the PA may have been crappy and the space decrepit
Much of the underlying groove of this track is based on a sample from the Ottawa band Okara and their track "Halo of Flies", which has been slowed, pitch shifted and filtered and spatialized in various ways throughout the track. I started this track a few years ago but never finished it until recently. I grew up in Ottawa and first heard Okara as teen through a friend in a high school art class. A little while later my brother acquired an early cassette of Okara's first recordings (recorded at 5 Arlington) which I sometimes listened to when I got tired of the industrial, dark ambient, electronica, noise, goth rock, techno and whatever else I was listening to at the time. A few short years later I came to know the drummer of Okara (long after they broke up) as he worked at a local record store (Organized Sound) I frequented and that sold a lot of experimental and other music that impacted me greatly. This track is a kind of homage and mixing of all those memories and musical influences. The title of the track is taken from a few remarks Shawn Scallen made about 5 Arlington back in the day.
You can read about 5 Arlington here:
www.thefreelibrary.com/5+Arlington%3A+an+oral+history+of+Ottawa%27s+punk+scene+in+the+90s.-a0372451737
it had some sort of effect on a personal level, more so than affecting things on a bigger scale
This title is also a quotation - from the article linked above. In some ways I'm thinking about my own nostalgia and connection to various DIY spaces and cultures over the years and this quote seems apt.
my process and memento mori are both collages that blur the lines between sampling and field recording and crafting and composing with sound. my process is in some ways about what is going on with the title, and it also makes use of a sample of a hardcore band among other things. It is about listening to, living with, and making music. memento mori is made up of field recordings taken near my parents' house in Ottawa during the summer of 2018, and noticing how much things had both changed and remained the same. I then juxtaposed that with recordings I made domestically here in Vancouver, some of which were pitch shifted and lightly processed with a few minimal electronic elements added in.