic music in the early ‘90s in neighboring Missouri (me and Shawn never bumped into each other though) and was bit by the techno bug when I heard the Red Planet series and Galaxy 2 Galaxy’s “Hi-Tech Jazz.” After that there was no looking back. How has the Night Gallery label that you started together been going so far? S: Smooth. I'm very pleased with what we've done. K: We’ve been lucky to work with some very talented and gracious artists. Releasing on vinyl isn’t the easiest thing to do, financially, but it’s something we’re committed to and proud of. What is the label's sound/aesthetic? Does it embody a particular vision, or is that element not particularly set in stone? K: Over the years we’ve both liked when you get a 12” and it covers vastly different styles but retains a high quality level. And I think that is one thing that we have looked at doing when possible, but at the same time we aren’t going to limit ourselves by that condition. S: The only thing that is set in stone is that we only do wax. When did the label start, how did you choose the name, and how do you feel about its future? S: We came up with the idea for the label earlier in 2010. I was a big Rod Serling fan when I was a kid and really dug his early 70's show called Night Gallery. It was like the Twilight Zone on LSD. I guess that's where the idea for the name comes from. There is no master plan for Night Gallery. We just want to continue releasing music that we love and believe in. Were you able to accomplish certain goals that you had for Night Gallery this year? S: I don't think we have goals for the label that are set in stone. If we find music that we love and care about from an artist that we click with we want to put it out there. We released the two Dijkhuis EPs last year. There's a four track EP from LOW LOW scheduled for release early 2012 and another from Alex Israel later in the year. We are very happy with those accomplishments. And as to be expected, care to reflect for a minute on 2011? Any regrets and/or resolutions? K: This year felt good from a music perspective. No major regrets or resolutions. Just keep doing what we’ve been doing. S: I will remember 2011 as the year I turned 40, a great year for music, and not such a great year for the world. 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS 1. John Beltran - Beautiful Robots [Styrax] 2. o1o - Bunny Rabbitz [Further] 3. Juju & Jordash - Chelm Is Burning [Golf Channel] 4. John Heckle - My Only Hope [Tabernacle] 5. Kevin Reynolds - Liaisons [Nsyde] 6. R-A-G - Harold's Invention [M>O>S] 7. C-Beams - Thumbling [Uncanny Valley] 8. Mark DuMosch - Birdsong [Tabernacle] 9. Protect-U - World Music [Future Times] 10. Omar S - Here's Your Trance Now Dance [FXHE] 11. Fred P - Come This Far [Soul People Music] 12. Kassem Mosse - A [Workshop 12] 13. Eduardo De La Calle - The Concept Sampler [Analogue Solutions] 14. D'Marc Cantu - Set Free [M>O>S Deep] 15. Juju & Jordash - Bleached Roots [Rush Hour] 16. Spekter - Pipe Bomb [Sound Signature] 17. Chasing Voices – Another Walk [Preserved Instincts] 18. Tin Man - Nonneo (Donato Dozzy Remix) [Acid Test] 19. Lucretio - A Mountain [Machines State] 20. Esteban Adame - I'll Never Give Up [Underground Quality] 21. Alex Israel - Gaz 13 feat. Etiku Dancer [W.T. Records] 22. Mike Slott/Martyn - Pointing Fingers [All City] <img src="http://payload11.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2525775/Night Gallery.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload11.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2525775/Night Gallery_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat59-Lerosa http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat59-Lerosa Thu, 15 Dec 2011 20:27:48 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2464720 [Roma, Italy via Dublin, Ireland. December 15th, 2011] Lerosa is a kindred spirit to many of us, being a dedicated and creative sound scientist with passions for warm acid and analog. He really doesn't (or at least shouldn't) require any sort of introduction or tip of the hat here, as there are several interviews and previous podcasts he has engaged in available all over the internet. We're just happy to hear another wonderfully curated mix by one of our favorite producers (comprised entirely of vinyl, recorded live). &#9835; mlat59 - Lerosa.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat59%20-%20Lerosa.mp3 Its so great to have you help close out a year (of what we've been happy to see be) of great music. What have you been up to over the last 12 months (or as far back as you can recall)? This year I have been mostly working on the production of my LP ‘Amanatto’ which came out on Uzuri a couple of months back. I have also been working on smaller projects; a track on the "House Expressions" compilation on Lunar Disko and a remix for my mate Graham Bray, aka Rawtro, for his debut EP soon-ish to be out on Melodram Recordings, out of Spain I believe. Behind the scenes I have been working on new material; look at Apartment, Further and Sued in the coming months for various Lerosa related projects. The rest of the year I have spent at various Lunar Disko Parties, getting sloshed and wagging the disco finger. How was the weather been in Ireland? Do you still find yourself comfortable over there? The weather has been a disaster since I got here in '95. I have luckily turned into a duck in the intervening years so wet and miserable weather is of comfort to me and good for me feathers. You've noted here and there that you've turned away from newer releases and have reverted to buying older tunes. How do you feel about the music that has been released this year? Well in fairness I have been buying new music as well as old music, represses or just Discogs hunting. I think there have been a lot of great new releases. I have certainly enjoyed old music like the Virgo Four compilation on Rush Hour or the Drexciya compilation on Clone but at the same time there have been great new releases from the likes of John Heckle, Big Strick, Instra:mental, Legowelt, Omar-S and Storm Queen. I think the move away from dumb dark machismo of dubstep into the realm of more experimental techno/electro or its middling with house has been