SpokenWeb Podcast

Can you hear me? I don’t know how much projection to do here.

[Music fades]

My name is Hannah McGregor–

In this month’s episode, Shortcuts is taking over the airwaves. Shortcuts is a monthly minisode, or short episode, distributed on the same podcast feed. Produced by me, Katherine McLeod, Shortcuts takes you on a deep dive into archival sound through a shortcut of audio.

And it wouldn’t quite be Shortcuts without the Shortcuts intro. So, let’s press play on the music and begin.

For this episode, we’re rolling out the last of those recordings. You’ll hear from Moyen King, Erica Isomura, and Rémy Bocquillon. You’ll also hear the voices of Kate Moffatt, our then-supervising producer. And you’ll hear Miranda Eastwood, who is there behind the scenes recording the audio. Miranda even jumps into the conversation from time to time.

Listening is at the heart of each conversation, and each conversation ends with a question: What are you listening to now? That ends up being quite a playlist and do check the show notes for those links.

So, without further ado, here is the longest Shortcuts episode yet: Shortcuts Live, Talking About Listening with Moynan King, Erica Isomura, and Rémy Bocquillon.

Moynan, thank you so much for joining us today.

So, to get us going here, Moynan, would you just introduce yourself for us briefly?

It started as an installation performance. We toured it across Canada. So we went to Regina; I know you’re from Saskatchewan. [Overlap from Kate: I am]. In 2015, we went to Regina, Yellowknife, Whitehorse, and Montreal. There’s someone else in our booth from Montreal. [Miranda Eastwood laughs]

And then we put it away, put it in its massive storage cases, and then Theatre Passe Muraille just asked us to remount it. And when we did that, we turned it from being an installation into a play. So, we tore it apart and put it forward. [Overlap from Kate: Wow.]

And, so, what you’re listening to here is a track composed by Tristan Wiston; composed by him and of him.

And one important thing to know about Tristan is that prior to transition, he was an incredible soprano singer. And so had one of those perfect high-pitched voices. And for many, many years, Tristan and I worked together in a group, Toronto-based group called “The Boy Choir of Lesbos.”

And, so, we used to, there were a bunch of us, and we would dress as boys and we would sing in, you know, the harmonies of an Anglican boy choir. [Overlap from Kate: Right.] And so, we would sing and that was just sort of part of the collaborative history of Tristan and I. [Overlap from Kate: Incredible.]

So, Tristan came to me, and I think it was around 2011, and said, “I really wanna do something with these tracks. I wanna do something with all this material that I have.” And he’d already, then at that point, done a podcast. Well, you know, I guess at that time we didn’t call it a podcast. I think it had a different name, right? [Laughs]

So, we started to work with all these tracks. And so, we did like tons of listening over, you know, a long period of time and kind of compartmentalize things. So, the important thing to know about that track, and in fact about “Trace” the show, is that all of the sound is made from Tristan’s voice–

I just think that’s so, so interesting. Wow. Okay. I don’t even know where to start with this. I feel so delighted. So I guess, and I would love to kind of tap into a little bit of that kind of collaboration that you were talking about. I’d love to hear more about that and maybe to think a little bit too about kind of like the role that listening is playing in that I feel like, you know, when it’s multiple people, at multiple ears, and especially working with that much audio. Anyway, I, anything there, that you would like to kind of speak to? I feel like that’s so rich.

And then of course with me and, also thinking about collaboration and, artistic collaborations, Tristan and I like to say we’ve been working together since the late 19 hundreds. And because I think saying it that way gives you a sense of the depth of our collaboration and the amount of time and how much we have both changed in many, many ways. And also, how we have not changed in many other ways. You know?

But when Theater Passe Muraille, which is a theatre in Toronto, it’s a very old theatre. It’s been around since I think the 1960s. And the space is certainly conducive to certain kinds of performance, but it’s very much a, like theatre, you know, with an audience and a playing space–

Because, you know, coming outta the pandemic, we’re like, “Oh God, great. Yes. Like, let’s just do a show. Oh, yeah.” You know, everything has been so crazy, and you all know what I mean.

So we just said “yes.” And then of course, at our first meeting, we were both like, “Yeah, but we’re not gonna do the same show” [Laughs]. We’re not even [Laughs], we’re not even gonna tell Theater Passe Muraille because we don’t want any questions. We just wanna do what we wanna do. But the important thing to understand, I think, about this piece, in terms of its like thematic, and this is very much connected to the topic of collaboration and community and the concept of becoming, this is something we were working with a lot that it’s an ongoing process of inventing and reinventing yourself, you know?

