Influences: Camara

The album is layered with recordings I took of my cousins singing traditional Azorean songs at my father’s 65th Birthday dinner. The song in the clip is the same that my cousins sing on the second track, Folklore — though I cut it up and effect it. Although these are very old and well-known folk songs, the words, instruments and connected dances change significantly from island to island. This was the only clip I could find of this song as sung by those from the island of Santa Maria (where my father and cousins are from) in a similar manner to what is found on the album.

An obvious reference that needs to be acknowledged. I have a definite love of new wave sounds of the late 70s and early 80s (The Cure’s early works and Art of Noise should also be mentioned). I was exposed to them and other dirty new wave sorts from my older brother at the same age that I discovered the concept of cool. I haven’t been able to shake the connection since. The simple repetitive melodies, chorused bass lines and use of heavy reverb have clearly stayed with me.

This song is one of the more conventional pieces from ween. As a teenager, this band shocked me with their mix of genres and general lack of limitations in music making (and still do). I initially thought my album as a whole would be too eclectic, I had just posted the 7 songs as they were my favourite tracks I was working on at the time. When the guys from Parachute contacted me and wanted them all for a single album I was really surprised.

Emerald Sapphire and Gold. I’m amazed with their ability to make erie mechanical repetition groovy in this song. Apart from how great I think this song is in particular, I also appreciate how their at times simple baselines are so effective. They helped me rethink how I defined good music.

One of the best examples of dirty drums and warm melodies that still gets me. I try to play with this combination a lot. I didn’t even realize it was a Lil’ Louis track until I looked it up for this article — I had just always thought of it as one of my favourite yellow Dance Mania records.

This song was played often when I was working on the album. I loved the delayed and muddy beats. I was also trying to play with timings beyond the 4/4 that I had been in with techno and house (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and broken and hip hop beats were appealing to me. Producers like Burial (Untrue) and Pinch (Quwwali) also played into that.

The layers of sounds and silence in this movie highlighted for me the importance of subtlety. I read an interview about this movie with the sound editor, Walter Murch (by Michael Ondaatje) in which they talk about the “humble sounds” that are emphasized throughout and this really stayed with me. I used a lot of unexpected layers and qualities of sound on the album. Bits and pieces that I previously might have tried to “clean up” I chose to keep. In addition to samples of family playing and singing songs, I used dinner talk and noises. Throughout the recordings of the instruments for the album, I played with a lot of unintentional sound such as the buzz of a dirty knob from my bass or my fingers touching the strings by accident.

Not a track, but I found these lines especially meaningful at the time of writing the album and reflected that in the title…Before We Sleep. I was thinking a lot about very common, but nonetheless significant themes surrounding life and death. I was (and still am) living far away from aging family and had encountered unexpected death — we all get there at some point I guess. For me the result was intense inspiration and a sad concern about how we appreciate death and dying.