a positive thing has it got me also into a lot of interesting things like Cosmin TRG and the likes. Who have you been looking to carry the torch for electronic music production as of late? Legowelt. Humble, funny, inspirational and getting better with age, the man is a beacon in the night. Do you have any (direct/indirect) responses to this by way of the things you've been working on lately? Well, in a sense yes, I have been really enjoying a lot of synth heavy productions in general, be it Legowelt, or Gatekeeper, Model Man or Games or Protect-U so I have been quite influenced... if this actually translated in a different sound I am not sure, you'll have to judge by yourself once the next records come out... You haven't exactly been sitting in obscurity for the past couple years - there are many wonderful interviews and mixes of yours that dazzle the internet. Could you just say a few words about the mix you've made for use and what its about? Yea, as much as I am a sucker for producers who have an air of mystique about them I resolved to be myself when it comes to how to present myself to the press or whatever, without artifice, so I don't shy away from interviews or from podcasts, when I have stuff to give I don't hold back. This mix was a bit of a step back after my last two mixes where I did explore more techno and hybrid dubstep textures (see my mix on Soundcloud "afterhours" and my recent podcast on ISM). I wanted to return to the themes I have been playing with all year, namely mixing old and new music, trying to draw connection lines between ancient Orb remixes and the current deep house trends, between old Lidell Townsell acid classics and the new breed of acid producers like 2 AM FM and generally juxtaposing producers from different years and from styles to highlight the diversity and depth electronic dance music has. How do you plan on closing out the year? Any plans, regrets or resolutions? Oh no plans, I have stopped making plans. We'll see what happens. 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS 1. DJ Yoav B - Peace [Syncrophone] 2. OM Unit - Lavender [All City Records] 3. Jay Simon - Faith [Wild Oats] 4. Kazino - Binary [Strut] 5. 52nd Street - Cool As Ice [Factory] 6. ESP - It's You [Underground] 7. Tony V - Trackin' Down The House (Never Change) [Sample Records] 8. Keichi Suzuki - Satellite Serenade (The Orb's Transasian Express Remix) [WAU / Mr. Modo Records] 9. Storm Queen - Look Right Through [Environ] 10. John Heckle - Ancient Deep [Signals] 11. Innerzone Orchestra - Bug in the Bassbin [Mo Wax] 12. Chicken Lips - Do It Proper (Maurice Fulton Remix) [Kingsize] 13. Terrence Dixon - Climb (Orlando Voorn Remix) [Nightvision] 14. T. Williams - Go In [Local Action] 15. Chicago Shags - Westside [Bunker Records] 16. Storm Queen - It Goes On [Environ] 17. Lidell Townsell (feat Kool Rock Steady) - I'll Make You Dance [TRAX Records] 18. 2 AM FM - Desolate Cities [M>O>S Recordings] 19. Reel by Real - Freedom From What [a.r.t.less] 20. Space Dimension Controller - Usurper [R & S Records] <img src="http://payload8.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2464720/Lerosa.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload8.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2464720/Lerosa_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat58-Wall-of-Sound http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat58-Wall-of-Sound Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:18:13 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2326069 [Seattle, USA. November 17th, 2011] Our favorite music shop here in Seattle is Wall of Sound, and it has been for quite some time. Having delivered quality and carefully catered music to the city of Seattle for over 20 years, the shop and its owners are living cultural treasures to us here. We're honored to have the shop deliver a snippet of their genius of the MLAT podcast series for everyone to enjoy (mixed by Lioncub). &#9835; mlat58 - Wall of Sound.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat58%20-%20Wall%20of%20Sound.mp3 There are two gentlemen that own and run Wall of Sound (Jeffery & Michael). Jeffery, the bearded maven of the two, has chosen to classify each track in his mix in the abstract: 1) Welcome To Magic City. 2) Dinner Music. 3) Brains, Let's Eat. 4) Groovy Limbs Too. 5) Soy Bean Hostages. 6) Rare Dylan Hairs. 7) You Can Be Punk. 8) Grits & Collard Greens 9 ) Cabbage Funk. 10) Oh Shit. 11) Robot Love. 12) Bedtime In The Stars. 13) What Do You Really Know? 14) Digital Failures Included*** Unreleased nugget. 15) How To Do It. 16) Kills Me Every Time. 17) Oh Yes. Uh Huh. 18) Lay It On Thick. 19) Lay It On Think. 20) Lay On It. 21) Get Laid. 22) Sing It Larry. 23) Dream Salute. 24) I Know We Can. 25) Sweet Dreams. Could you indulge us with a (brief) history of your Wall of Sound shop? How long have you been in business? We recently turned 21 years old. Now we can grow long hair, drink beer and freak out. How are things currently going? If things as we know them are considered carefully and then compared to other greater and more important things in general then things as we know them seem to be going okay. People could always buy more records though! Who is responsible for how the shop works? It's a two man operation; myself and Michael Ohlenroth. We put in equal parts toward how the shop functions. We try as best we can to keep up with it! What has been your experience/perspective with the the business since the birth of Napster and the mass pirating of digital media? Music retail took a rather large hit across the board starting in the mid to late 90s. Including us. We have managed to survive due in parts to our smaller scale, determined nature and our esoteric approach to how we stock the store. Now everyone has a million songs on their hard drive or whatever and that's fine. As long as people remember that they need an extra music surprise every now and then. Going to your local record store (if you're lucky enough to have one) is the perfect way to find something you were not expecting. Always remember to go to the record store! It's fun! It's important! Go to the the record store and try something new on for size and you'll be better for it! What about at the heart of all of this... how is the music? Are you excited about new music that is made and being made available today? The music is great. It keeps going and it keeps us going. We wouldn't do it otherwise. It is vast. It is constant. It is difficult to keep up with. It's new. It's old. It's the best thing ever. It's why we're here. Hear? Could you talk a little bit about your podcast? It's just some stuff I've had on rotation around the house. I hope you all enjoy it! What does the future hold for you and your provision of quality music for the city of Seattle? We love doing what we do and we keep trying as best we can. We have a lot of good friends and customers and that keeps us going. We hope to continue to win more good friends and customers in the years to come. The cravings of the record hounds still persist and as long as they exist so shall we. Thanks! 