CAS: Colleen's interview with Kensuke Hidaka (Posivision)

Journalist and DJ Kensuke Hidaka interviewed Colleen in October 2012 for Posivision, a free paper, presenting Classic Album Sundays. Ken kindly shared it with us. Enjoy!

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Interview questions for Cosmo / Classic Album Sundays

For Posivision

Please explain to us the how, why and when, you developed, and started this event, Classic Album Sundays in London?

OK, it kinda started from a few different things. One was, I was growing increasingly aware of and interested in and educating myself and being educated about sound from David Mancuso. You know, it’s funny, when I look back on it now, David was the one who actually gave me a start in actual my DJing, although he hates that term. And after that I kind of became a fairly successful DJ, traveling the world but not really playing on systems like that (The Loft) anymore. And we started this Lucky Cloud party with David, 10 years ago. Me and 2 other guys bought a whole sound system. We bought 6 Klipshorns, Quachus, Quachus tone arms, amplifers, you know, the whole works, Technics 1100s and we took out a business loan and bought this whole new system. We brought our own system in. And David was getting on to me, he has always been quite adament in handle the sound and just learn about the whole thing, he kept pushing me and pushing me. So, finally, I did. I really started learning so much from him and from doing it.

You said before that when you were helping out David at The Loft, you basically did all this, set up the sound system.

Yeah, as time went on. At the beginning, when I first started playing with him, on 3^rd St., it was at his house. It was always set up. I mean, I didn’t know much about the system at all. I really did not know anything. In fact, I asked David a few years ago, so why did you trust me to…? There was a lot of trust. Trust with the music. There was trust with the equipment. I knew nothing about Koetsus, nothing.

Sorry, what is a Koetsu?

Koetsu, a moving quil cartridge. Japanese cartridges. US$ 5,000 each, some of them. So, quite expensive. So your cueing up, is not like, you just say, “oh yeah, come on over, just test it out”. In our system, at Lucky Cloud, only me and David and Francois, that’s it, no one else. We won’t let anyone else touch it. I am the only one that puts it on and takes them off, nobody else. That’s how we have to be. So, here I was 25, no less, 24 and David is saying, “Hey, do you wanna play some records with me, “At The Loft”?". I knew about the music, I didn’t have any idea how expensive the system was. I knew there were expensive cartridges but I didn’t know how things were set up.

I did not know anything about sound. I just knew it sounded great, that’s all I knew. So, also with the crowd, the crowd knew their music. You couldn’t play a record that had loads of samples in it. They’d shout at you. (They’ll say) “Cosmo, take that off”. You couldn’t do that. so you had to know everything and I was very young. I asked David recently, “so, why, when I look back on it now, and I see, how much you trusted me with. Why did he let me do that? I did not know anything. And then he said, “It starts with a vibe, long before you hit the turn table.” So, anyway, I had a DJ career, played lots of terrible places and some good places. We bought this sound system and David kind of made me, really be the leader in the group, with the sound. We have an engineer who does soldering and everything. One time, he didn’t make it so I did it, put it all together. So, I know how to do it. I learned more and more about it. Started buying our own sound equipment with me and my husband, Adam. Started buying own plus we housed 2 of Klipshorns. Just started really getting into the Hi-Fi thing. So, that’s a big, big part of it because what happened then, was people would come over for Sunday lunch to our house. Adam’s a great cook, not me. Yeah, I cook but he’s really good.

Interesting. I like to cook a lot.

Do you?! Yeah, a lot of man do, actually. I think more man I know than woman, actually. And after dinner, after Ariana (daughter) went to bed,

I’d say to somebody, whoever the guest was, what album do you wanna listen to? And so, they pick out an album from my collection. So, it’s kinda like a Classic Album Sunday. And then, Greg Wilson, we had a mutual friend named James, and James kept inviting himself over (hahah), bachelor and really into food, so one time, he came over a few times and we did that on Sundays and he told Greg about it. And Greg’s like, I really feel like listening some albums. It’s a lost art. So, he started this blog called Living To Music which asks people to listen to the same album on 1^st Sunday of the month. He was telling me, “Hey, Colleen, you should really do this while I was away. So, I did the 2^nd one which was Dark Side of The Moon. Soon, I was listening at home with Adam.

Which was the 1^st one?

 The first one, I missed it because I was away. Don’t know, it’s probably on his blog. I’m sure. I was away in the States. He kept e-mailing me and I did not know what he was talking about. I was just kind of busy. But I saw him at a festival. And so, after that, listening to Dark Side of The Moon, I said (decided), I really like to make this into an event because we had this great system. And I checked Greg’s blog and people were saying, “Colleen’s going to be listening to her system…” The audio quality thing to me is massive to me. We can really hear things. And most people can not afford to buy a system like that. We spent 23,000 Pounds on the business loan. And (eventually) paid that off. And since then, my husband and I spent quite a bit. So, it’s not like everyone’s out to buy an audiophile system.

So, I really want to make people aware of how deeply you can listen to it. And I thought, hosting it as an event. It was just a passion project, really. And I have friends that own a pub. And I asked them if I can use, told them about the idea, they said they loved it, and gave me (use) of their pub in support it, very monetarily.  Yeah, it just took off from there. And then, it really just took off.