And it was interesting ’cause as you were, as you were telling us, you even were using your hands to indicate how you had to kind of “break it down,” and you moved your hands in a sweeping motion, and then you were like, and then you pushed away from yourself. You said we had to put it forward, right? [Overlap from Moynan: Yeah.]

You had to really reorient yourself [Overlap from Moynan: Yeah.] for the piece. And I thought that was so interesting ’cause to go back, even to my own, like my hand going directly to my chest, like a couple of seconds in, I was like, I could feel it in my chest and then I could feel it in my mouth and it was somehow just this extremely embodied listening experience.

So I would love to hear more about what that was like, having to think about the ways in which this piece and the show itself even like that, it’s just the embodiment of the archive that’s creating it. And the process that it was. And anything I did this last time, I very, I’m good at asking twisty questions. So anything there that you’d like to take up? I’d love to hear more about.

And so changing the shape of a piece changes the fundamental quality and essence of the piece. Right? [Overlap from Kate: Yeah.] And then I’ll, I’d like to also talk about the archive a little bit more after that. [Overlap from Kate: Please. Yeah.]

But when we decided to do that, just to sort of give you a bit more information, there is some stuff online, which I can give you a link to some of these sounds, are online if anybody wants to listen to more of them.

You know, you have in your studio here the YSM5s [Yorkville Sound YSM5 are compact powered studio monitors] beautiful speakers. We had 10 of those. When we created the piece, you know, we first showed it in the summer of 2012 and then toured it in 2015.

When we did that, we had to hire someone to create custom software for us in order to channel the 12 different tracks to 12 different speakers. Sorry, 10, 10, sorry, my numbers come from another iteration. But anyway, so the 10, the 10 speakers, and of course now you can just do that on QLab [QLab is a cue-based multimedia playback software], right? Like, it’s like, and so interesting just in terms of change and time and how the technology has changed along with us, and how in 2012 we were so cutting edge, you know?

Not a small thing to have access to those things. So we were really working with this idea of change and, a lot of the key songs that Tristan was singing over and over as his voice changed were very water-related. Okay. So one of those, the “Waters Wide,” and the other one is called, I think, called “I Am Sailing.” And so interesting. And so we used that theme, and we created kind of a beach scenario, and we had these three huts, and one of them was sort of Tristan’s “Command Central,” and he operated the entire show.

And I feel like that was really connected to the thematic of it, that it was, everything was coming out of his body and that this environment represented his whole body. And then he was kind of like the homunculus, if you know, that you would know that term as someone who studies that era. [Overlap from Kate: Yeah.]

Anyway, that’s what that was. And then we also recorded, set up booths, and had an interactive element where the audience recorded their voices, too.

But I feel like there’s another thing there. It’s, and I don’t know, [Overlap from Kate: Yeah. Yeah.] it’s untapped. [Overlap from Kate: Yeah. Yeah.]

I don’t know what it is. So then when we went to do the second iteration, or no, sorry, the latest iteration, because really even in 12 to 15, there were a number of iterations and turn the show out. So again, I’m pushing my hands out in front of me to, for an audience. Early on in our developmental discussions, we started thinking about a lot, about time and change and how much we’ve changed and our archive. So then we reached back further into history prior to, you know, Tristan’s transition in the end of the “Boy Choir” into the deep, into the “Boy Choir” archives.

And so in 1997, we had done a production, the “Boy Choir of Lesbos and Lord of the Flies.” So we did a production of “Lord of the Flies.” [Overlap from Kate: Oh, wow.]

And we luckily have this incredible VHS [Video Home System] tape of it. So, you know, I mean, back when we were doing VHS, we were like, “Oh my God, it’s not film,” [Laughs]. And now we’re like, “Oh my God, it’s VHS, it’s a VHS,” [Laughs].

So that’s really exciting. And so we brought in these archives of the “Boy Choir” and integrated these images with this new material. And then in the process of that, at some point, once we decided to bring in the “Boy Choir,” we thought, “Oh, we need a new choir. We need to make a new choir.” And we need to make a choir that both Tristan and I could be in. So we created this non-binary choir that we then called the “Epic Choir of Trace Land.” [Overlap from Kate: Wow.] And so the show, our show in Toronto ends with the “Epic Choir of Trace Land,” and we plan to keep the “Epic Choir” going, actually. So–

And then of course, you know, I don’t, I presented at the conference yesterday, and right now I’m engaged in a process of creating what I call “meditations.” And so other than “Trace,” I’ve been listening to meditations and to meditative music. And of course, working on my own material with that. But like last night when I went to bed, I listened to Steve Roach’s “Quiet Music 1.” Highly recommend it [Laughs[, go on YouTube, “Quiet Music 1,” play it quietly. Yep. 1970s experimental electronica. Yep. So that’s it.