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS 1. Sun Ra - Medicine for a Nightmare [El Saturn] 2. Lamb - Hawaii [unknown] 3. Nico Fidenco - Resurrection [Lucertola Media] 4. Tony Mottola - Guitar Thing [Project 3] 5. Captain Beefheart - My Human Gets Me Blues [Revenant] 6. Hendrix - Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window [unreleased live version] 7. Warsaw - unknown [pre Joy Division demos] 8. Funkadelic - Funky Woman [unknown] 9. Polanie - Nie Zawroce [unknown] 10. Little Ed & The Soundmasters - Its a Dream [Numero Group] 11. Girls Tape Store - Melt [Sucre] 12. Sun Ra - Advice to Medics [El Saturn] 13. White Noise - Love Without Sound [Island] 14. AFCGT - Suitcase [Unreleased] 15. Creations Unlimited - Chrystal Illusion [Soul Kitchen / Numero] 16. Post Industrial Boys - Melon [Max Ernst] 17. Ron Buford - Deep Soul (Part 2) [BGP] 18. Jimi Hendrix - Level [Astan] 19. Curtis Mayfield - Think [Curtom] 20. Alice Coltrane - Turiya and Ramakrishna [Impulse!] 21. Blo - Chant to Mother Earth [Strut] 22. Jimi Hendrix & Larry Lee - Mastermind [Experience Hendrix] 23. Sonny Sharrock - Who Does She Hope to Be? [Axiom] 24. Pastor T. L. Barrett And The Youth For Christ Choir - Like a Ship [Numero] 25. Bhattacharya & Brozman - Lullabye [Riverboat] <img src="http://payload1.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2326069/Wall of Sound.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload1.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2326069/Wall of Sound_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat57-T-s-Flock http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat57-T-s-Flock Sun, 30 Oct 2011 04:12:53 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2224966 [Seattle, USA. October 29th, 2011] We love Trenton Flock. One of the wittiest writers we know, we couldn't think of a better contender for this year's Halloween edition. True MLAT heads will remember the essay he wrote to compliment last year's Burial Hex entry, which should surely be checked out if you haven't yet. Rotating between several projects and an elusive social schedule, we're proud to present his selection for this year's Halloween edition (mixed by Lioncub). Be sure to consider how he broke up his mix thematically (in two parts): -PART ONE- Apotropaism 1. Little Marcy - Devil, Devil, Go Away Invocation 2. Astrobotnia - Everyone 3. Teargas and Plateglass - Simplify the Landscape with Darkness 4. Nurse With Wound - Glory Hole 5. Sunn O))) - Cursed Realms 7. Funkstorung - Try Dried Frogs 7. Throbbing Gristle - Invocation Summoning Rite of Death (live) Seance 7. Joy Division - Dead Souls 9. Janis Joplin & Jimmy Hendrix - Summertime (live) 10. Nico - Eulogy to Lenny Bruce 11. Townes Van Zandt - The Velvet Voices 12. Neko Case - Deep Red Bells 13. Diamanda Galas - Let My People Go -PART TWO- The End of Desire... 14. Genitorturers - One Who feeds 15. David Lynch and John Neff - Mountains Falling 16. Fever Ray - If I Had a Heart 17. Sneaker Pimps - Spin Spin Sugar 18. Portishead - Machine Gun 19. Tricky - Tear out my Eyes ...is Oblivion 20. Demdike Stare - The Stars are Moving 21. Suum Cuique - Even in Death 22. Beautumn - Too Much is Unsaid 23. A Silver Mt Zion - For Wanda 24. The Knife - Still Light 25. Mum - Now There's Fear Again Evocation 26. Nick Cave and the Dirty Three - Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum 27. Little Marcy - That's Why We Say &#9835; mlat57 - T.s. Flock (part 1).mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat57%20-%20T.s.%20Flock%20(part%201).mp3 &#9835; mlat57 - T.s. Flock (part 2).mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat57%20-%20T.s.%20Flock%20(part%202).mp3 How have you been and what have you been up to these days? Oi. Let's just say I'm glad that autumn is here. But then, I'm always glad when autumn arrives. There were plenty of reasons to hate growing up in the southeast, but the summers there are always near the top of the list, and so I've only in the few years since I've moved to Seattle decided that summer is not to be feared. I think this was the first summer in my life I even attempted to tan. All the same, autumn will always be my favorite season. It is the season of retrospect, the real beginning and end of the year to my mind, and that always puts me in a better space creatively. What are some interesting projects that you have been involved in lately? I always have this huge list and I jump between them. It's been a bit manic. One minute I'm working on a biography, the next I'm working on an academic essay, the next I'm putting together a Web site, the next I'm writing poetry or fiction, or composing music, and somewhere in the mix I find ways to keep my visual arts from completely atrophying. The whole world is going crazy, it seems, so it's good to know that I'm not the only manic one and that there will always be material for artists and writers who want to respond to the contemporary world in a meaningful way. Right now, my top project is getting a Web site running where I can post more arts writing and criticism. We have a robust arts scene in Seattle, superb for the modest size of the city, so much great talent in every medium and form, but very few are writing about it in earnest. Everyone is putting their work out into a void. I'd love to make my own creative work