The Remains Of The Bay

The Remains Of The Bay

It’s been a funny time to be Canadian, lately.

Even watching from afar, the renewed passion for our home and native land (as the national anthem says) has been startling to see, as threats to make the country “the 51st state” have come from south of the border. Think pieces in august publications like The Atlantic have even discussed what an invasion—however unlikely it seems—might look like, if the trade war became a real one.

And the reaction has been passionate. Canadians have always loved the maple leaf on our flag, but the addition of the phrase ‘elbows up’—a hockey defence for when you’re being charged by an opponent, meaning the first thing they’ll hit is a nice sharp elbow.

C135Cr3

C135Cr3

Jérôme et moi, on se croise de temps en temps, cette fois-ci c’était lors d’un reportage pour le magazine Gault & Millau. Les images sont faciles à réaliser, ici tout est graphique. On plonge direct dans les coups, la chaleur et le bruit, pas de place pour les discussions stériles et superficielles. Gestes, couteaux, c’est brut, précis et millimétré. Pas besoin d’en raconter d’avantage, faut ouvrir les yeux, admirer le savoir-faire et se boucher les oreilles…

One With Everything Please

The Samye Ling Tibetan Buddhist Monastery is set in the countryside of Southern Scotland, around 16 miles from Lockerbie and 20 miles from the Scotland/England border. Visiting this monastery is like teleporting to another country at another time. This would be the type of place I would definitely visit while abroad. Being warm and sunny certainly helped create the illusion of another time another place, weather we don’t get an awful lot of in Scotland.

Second cut, clean slate.

Second cut, clean slate.

The streets are still gray and dirty from winter, but we're standing at the very edge of spring and an explosion is coming.

They say the first cut is the deepest, but that was a year ago: our first kid moving out of our house. Two of them did, in fact, both studying in other towns too far to commute. But this move, this year, is different: Jacob's back in Montreal, but not with us—he has his own place now, an empty apartment, a space for which he can draw the blueprints. With friends nearby, the pulsing beat of the city, police sirens and traffic and bars and summer fests. Real life. They lucked out, him and his cousin, finding this spot in a tough market, in a coveted neighbourhood.

Closer to home, but that much further away.
Clean slate.

That Was Then. This Is Now

I’m confused. After all these years of wanting to visit and photograph Auschwitz, I finally went, and it was indeed a moving experience as you would expect. But it’s also tainted by the realisation that we have already entered into a dark time in the present day that feels every bit as dangerous as the late 1930s. Auschwitz for me stands as a reminder of how dark and despicable humans can be, and that we can never go there again. But we are.

Democracy Sausage

Democracy Sausage

They say a week is a long time, in politics.

For those of us who live in Australia or Canada—or if you’re a citizen of both countries, like me—this has been a very long week indeed.

Monday was the Canadian federal election, in which the Liberal Party of Canada pulled of the seemingly impossible and came from almost certain defeat to nearly winning a majority government. And here in Australia (as I write this), polls are about 2h from closing in our federal race as well. It’s not nearly as contentious, but potentially just as consequential…

Life of Byron

Life of Byron

We’ve been away.

It’s been quite a while since I posted an essay here—but also, we got out of town for a few days.

If you’ve visited Australia, you’ve probably heard of Byron Bay; it’s one of those towns whose reputation precedes it—beautiful beaches, surfers with Kombi vans, a relaxed lifestyle, music festivals, did I mention the beaches?

And yes, all of that is true, which is why when a friend very kindly offered his house for a week, we jumped at the chance to have a bit of summer in winter. (Yes, this is what Byron looks like in winter!)

The Way Back

By Patrick La Roque

Vinyl, it turns, out, was a gateway.

I first installed the turntable on a rotating tv stand (quite the anachronistic piece of furniture from my mom's house), next to the desk, connected to the mixer through a small pre-amp hastily purchased from Amazon. The old records sounded great in the studio monitors, and for awhile I was perfectly content spinning albums while busying myself with daily work. But after a few after-hours listening sessions in that office chair, I thought to myself "man, this is kinda silly". So I pulled an older set of slightly busted powered speakers out of storage, and moved the whole setup to the other end to the room. The sound took a hit, but I could live with it. I went up to the attic, found an ageing Ikea lounge chair—a leftover from my bachelor days—dropped it smack-dab on the "sweet spot". But now the tv stand looked ridiculous so I ordered a small media cabinet, cheap and nothing fancy, but clean. I added my buddy Robert's Uberlight to illuminate the turntable when needed. Got some cleaning supplies to refresh my dusty collection (along with twenty+ classical records acquired for a dollar each at a neighbourhood yard sale).

One day, not too long ago, I started thinking about the receiver I'd purchased back in the 90s—a mid-range Harman Kardon. The new cabinet had this built-in shelf just begging for it. I remembered something being broken, but after a good cleanup everything worked, except for the radio. No big deal, right? I unplugged the pre-amp, tested the receiver's Tape Out to see if it would send a signal to the powered speakers. It did, and the sound immediately expanded (not sure why, it's a direct pass through...whatev). This Tape Out setup, however, meant bypassing the unit's signal processing. Bit of a shame. I cursed myself for selling RFT speakers for peanuts, years ago.

Note to self: be a pack-rat, damn it, you never know.

On our visit to the Maricourt flea market I headed straight for the electronics section, hoping to maybe get lucky and unearth a decent pair of stereo speakers. Nope. Damn it. I was a dog with a bone now. I found myself lurking on audio forums here and there, to get a sense of what was available, what could be ok, and affordable. Brands to avoid, those to look for. Just curious, you see.

I found a deal on a set of Elac Debut 2.0 b6.2—German brand, design by Andrew Jones (famed speaker designer), mostly glowing reviews all-around.
I took one more step.

...

I've been a musician my entire life. I used to spend hours and hours dissecting album after album, of all genres, lying on dusty apartment floors, alone or with friends, rooms drenched in burning incense with the lights turned down to half a sliver of a lux. But over time music slipped into the background, a soundtrack to merely colour the day to day movements of our lives. Unobtrusive to the point of anonymity. Music for work, for dinner, for cooking, and driving. Music as decor. Spatial Audio? Pfff. Most of this wasn't even played in stereo anymore, relegated to solitary Echo and Sonos devices pretending to sound right.

Now for the first time in years, I don't simply hear music—I stop, I explore, I choose, I listen. Not just to vinyls either: I've wired outputs from the studio mixer to the Harman Kardon receiver, which allows me to send audio from the Mac (or any device with Airplay), opening up our entire streaming library.

Filling a room with sound is transcendent: there is air and movement and vibrating particles interlocking, bouncing off walls and piercing the skin. Resonances like mantras and soft meditations. Character borne of chipped paint, old wood, and glass. It's the sound of ghosts, of unrelenting memories, a realm of contemplation and awe and alchemy.

Vinyl, it turns out, was a way back.