We are here for the 2023 SpokenWeb Symposium, and we are actually sitting outside if you can hear [Laughs] if you can hear some of our wonderful ambient sounds right now.

It has been so insanely beautiful and hot this week. I think it’s about, what do we say, 27 degrees right now? It’s warm.

My name is Kate Moffitt. I’m the project manager and supervising producer of the SpokenWeb podcast, stepping in for our usual host and producer, Katherine McLeod. And I am so excited to be joined by Erica Isomura today. Erica, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?

And that audio was of a group of European starlings that were gathered on this, under this dock, on this building where I think a ferry comes in. And so there were so many birds. I hadn’t seen so many like European starlings gathered together before. And it was really cool to see a bird that was also familiar.

Since being here in Edmonton, I’ve actually seen magpies for the first time. I definitely took some video footage of them on my way to the campus, and I hadn’t seen them before. So it’s always exciting to see new birds and also cool to see birds that you’re familiar with.

So, can you speak a little bit more, maybe just about listening generally? It could also be the role of listening in what you pick, choose to record, pick up, and how you plan to revisit it or your research.

Like, “so-and-so” sees this, it’s green, it’s round, you know like they’re not, there’s like a textural element that sometimes it’s a bit flat. [Overlap from Kate: Wow.] And so that was a big part of revising with students who were learning how to engage with creative writing was bringing in sonic qualities, bringing in texture and touch, and you know, feeling–

So it’s a graphic project that follows the road trip that my sibling and I took and engaged with a lot of the land-based history. And I was thinking, “Okay, how will I, how will sound be part of this visual project, in a book?”

A book is so, it’s just, it’s just different, you know? Like, people sometimes will include “SoundCloud” links to listen to “spoken word” in their books or, you know, “QR codes.” But sometimes I find myself not, it’s not necessarily the most organic of processes to pull your phone and scan it or a hundred percent. You know, even if you go on a CD with the book, sometimes you just kind of ignore it. Right–

So most of my sound recordings in my phone are probably more nature-based, though I do find the intersections of, like urban landscape noises really interesting. Just the mixture of things that you’ll hear on the street. [Overlap from Kate: Absolutely.] Or even, you know, the crunching of footsteps when you’re out in the forest. There is, you know, thinking about our relationship like I guess the Anthropocene or our imprint on the land. And, you know, the sounds that we make, too.

Just because you’re talking about, you know, you get a CD in a book, and you’re not, you’re not probably gonna listen to that or a link or a QR code. It disrupts the relationship that you have with reading because that’s what people agree to when they open a piece they’re reading.

So the, even the idea of bringing in a different form of media is almost not, well, you break that relationship, I think, and the idea of sound and going to listen to something like specifically for sound, you’re engaging in a different relationship to whatever text you’re exploring. Right. Which I feel like that kind of pulled into your question about materiality and how like, I guess what your, what your general thoughts on those different types of relationships are.

Writers and poets just talk about staring at a blank page. Just the possibilities of form and prose are typically like nonfiction prose, and fiction prose. It’s very blocky and chunky and there isn’t a lot of space for that creativity necessarily. Maybe there is, and maybe I’m not thinking about it. We did have a presentation with Jordan Abel a few nights ago, and I think he’s doing some interesting work with novels and space on the page for sure.

There’s a comic artist I love on Instagram who actually lives in Montreal. I’m not really, I’m blanking on his handle, but he draws a lot of birds and like, they’re very funny comics. And bird, I think–

I was trying to record some sounds from a tour I did at the North Pacific Cannery, but also, I can’t remember if they had turned on the machine, of the canning machine that was supposed to be on display there, but wow. I didn’t want it to go into the spoken-like tour part [Laughs] for the audio.

I’m actually really glad that I have some of those clips and I forgot about them until you prompted me to bring a sound clip. Amazing. So it was cool. And I’ll have to definitely re-listen to all those.

I was listening to Kishi Bashi earlier today in my hotel room, and he’s a violinist, kind of like a pop violin. So he loops his violin and sings, and he has a band, and he’s an amazing live performer. Thinking about sound–

I wrote me a book. I hid the last page. I didn’t look. I think I locked it in a cage. I wrote a novel because everybody likes to read a novel…

[Voice fades]

Hello, and welcome to an episode of Shortcuts Live. We are at the University of Alberta for the 2023 SpokenWeb symposium, which we’re at the, we’re on the last day. And it’s been super incredible. We are very excited to have been here. But this is Kate Moffatt, the supervising producer and project manager for the SpokenWeb podcast, stepping in for our usual host and producer, Katherine McLeod. And today, we’re sitting down with Rémy Bocquillon. That’s right. Yeah, that’s right. Beautiful. can you tell us a little bit about yourself, Rémy?