a priority for myself, but it seems my talents are best used in creating a larger dialog in the arts community and helping that dialog reach the larger population. I'm not getting enough traction through salons and forums. I need to expand the audience. I also have a couple secret projects. I'm loving where those might lead. Any regrets to report this year as you approach All Hallow's Eve? Oh, there are always things that I would consider regrettable, such as certain projects that have imploded and relationships have changed in unfavorable ways. For myself, though, I have few regrets. Regret is self-annihilating. It suggests that we aren't happy with who we are and we should be someone else because of something that we did or something that happened to us. It seems to suggest that the person we are at any given moment should not exist, should be someone else. But like I said, this is the season of retrospect and one can't help but indulge in hypotheticals. That can be the start of a creative work, a healing process, or wallowing. And it's only human to do a little of all three. Although, maybe I can say I regret that humans need to sleep. That's something that isn't so much on me as nature. Damn nature. How do you feel about everything around you come Halloween this year? These are interesting times. The sort of unrest that we are seeing around the world has been building for a while. I've been watching it build, and--I know the astrology thing is ridiculous to some people, but I find astrology and divination to be useful tools for meditation and creative departure from a subject, and this sort of madness and the breakdown of faith in longstanding hegemons and systems and a push for sweeping change is written in the stars. It's been funny to watch. So I feel pretty good, not because I have some misguided certainty about my life or the fate of the human race based on star charts and the like, but because I've already grown accustomed to uncertainty and the fact that things will get crazier, and if we survive it we'll perhaps be witness to something new...for better or worse. You wrote a great piece last year for us to coincide with Burial Hex's Halloween podcast. Any new 'big' thoughts to contribute this year? Hahaha. Always. Just like everyone else, I guess. And I could say a lot about how all the unrest I just rambled about ties into elements of Halloween. For all the high rhetoric in western civilization right now about these gigantic, convoluted, abstracted systems we have created, in the end we are all so bloody primitive. The market is an abstraction of the wilderness. It's still just resources getting moved around, and it is just as heartless and predatory as any natural system. It is supposed to create a buffer from the elements and have some ethical heart, but it doesn't, and people are aware of that. Add to that these polarized factions that form in the disagreements about these systems, and what do you have? You take a step back and see that it is all quite primal, us against them, fear-mongering and bloodthirsty. It's a wilderness with just enough restraints to keep us from clubbing each other to death, but I'm wondering how long those restraints will hold, frankly. In some parts of the world, they have already been ripped apart. We're hoping that as people collect themselves, it will be better for a while, but let's just say it's hoping against hope. So as for Halloween, it used to be about our relationship with the dead and the time of year for such reflection was right because life and death were so intimately bound in the harvest and the cycle of seasons. Now we don't commune with people whom we have buried, but more with the id and instincts, the parts of ourselves that have been buried as a race, as a culture, and as individuals. We're seeing very clearly just how primitive, how doomed we all are. It's entertaining for me. Still, in spite of considering all this, I prefer to make Halloween all about affirming life and merrymaking, the way it should be. Halloween was Satan's day in my Christian household growing up. We would not take any part in the holiday. Some years, we would sit in our house in silence and darkness, pretending to not be home. Even giving out candy to neighbors was like taking part in Satanic ritual. I have since had enough crazy Halloweens that I feel caught up by now, and I can actually sit alone in darkness and silence and meditate on the season and symbols and be content. I guess I have come full circle in a way! This year I'm particularly excited about a butoh and modern art inspired tea ceremony at midnight hosted by Miko Kuro on Saturday. That will follow a wild house party with several local bands I really like. I guess I couldn't ask for anything better. Have you picked out a costume? I've done those involved, uncomfortable costumes in the past that require maintenance all night. I'm not in the mood this year. II've designed some nice ghoulish makeup inspired by sugar skulls. That's always a crowd pleaser, and if you want to be funny you can come up with a story. A few years back I was a Log Cabin Republican. I had intestines hanging from my abdomen, because they are gutless. I had a grotesque, feculent-looking mixture of chocolate frosting and oats around my mouth because they are bottom feeding. I did my eyes to appear gouged out because they are willfully blind. And I had stab wounds all over my back. Aren't I subtle? If anyone asks this year, I'll just tell them I'm Steve Jobs. Could you talk about your mix, and perhaps reveal why you structured it the way you did? I knew I wanted to bookend it with Little Marcy from the start. For those who aren't familiar, Little Marcy was the alias of this crazy fundamentalist woman named Marcy here in the Northwest in the '70s who released a few albums. It was a little ventriloquist dummy version of the singer herself. She's singularly disturbing. Or in the current vernacular, totes cray cray. She had to go at both ends. The opening section is the "creepshow," if you please. I listen to these bands frequently, though, especially when I'm writing or designing. Sunn O))) is local. I knew I had to include them. I liked putting them alongside Nurse With Wound, too, to