It started in a pub?

Yeah. In an upstairs room though, in a function room. So, there is no bar upstairs. It’s quite quiet upstairs, in a residential area. In the beginning, I had 8 people. Now, I can squeeze in, up to 60.

So, it’s not like massive.

No. It’s a very intimate thing. I have done different events, in different places. The most that you can really do, is 100 people. (over that) And then, it starts to lose its intimacy. Plus you have to think about the sound. How far it’s going to project? How much is it ruled off when it goes across the room? Are people near the speakers going to hear as opposed to people in the back of the room? It becomes about room acoustics as well. But it’s also an intimate thing and it kind of just developed and the BBC came along, a few months later. And they interviewed me and filmed it for a whole piece on BBC breakfast television. All the radio stations and worldwide, online, you know, it was just like, thing after thing. And it just took off.

That is so impressive. NY Times, Villege Voice, UK press: BBC, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Guardian, fashion: ex: ELLE, cultural media: Time Out London...

Yeah, I never hired PR.

Wow, really! Hhahaha.

Nope. Not once, nothing.

They just came.

Yep. Before the BBC, the 1^st piece was The Word magazine that recently went under, unfortunately. Kind of like Mojo. I don’t know if you know but it was a very good magazine. A lot like Mojo.  And the editor must have been on my mailing list. I probably had kind of a review list for Wild Rumpus or something. I just thought, Oh, just send it to everybody. And he’s like, “I wanna cover the 1^st event.” And the 1^st one was Abbey Road. He sent a journalist and she wrote a great piece. Big, full page with pictures, saying, “Record Clubs are our new book clubs”. And she really got it and the BBC online editor read that and The Arts editor for television heard about it. He came along and loved it. He really knows his music, actually. 

And yeah, it was just really, really good.  From there, you know the audio companies were (started) calling me. Now, I have a fully donated system so I don’t have to take mine apart. I don’t have to use the Lucky Cloud stuff anymore too cause I was using the quatsus. I don’t like taking them out all the time. So, it’s quite nice. Now, I have 3 systems. I have lots of systems because then other events that I do, other people will help support it whether it’s a manufacturer or a distributor or a hi-fi shop will always install it so which is great.  So, I have used a lot of systems now. So, learning more and more about equipment and set up.

So, the hi-fi people, manufacturers, and brands, are they happy?

Oh, they are really happy! They’re kinda overwhelmed, actually. I get loads of coverage in the hi-fi magazines. I was just at the National Audio Show. They’ve invited me to do stuff there. I think on many levels, one being a woman in the audio file world, is pretty rare (haahha). It was funny because I went to the National Audio Show last week, so no que for the toilets there! Hahahah. So (I think), this is great! And all these man, some of them who have not seen a woman in several years, making eye contact. Hahah. It was a trip. But it’s really fun but I try not to get too crazy about it,

You can go with audio, as David would say, “Chasing the sound cloud”. You can keep going and going but it’s never going to be good enough, you know. At some point, you have to say, this is good enough. This is what I need. But you learn things about how different amplifers respond to different types of music, whether it’s, valves, tubes, or solid state. So,it’s quite a lot of fun, how different speakers have different imaging, efficiency. So, different set-ups to different situations which has been a lot of fun. So, that’s down to David, pushing me, pushing me, pushing me into it.

When all these major medias got in touch with you, was it because the classic albums that Classic Album Sundays plays, are universally praised and that the people in the media, like this new idea of listening to it in its entirety, in a really hi-resolution stereo system & at a public environment? Or is it because, some people think that in this day and age, the general public have become accustomed to listening to music in general, on their iPods, iPhones, cell phones?

You know, there is a lot of different angles to it. Everyone has their own angle. Classic Album Sunday, it challenges how we listen to music in the 21^st century, on a lot of levels. I grew up listening to music in the 70s and 80s and I worked at record shops so I would get a record, bring it home and listen to it, friends would come over. Now, people that are in their teens, in their early 20s today, they don’t do that. They download a song for free on youtube sometimes, some terrible mp3, plug it into their phone, listen it on their phone, by themselves. Not that, that’s bad. I’m not saying, it’s now the typical way of listening to music. So, what I was trying to do is, resurrect the old way of listening to music, on a great hi-fi because I did not have a great hi-fi when I was young, I can tell you. So, there’s a lot of thing it does, one, it shows how these great albums are works of art. We don’t have a great museum like the MOMA or The Met for great albums. (Classic Albums) Also shows how much these artists really put into it. There’s always great stories behind these great albums.

Indeed.

Yeah, there’s always a great story behind it. And there is a reason why, it has a legacy and it’s lasted. And then, the whole entirety thing, it’s kind of like if you were reading a great novel, would you just read a chapter?

A lot of these albums have an inter-related concept especially with a band like Pink Floyd. They are kind of the kings of concept albums. But they always doesn’t relate. Yeah, there they are, with no Roger Waters, telling. Hahhaha.

At this point in the conversation, Cosmo saw the Pink Floyd book.