Amazing. Thank you so much. We’re so excited to chat. We’re gonna listen to something. Did you wanna, did you wanna play that for us? Do you wanna say anything about it first?

Et la meilleure façon de bien pénétrer le présent, c’est de s’y installer. Et forcément une autre durée intérieure à ce moment -là s’établit, une durée qui est presque sans limite. Et on tente de faire cela avec les sons, c’est un petit peu un artific, parce que le son a son discours, son mode de déroulement temporel.

Mais là, effectivement, je triche sans doute un peu en étirant les choses. En fait, une pièce ou une œuvre, quelle que ce soit le nom que vous lui donniez, peut -être une mesure serait peut -être une seule mesure, mais une mesure en l ‘occurrence de 80 minutes, puisque c’est la durée de Psi 847.

Le refus de l’anecdotique, je crois que c’est très simple, ça ne m’amuse pas. L’anecdote ne m’amuse pas. Et en fait, je fais des choses pour mon plaisir. Merci d ‘avoir regardé cette vidéo.]

This recording is from the 70s, 76, 77. It was broadcast on French radio back then, and today it came out as a record. So that’s, that’s actually–

Like May 5th, 2023, today. [Overlap from Rémy: Exactly. Yes.] Wonderful. That’s so cool

Can you give us a bit of, is that kind of what she’s talking about in the interview? I was gonna ask like, is she very much discussing kind of like this, that idea of like stretching time, this is that what’s in the interview?

But she did it in the seventies. She was really working with a synthesizer and very meticulously and had this kind of hard work and technique of trying out and having the pieces go on for hours. And a bit later in the interview, she even says, well, one piece can, it’s like one measure, one meter, but it’s like one that lasts 80 minutes. And so that’s, so that’s how long she takes to unfold the sounds.

Like, does that intersect too kind of with, ’cause obviously you’re very excited about it, and that’s fantastic. I’d like to just kind of hear more about how it maybe intersects with your own work.

Obviously, we’re not going to play an 80-minute coupon shortcut, but yeah, I think it’s. I love that you brought this interview clip. So I guess, and you can take this kind of as metaphorically or as literally as you’d like, but when you listen to this clip, what do you hear?

Because she – and I mean, that was on, so it’s in France culture, which is public radio, and this kind of experimental composer. So that’s interesting as well back in the seventies to have this kind of composer talk about their practice, and to have this person in a very maned world, like experimental music, like talk about her practice and having her practice also recognized and acknowledged. So that’s very important as well.

And I guess for me too, like Miranda, you have some French, well, lots of French; you know French. Whereas, whereas I don’t, and I feel, but I feel like I, I did hear very much the same, the same thing, like it, I I don’t think I’d realized beforehand that, that they were a composer or a musician.

But you do kind of get that, that sense. It did also feel very – I’m trying to think of the right word – rich, but also almost very like, internalized. Like it was something that I could just felt. So almost intense I guess, about the way that she’s speaking and, and the way that, that she was describing, I guess her, her process. It did sound very musical somehow.

One of them is to just, I’d love to hear like a little bit more about how listening both to things like interviews, like process or this, but even in like your own work ’cause you were saying that you’re a sociologist more than like a sound study scholar, but that obviously sound is there. So like, I’d love to hear about the role of listening in your own, your own research, in your own work.

And then maybe just finish off with like, you know, what you’re listening to right now, whether that’s research related or, or otherwise

And how to leave space to those voices, to work with them in different ways. And that bridges to a kind of different way of doing sociology, which is making those kinds of new associations through sound, and which is also a different relation to knowledge and how knowledge production and distribution which is political, which is critical, which is ethical, I think, as well in how to bring this kind of multiplicity of actors, whatever you want to call them, in sounds, and having them like inhabit and then like move, move around.

If you’re at this year’s SpokenWeb symposium, there will be a live recording of an episode coming up as part of the symposium events. So if you’re there, do attend and be part of the audience. Either way, stay tuned, and we’ll look forward to hearing that episode on this feed next month.

The SpokenWeb Podcast is a monthly podcast produced by the SpokenWeb team as part of distributing the audio collected from and created using Canadian literary archival recordings found at universities across Canada.

The SpokenWeb podcast team is: supervising producer Maya Harris, sound designer James Healy, transcriber Yara Ajeeb, and co-hosts Hannah McGregor and me, Katherine McLeod.

To find out more about SpokenWeb, visit spokenweb.ca and subscribe to the SpokenWeb Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you may listen. If you love us, let us know. Rate us and leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or say “hi” on social media. Stay tuned to your podcast feed, and as always, thanks for listening.

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