place the wicked female and wicked male voices side by side. The next section is all voices of and for the dead. And dead voices for the dead in a couple cases. I had to chop a lot from my idea list here, including Wesley Willis. I figure you can just play any Wesley Willis album and it would do well for Halloween. Black Triage [by Teargas and Plateglass] would be another good one in that vein. Neko Case and Deep Red Bells was an instant "must-include," too. A dear friend was peripherally involved in the Green River Killer case and has described being around Ridgeway. Talk about a creepshow... I have been listening to Plague Mass on a loop this month, largely out of gratitude. I'm HIV+ and just starting on medication, so I am just really grateful I don't have to go the way that so many others did in the '80s. It's no picnic even now, but I don't experience the horror and fear and alienation that others did and that inspired Galas to compose that amazing, raging tribute. I also liked having a lot of live recordings in that section. I don't know about you, but I can't help thinking "Most of those people are dead" every time that I see a crowd in an old movie, or hear voices from a crowd in an old recording. I was like that as a child, but then it was in the context of being Christian and marveling at how crowded it was going to be in heaven or hell and wondering how many people in that crowd went one place or the other. And because I was raised watching only parent-approved old movies and listening to classical music and Motown, no pop culture to speak of, I dwelled on all of that a lot. It kind of shaped me in my belief that one of the many consequences of externalizing information and recording life in so much detail, surrounding ourselves with constant facsimile, is that we are constantly in the presence of life made immaterial, of bodies without substance. We are surrounded by ghosts, essentially. I didn't have the language for it then, but I had a strong sense that the world was a pretty dull place without art. You at least need an imagination to bring these ghosts to life, to make them speak a little truth and not just yammer on about canned meat and hair gel and life insurance. Anyhow, it seems appropriate to have a lot of "live" music in the seance section, and to give all the ghosts a long round of applause for making it out of the pit for a bit. As for the last sections, I wanted to give a section to desire, which some people rightly say is the root of all suffering, but frankly it's what defines us as individuals. That is, our behavior is dictated by our desires. I am not certain if there is altruism. I'm not even sure that there is free will. But I am pretty sure that having all your desires met or having no desire at all is essentially oblivion, and there is the irony, because oblivion seems to be what most people fear most, why people want to believe in an afterlife or the immortality of the soul. It says to me that we desire for the sake of desiring alone. I'm quite content with being space dust when I'm gone. That doesn't scare me. I am happy to say that an afterlife seems highly improbable, because it's just a perfectly ghastly concept. It's particularly ghastly in the Christian idiom that I knew as a child, that had me wanting to become a missionary for so many years. I couldn't bear the thought of my O-so-loving god damning all those poor people in Africa to hell for not hearing about his love and reciprocating. I needed Nick Cave at the end of the mix because that song really sums up everything I pondered while making the mix and it had a nice twist on a Biblical message. And of course, Little Marcy is the cap, because when you really examine what she sings about in that last track, with humanity as a slave race at the center of creation, happily glossing over the disaster and misery in the world, the disappointment and fear that this concept alone causes... Well... It doesn't get much scarier than that. 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast: Part 1 / Part 2 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS PART 1 1. Little Marcy - Devil, Devil, Go Away [Word Records] 2. Astrobotnia - Everyone [Rephlex] 3. Teargas and Plateglass - Simplify the Landscape with Darkness [Waxploitation] 4. Nurse With Wound - Glory Hole [RRRecords] 5. Sunn O))) - Cursed Realms [Southern Lord] 6. Funkstorung - Try Dried Frogs [!K7] 7. Throbbing Gristle - Invocation Summoning Rite of Death [live] 8. Joy Division - Dead Souls [Factory] 9. Janis Joplin & Jimmy Hendrix - Summertime [live] 10. Nico - Eulogy to Lenny Bruce [Verve] 11. Townes Van Zandt - The Velvet Voices [Poppy] 12. Neko Case - Deep Red Bells [Bloodshot] 13. Diamanda Galas - Let My People Go [Mute] PART 2 1. Genitorturers - One Who Feeds [Cleopatra Records] 2. David Lynch and John Neff - Mountains Falling [Milan Records] 3. Fever Ray - If I Had a Heart [Rabid] 4. Sneaker Pimps - Spin Spin Sugar [Clean Up Records] 5. Portishead - Machine Gun [Island] 6. Tricky - Tear out my Eyes [Island] 7. Demdike Stare - The Stars are Moving [Modern Love] 8. Suum Cuique - Even in Death [Young Americans] 9. Beautumn - Too Much is Unsaid [Infraction] 10. A Silver Mt Zion - For Wanda [Constellation] 11. The Knife - Still Light [Rabid] 12. Mum - Now There's Fear Again [Fat Cat] 13. Nick Cave and the Dirty Three - Time Jesum Transeuntum Et Non Riverentum [Warner Bros] 14. Little Marcy - That's Why We Say [Word Records] <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2224966/T.s. Flock_1.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2224966/T.s. Flock_1_o.jpg" align="left" /> <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2224966/T.s. Flock_2.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2224966/T.s. Flock_2_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat56-Vagon-Brei http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat56-Vagon-Brei Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:13:31 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2170675 [Asturias, Spain. October 18th, 2011] An obviously impassioned music maker, and little bit quick to shy away from the spotlight, we're lucky to be able to feature a following mixtape from Victor Ramos (aka Vagon Brei) here. Our attention came to him when local record label owners and friends Mark and Chloe (of Further Records) put out his Destiny LP on vinyl in March. Since then, listening to it has been a wonderful, melancholy exploration and we were eager to connect with the man behind the music. &#9835; mlat56 - Vagon Brei.