To celebrate the release of Talk Memory, we met up with Alexander Sowinski, Chester Hansen and Leland Whitty - collectively BADBADNOTGOOD - to talk about memory, connections and the power of collaboration.
Deluxe: What are your earliest memories of the album taking shape?
Leland: For me it was when Chester and I went to visit Alex on his farm outside Toronto, and a friend of ours Sylvain Chaussée came by and was running projections as we were jamming and developing the songs in their initial forms. Before we had any solid chords or melodies, the real seeds of inspiration, period.
Alexander Sowinski.
Photo: Mike Rudd.
Alex: That meeting was the first getting together and talking through what we were trying to do, or where we wanted to go. Recollecting old memories and experiences, also musical memories and environments. Signal from the Noise was something Chester started to improvise live when we were previously touring, which I guess was a couple of years before we started to write the project. It was a period of stretching out all of the experiences and trying to open as many doors as possible, as many new pathways as possible. It was also about connecting musical pieces together to create a whole new musical identity, an open concept of where the writing could go.
Deluxe: I really sensed that it comes from improvisation and fragments, I especially love you mentioning ‘memory’ as well. Have there ever been occasions where you’ve lost little moments, or do those incendiary ideas stay in the consciousness?
Chester: I am not sure that if on this project we necessarily forgot anything (laughing), but I am sure it’s happened before. We have really long jam sessions so it can be easy to lose something if you don’t record it or drill into it. Maybe it’s just not meant to be?
Alex: We were using iPhone demos as a way to just leave focus on the live experience, you can always go back and listen back to what we did, hearing what was going on. There were a few months between the sessions so it was good to have time to hear back what had happened to evolve it.
Deluxe: I love the idea of how you might have foreseen the album sounding, then how it does sound. Collectively, does it ‘feel’ like what you’d envisioned?
Leland: I’d say so for sure. Going back to the origins of the album and with Sylvain’s projections… he was manipulating footage of film: nature footage of protests, a car on fire; there was such a strong emotional and visual connection. Although the songs had already been developed from the improvisations, the visual element made for an abstract element.
Alex: For myself, I wanted to really imagine what recording a classic album would have felt like, experiencing recording Sgt. Pepper's, or a classic Miles Davis session. Not trying to contrive our environment, but changing our worlds and going with that experience and how it impacts us. Because we had a band member move on - Matty (Matthew Tavares) - who had been such a strong influence, we needed to find all the roles and how to fill them, how to open avenues and let the music grow and change.
“Record Shops... They just feel like a warm hug or something?”
Deluxe: As a fan, it still sounds intrinsically you, but on Talk Memory, especially elements like the orchestrations and flourishes, that is significantly broader, more cinematic almost?
Leland Whitty.
Photo: Mike Rudd.
Alex: Very much so, and that is just how it evolved naturally from those sessions and with our collaborators.
Deluxe: I wanted to talk to you about the collaborators. Without giving you the unanswerable question of (laughing) ‘who is your favourite collaborator’, I wanted to ask you all personally what were the most regarding or surprising moments with all of your various collaborators across the album, the videos and the Memory Catalogue?
Chester: I think in a general sense it was amazing for me being able to see the album in person physically, just the whole process from the magazine through the videos to the packaging, the whole process and the thought behind it feels beautiful. We’ve never been able to put this much time or intention into a project before. It was amazing to put trust in people to just do what they do well, it’s been an amazing open team effort.
Alex: Every stage has been unique and surprising. When we brought in Sylvain early it was such a mood for the musical development. When we went to the studio and recorded it with Nick the engineer there, he knew what would work and we trusted him, that gave us space and listening back there was just so much flow, there was hardly anything to change because we were so in it. Terrace Martin and Karriem Riggins on different occasions just came in to play on the fly, picking up the tune and ripping the song with us; those experiences were just fun and amazing musical connectivity through trust. It’s been an amazing flow.
Deluxe: Did you see the finished LP pre-release or…
Leland: (laughing) the first time was just days ago, the day before the album was released. We did a signing in New York and, well, it was a cool experience.
Deluxe: The guys at Drift were really geeking out about the packaging and said ‘ah, typeface! You never see the typeface credited on the records!’
Chester: We actually really recently met Francisco and Tawanda (of Alaska-Alaska™) who worked with us on this epic journey to create the visual language for this album. It was amazing to meet these beautiful people that you’ve had 100 conversations and Zoom calls with in real life and just think about that connection.