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat56%20-%20Vagon%20Brei.mp3 What did you grow up around and how would you (briefly) describe your upbringing around music? I grew up in Asturias, an autonomous region on the north of Spain. It´s a green paradise, always raining, always with fog. Maybe for this reason my music is something dark, melancholic and poetic... I dunno.My father used to show me a lot of classical and epic music. I remember traveling in his car when I was 12 and listen to the Pearfishers of Bizet, Mozart, Dvorak or operas performed by Alfredo Kraus, Cello suits performed by Yo-Yo Ma, etc... but was when I was 20 I discovered the music that made "my feelings grow up..." It was the electro scene around the world, the Hague scene, italo disco, etc. that did this... there was a song by Legowelt that was the switch: Conquestadores extraterrestiales, a remix or something (I think) of the super track space invaders are smoking glass of I-F.I started to buy synths because of their sound, and because I love machines, to try to emulate this kind of music and I discovered my own style. My first synth was a Microkorg, then I started to buy other synths like a Juno 106, roland Jx3p, prophet 08, Kawai synths, etc.... and other drummachines like TR 707, 06, etc...Step by step I learned to play with this machines and made the sounds that reflected my feelings, and I am still using these machines with a lot of other software shit to make my music. How does music currently fit into your life? The music I make continued to be a way of escape for me. It represents my feelings about my life, my interest in science, the universe, unknown things, philosophy, mathematics, etc.. and my fears about illness and the dead. Besides my friends or family, I think I'm very alone. To be positive about all of this, these feelings helps me with my music. My music is loneliness. The loneliness doesn't betray, Baudelaire said, that the one who cant populate the loneliness, doesn't know to live with themselves, because of it, the loneliness is the own condition of the chosen ones, because in the loneliness you can trust, the only one that faces us to the reality, the only one that neither gives back nor put conditions, the only one who always listens. It is the only place where to be able to lose and learn one itself. It never disappoints nor leaves unfulfilled promises. It never accuses, nor shouts, never insults, nor humiliates. For Bécquer, it was the empire of the conscience. Nietzsche measure the value of the men for the quantity of loneliness that they could support and for Schopenhauer the luck of the excellent spirits, the price of the freedom and the world, a prison of false appearances. Your tunes comes off as being incredibly cerebral, melancholic, and wonderfully mysterious. Would you describe it as being anything else? Do you have any specific approach to your productions? My music are soundtracks of my life, that is the word, my music is a "soundtrack". In the studio I used to first see the sketch, if only a song for a compilation or an album... I create the story. The only difference is the length of this story. I used to begin with arpeggios or melodies and then start to build the song using that, adding other melodies, beats, etc... its simple. How did you hook up with the Further Records folk for your Destiny EP? Its wonderful that you did, because that is a solid fit. What made you approach them over anyone else? I discoverded the label through people like Ian Martin who released with the label and is close to me through the online radio show I made mixes for - Intergalactic FM. I had already made Destiny, an album with a very deep story, and I thought they could be interested in that, so I contacted the label to show my project ,and well... they liked it. I think that was the best label to release this type of album, an album to dream, to listen in the house with the dark. To collaborate with Legowelt on making the cover art was the icing on the cake. Are there any other producers that you find yourself inspired by these days? Anyone in particular that you'd like to try and work with someday? I'm inspired by a lot of music; classical music, opera, epic videogames soundtrack like World of Warcraft (yes I'm a freak) and a lot of producers like Legowelt, Shemale, I-F, Orgue Electronique, in general all the Hague scene, the old electro and acid scene... I dunno, a lot of names, the music that can create feelings in me can be used to inspire me. As far as wanting to work with others, I would love to make something with the guy who gives me my first opportunity to release my music and who supports me all the time... of course I'm talking about Danny Wolfers aka Legowelt. Can you talk a little bit about the mix you did here for us? This ambient mix is a diffuse story - In this case, the story will be made by the listeners. I have my own story of this one, but its only for me. I only want for people to listen to this mix in their house, take the different parts of the soundtrack and build his own dream or nightmare. The year (2011) is starting to wind down... do you have any plans for the end of it? Yes! my last album will be released as soon as possible. The Zeta Puppis Tales Vol.1 consists of 7 tracks of the first part of a big story that I will follow in the future. The story is about the life and wars of the Zetta Puppis constellation, something similar with the Starwars world, you know, a fallen republic, an empire, wars, hopes,etc... The last track of the mix I made for your podcast is the last track of this new album, but not the last of the big project! 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS 1. Dujardin - Introduction [Webbed Hand Records] 2. Russell Brower, Derek Duke & Glenn Stafford - Mountain [Blizzard Entertainment] 3. Mystified - Bone Drone [Webbed Hand Records] 4. Nasienie - Orestes [Webbed Hand Records] 5. Vagon Brei - The Tragic End of Dr. Jackson [Strange Life Records] 6. Vagon Brei - Lost Temple [Further Records] 7. Vagon Brei - The Attack [Further Records] 8. Vagon Brei - A New Hope [Unreleased] <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2170675/Vagon Brei.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2170675/Vagon Brei_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat55-Jon-McMillion http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat55-Jon-McMillion Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:23:55 +0000 Made Like a Tree 2085036 [Seattle, USA. October 1st, 2011] Jon McMillion opened up Decibel Festival this year along side his long time hero Atom Heart... Atom Heart being the single most influential producer into McMillion's development over the last decade. It was something special to see mentor and apprentice play in sequence at one of the United States's most accomplished electronic music festivals. The podcast provided here is the live set that McMillion spent roughly 3 months preparing for and refining. Absolute tip! &#9835; mlat55 - Jon McMillion.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat55%20-%20Jon%20McMillion.mp3 So its been a while since we've heard from you on the shores of MLAT. How have you been and how has 2011 been treating you? I've been doing good. 2011 has been a great year so far. What has been on your release schedule this year? Is there anything that you're looking forward to put out in the next couple months? That's a good question. At the moment the thing that's been inspiring for me musically has been a few pieces of software I've been using, one of them is called Aalto by Madrona Labs. Do not sleep on this synth. The podcast you've provided here is the live set you performed at the Decibel Festival this year? How would you describe this? Is this some classic JM production. Yeah, I just played this set a couple of nights ago. I really don't know how I would describe the set, I would just call it fun. What has been on your release schedule this year? Is there anything that you're looking forward to put out in the next couple months? As you know my Flier E.P. just came out today. Earlier this year I did a few remixes, and I had the Mr Low e.p. by Wig Water Magic come out on Mikael Stravostrand's Sunset Disko label. I've got a couple of more things coming out later in the year. I did a fun remix my friends in Mexico City Signal Deluxe, and I've got another e.p. coming for a new local imprint called Mindshift Records. Riding of the big success of you playing the opening party for Decibel, do you have any other big goals/plans for the last quarter of 2011? Yes, Right I'm now focusing on creating the next Jon McMillion album, and slowly working on a Wig Water Magic album as well. I'm hoping that later this year I'll get out of town and play, if not this year 2012 for sure. 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS No tracklist available. <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2085036/Jon McMillion 2.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/2085036/Jon McMillion 2_o.jpg" align="left" /> http://madelikeatree.com/mlat54-Trench http://madelikeatree.com/following/madelikeatree.com/mlat54-Trench Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:09:47 +0000 Made Like a Tree 1937935 [Seattle via Detroit, US. August 31, 2011] To kick things off for this particular podcast, all that is going to be relayed is a short quote by the artist. We found the following able to capture everything that needed to introduce things... Stephen Smith (DJ Trench) on his roots: "The Detroit sound is hard to describe. It cannot be captured by any singular artist or contained in any one instrument. It is a strong musical story defined by a collective attitude. It is about creativity. It comes from a place where great things are made from nothing. Words don't do it justice, it has to be experienced to understand. When you hear it, you'll know." &#9835; mlat54 - Trench.mp3 http://files.madelikeatree.com/Audio/podcasts/mlat54%20-%20Trench.mp3 Welcome to the party. What have you been up to this year? Laying low for a while now, taking care of life and putting together a plan for next steps musically and artistically. I've been experimenting with new tools and techniques, and prepping project material that has been on the back burner for release. Anything around you worth being excited about? Always. Although I've been off the radar, I've still been active. I was happy to have a track included on "Techno Brings People Together", a compilation CD from Cratesavers. It is an amazing body of work by various artists that was curated by the man behind the mask of Scan 7. There will be several staggered vinyl releases from this source, the first one is out now. I also have several EPs almost complete. These were interesting projects for me as each one is essentially a soundtrack built around specific topics. I am heavily influenced by cinema and what I love about these types of arrangements is being able to put your mind in a totally foreign environment. It is total escapism. And yes, you can dance to it. Of course being a DJ first, I have taken on ye old party here and there. After a show a few weeks ago, I was approached by a now new friend who offered me a weekly broadcast. I am working out the details, but essentially it will be short segmented sting operations focused on sweet spot mixing. The idea is to capture a small window of energy instead of lengthy performances. Play hard and leave them wanting more. Of course there will be some deviations and guest appearances by industry peers and labels, but I do want to focus on making it mostly about the DJ – and yes, vinyl performances will be my first priority. I love the raw nature – mistakes and all, that comes from creating with very basic tools and your own two hands. Your podcast actually inspired me to get moving on it and hopefully I will be ready to roll real soon. I just re-launched my website and started a fan page on Facebook that is in its infancy. I hate the word "fan" though. I want to build the contacts there to centralize how I distribute information (join it). Also, things are about to ramp