Deluxe: I get a real sense that everyone who contributed - be it the designers, or guests like Laraaji, for example - played a part in something bigger? Did you map out how you wanted people to contribute or was it more natural?
Alex: The only elements that were recorded after the sessions were Laraaji, Brandee Younger and the Arthur Verocai strings and everything was basically a one take, a one time ‘here is what I am thinking’, and we were like… (laughing) ‘that is incredible’. No nit-picking, no specifics, everyone just graciously enhanced our music with gifts.
Deluxe: I obviously heard the album finished and in sequence, so when the strings first appear on City of Mirrors, it’s hugely emotive. I can only imagine what those sessions must have felt like.
Alex: It was magical… like ‘brain opening’.
Deluxe: Across your websites and in interviews, you’ve really directly called out ‘support your local record stores’ - I am assuming that they have been formative to you, so what would be your earliest memories of record stores?
Chester: For me, I got records via my Dad when I was pretty young and that felt like the door was opened. My first shop experience was a place in Ottawa. I was making beats so I’d just go to the 50 cent bin and pick up whatever was kicking around, (laughing) like Christopher Cross, records that were cheap and might have a tiny flash of something if you dig deep.
Alex: Growing up, CDs were very much more in fashion, so vinyl was a later-teen thing for me, but I had a ton of CDs from Costco, Eminem or whatever? It was more when we started touring as a band we started experiencing the world that jazz lives in, DJ culture, radio culture… how all of it flows together, and the journeys in between. Thinking about shops specifically, Toronto’s Sonic Boom was key. I went to a lot in highschool and bought a lot of DOOM and J Dilla. Also Aki (Abe) at Cosmos Records is a fantastic curator of funk, jazz and Brazilian stuff, literally every genre actually, and has been a huge influence. I think the network of friends, DJs and promoters have always shown us the alternative shop culture, which is recommendations.
Chester: Some of my favourite shops that we’ve ever been to, I don't know the name, I can’t tell you how to get there (laughing), it’s just like ‘get in the van, we’re going to the store’.
Alex: Some of the grimier or dustier shops in South America might seem pretty ramshackle, but they always know what they have. The older guys know what they have like old friends.
Chester Hansen.
Photo: Mike Rudd.
Leland: (laughing) Yeah, I was drifting away thinking. Like Chester, I got a bunch of records from my Dad before I had any real shop experience. Like Alex, it is about community, and I do remember a guy in college who would set up this vinyl shop in the cafeteria once a month, and that's where I really got into Alice Coltrane. It was a pretty good spot for him.
Deluxe: Hang on, so he wasn’t a student, he was just running a pop-up?
Leland: He wasn't on the music course, he just got the hook-up I guess.
Deluxe: (laughing) Wow, that's a good hustle, that's like shooting fish in a barrel?
Leland: (laughing) Yeah, student loan arrives, music college, record store in the cafeteria…
Alex: I guess, to go back to ‘support your local record shops’, we live very much in a digital age and we’ve lived through the arc of physical music from CDs to downloads to the resurgence of vinyl; we just think about experience with music and interacting. It’s about how it can spark inspiration out of the blue and make connections.
Deluxe: I didn’t actually correctly quote you earlier, the full line was ‘support your local Record Store… and most importantly yourself’. So what do record shops feel like, to you?
Alex: Almost like a library in the sense of information, no scrolling or whatever. They’re like a bar and a library all in one, information, but you might also meet someone who is super dope, just listening to something. You might even find confidence in what you like, having to fight to get on the turntable and listen to what you want to listen too.
Chester: They just feel like a warm hug or something?
Deluxe: … Well, that's the quote.
All: (laughing)
Chester: Growing up it felt very much like a place where no one bothered you and you could just absorb it all. I was and am obsessed with sample-based hip hop, so trying to find the connections and that feeling of finding something new was so exciting. It is fascinating.
Leland: (laughing) Yeah, comfort like Chester says. I love buying used vinyl, I love that there is a story behind it, there is life and love in every item, it’s quite beautiful.
www.tv.badbadnotgood.com
www.michaelharrisonrudd.com
www.drft.tips/BBNG - Exclusive Drift Records 2021 'Record of the Year' edition of Talk Memory.