back up with my affiliated label "Subject Detroit". Label head DJ Bone has been restructuring label missions and adding talent. T1000 just joined the pack. All project work there is on the down low, but expect some ridiculously smashing new projects. In addition to having been a passionate (vinyl only) deejay and a producer over the years, you spend quite a bit of time with graphic design (at least professionally). Do you see this feeding into your creative prowess as a musician or do you not really associate the two? What happens when you fuse the two? Absolutely. It's weird, but I see music as pictures. The sights and sounds go hand in hand. When I make a track or play a show, I see a place in my mind and I try to share that vision through sound. Same goes in reverse when I make label art for other artists. I absorb their music, I let go and I see where it takes me. I fall beneath the surface. Then I paint. I think that is why so many of the pieces have been successful. There is a harmony that comes naturally when you listen with your emotions and not just with your ears. Even though you've done quite a bit, do you have any personal goals in either your professional or peripheral creative endeavors? Maybe a 5-10 year plan? As far as plans go, things constantly change. I get bored easily or excited quickly so I keep it loose. The only thing for certain is I will definitely stay involved with both the music and art community in some capacity. I'd like to get back to DJing more, both traveling again as well as performing locally, but we'll see where each project takes me. You're a Detroit-to-Seattle transplant. Why the move? I came to Seattle because my wife had a great opportunity to work for Xbox. Being an avid gamer, how could I deny her destiny :) There is a lot of good people here and I have enjoyed making new friends, but damn I miss down home cookin'. We still have a house in Detroit and I'm in touch with things there through family so I don't feel completely cut off, except for Coney Dogs, White Castle and Sweetwater Tavern. Actually, the list goes on for a while and now that I think about it, I am home sick. Thanks. :) Seattle is a dangerous place for an active creative mind as its so easy to settle in and become complacent. The city is such a comfortable place to live with very few active bodies really stirring things up. What do you do in order to keep things interesting for yourself and those around you? There are some frustrating aspects to fitting in here, but I don't dwell on it. I just do me. With the invention of the "World Wide Web" I can be and do anything I want in the world so options are open. It is a bit odd that I tend to do more projects in other states and countries than I do in my own backyard, but I keep a lot close to the vest. I would like to shed my sense of Seattle anonymity though and be more collaborative with other artists locally. So far it has just been hard keeping the same schedule with people I've clicked with. Anything you want to note about the bombastic mix you've provided here, or does it really only need to speak for itself? I think it does what it is supposed to do as it is about the listening experience. But I will give it some context. A lot of people are familiar with what is now referred to the "Detroit sound" of music or "Detroit Techno". Hard militant beats, certain tones and the robotic sounds of industry. What is often overlooked is that there is also a Detroit style of mixing. What big name Detroit DJs play on the road and overseas is not exactly what we always do at home, it is a refined version. At home we are way more experimental and crowds are far more open to variety. It is an off-the-cuff, real-time laboratory. I believe this is why Detroit DJs get so good. There is sick competition fusing diverse genres, original beats, VOCALS and harmonies. Truly mixing tracks to create the "third element", not just blending intros and outros. Playing tracks on the wrong speeds, adding tricks, digging through historic reference. PLAYING "PRINCE". Certainly we're all about future sounds, but we also like house, we like funk, we like soul. We like instruments not just machines. We take our shit serious, but we like to be silly. Mechanically we play aggressively, more like a hip-hop style, quick cuts, deliberate breaks not always perfectly smooth transitions. MISTAKES ARE O.K., it is part of the process! If everything goes too perfectly … you aren't trying hard enough to break shit. If you got time to dance around, point and drink all night … you aren't trying hard enough to break shit. Everyone knows the Belleville Three, Mojo and the Wizard, I also love them dearly. But other folks like Ken Collier, Al Ester (look him up) and countless street level jocks were smashing cuts and inspiring us for years before there was music even called techno. These "other guys" laid some dynamic foundations in the industry and they were a huge part of my education. Their backyard party style (or lack there of) is what I love to play when I really want to bang. This is what I've shared. Hope you like it. 1. Right-click + save a copy of this podcast 2. Follow what we do via Facebook 3. Subscribe in iTunes / RSS 1. Rod Lee - Sweet Dreams [Dress 2 Sweat] 2. DJ Sneak - All Over (Your Face) [Downtown 161] 3. Armando - Land of Confusion (Dunn 4 Funn Mixx) [Warehouse Records] 4. Gramaphondzie - Why Don’t You [Positiva] 5. Alan Barratt - Bushman [Cyber Production] 6. Jark Prongo - Movin’ Thru Your System (Slacker Software System Remix) [Phantom Recordings] 7. Kraftwerk - Radioactivity [EMI] 8. Apaul - Vontade [Naked Lunch] 9. Tim Deluxe - Sawubona (We See You) [Skint] 10. Ben Sims - The Ol’ Vibes [The Light Records] 11. Ian Pooley - Chord Memory (Daft Punk Remix) [Force Inc.] 12. Sone - Bunker [From 0-1] 13. R-A-G - Redsquare (Aroy Edit) [M>O>S Recordings] 14. Agoria feat. Kid A - Heart Beating (Argy Tension Remix) [Infiné] 15. Lil’ Louis - You Were at the Party [Dance Mania] <img src="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/1937935/Trench.jpg" border="0" width="500" height="500" width_o="500" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload.cargocollective.com/1/3/122604/1937935/Trench_o.jpg" align="left" />