It was probably published in the 90s...

Yeah, exactly.

So, these are great works of art. They should be appreciated it as such and respected. And yeah, I am making it precious but I don’t see anything wrong with that? I am not saying, you can’t listen to music as a single or on a mp3. But most people are used to hearing it in mp3s. They don’t even know just how much more sonic information there is in a song. So, when you use vinyl, a great pressing, on a great hi-fi, there is a depth to your (listening) experience that you would not normally experience. So, you can hear things that you wouldn’t hear before, an experience in a deeper way. Especially if you also turn off your phone, and you don’t talk, and you listen in quiet, because then, you are giving yourself over to something as opposed to having your ego operating all the time. I mean some people find it really hard to shut up especially in Britain.

To shut down your mind.

Really, some people love to hear their own voice. They need to talk all the time. Quiet freaks them out. And it’s making them stop. I mean, if you went to a yoga class, you are not talking the whole way through it, are you? So, it gives you some more concentration on something else aside from yourself. Also, to let go of what’s going on in this world. You’re so used to, me included, you’re on twitter, facebook, (checking) e-mails, text messages, on the phone call. It’s like constant social inter-change.

So, it must be nice getting disconnected while you are in Tokyo.

 Yeah. Exactly, it’s great (actually) I’m totally connected, believe me. That’s why I went to the Japanese garden today to turn off. I think it’s important to turn off. We lead very busy lives. We are all multi-tasking, especially parents. We are doing a lot, all at once. To turn off your phone, is kind of a big commitment for a lot of people. But it’s good for you. You know, it’s good for you, to do that sometimes. And what better way, to share music. And it’s interesting because you have all these people experiencing the album in their own personal way. Either they know the album, or they don’t. Half of the people who come to my events, have never heard the album, in full.

Is that more of the younger generation?

Ah, yeah, sometimes the older ones too. Now, I’m getting regulars who come every(time). So, it doesn’t matter which album it is so I would play John Coltrane, Love Supreme. Most of the room have never heard of the John Coltrane album in its entirety.

Even though, it’s (Love Supreme) is included in these books.

Yeah but these are written by journalists. What I do in my events, I put up a board, asking people to suggest their favourite classic albums. And that is how I programme my events. So, the monthly might be the bigger, bigger ones. Then I do things that are more bespoke for art galleries. I might do an exhibition on Syd Barrett or Nirvana or whatever, sometimes do their albums. Then I do festivals, I think about the day, the types of people the festivals attract. Which audiences that’s going to be. Who’s headlinng? What types of people are there? What’s Sunday morning going to be like as opposed to Friday night? What suits the mood? I programme those.

I started it in New York. There was one in Glasgow, Edinburgh. I do one-off events like The National Audio Show, Edinburgh fringe. I’m going to Oslo next month. So, I have people in Boston that are ready to go. Kinda finalized stuff there. That will be a monthly. LA, Austin, Texas, Portugal. So, it’s really spreading. I need to find some place in Germany. New Zealand, another one. So people get really impassioned by it. They wanna help start another one. So, I kinda franchise it out. And I write the presentations. We do the same albums. So, it’s really great.

Is the response to CAS different in different cities and countries? I ask this since maybe CAS as an event is a new concept for some and some Classic Albums are more appreciated in some countries more than others.

Yeah, actually the quietest audience is probably my monthly because there is a lot of repeat people, which is funny because you would think, Brits in a pub. Hahaha

Would probably be the noisiest ones.

But they get the concept.

Yeah, I think that everyone gets the concept.

They become quiet (while listening the album in full)

Yeah, exactly. New York has been really great and doing really well. They all are, actually. They’re all special in their own way. And you know, it’s quite an intimate gathering, really. I think that’s another thing, people like.

What sort of people come to the events?

Well, I’ve had a few people writing theseses about it. So, I can tell you exactly. Because they come in and done a lot of research. At my monthly, my biggest percentage was people between 20 and 29, followed by 30 to 39.

Really, in the 20s!

 Yeah because they’ve never experienced anything like this and vinyl is having a resurgence plus they don’t know these albums. They’ve never listened to the whole album. And they probably never listened to the Dark Side of The Moon. Like, I’m not joking.

If they are in their 20s, their parents might have listened and enjoyed it.

A lot of them say their parents, it’s my mom’s favourite album. Yeah.

My intern’s 21, you know. And they hear their favourite bands talking about these albums. If you listen to Animal Collective, of course, you wanna hear Pet Sounds. In mono, you know. If you wanna hear Florence and The Machine, of course, you wanna hear Kate Bush. It’s like these are the people that they are referencing. So, they wanna hear the beginning of the story. There was never really the beginning but…

Yeah, then, it’s half woman and half man which I’m very proud of except The National Audio Show. Hahahah.

Why do you think it’s half woman and half man?

I think one thing, being a woman spearheading this whole thing is probably quite welcoming, number one. So, it doesn’t feel like, it’s a bunch of guys. There’s people, in hi-fi magazines writing letters, saying “my wife doesn’t listen to music.” Which I respond, of course. And then, there also is the stereotype that woman are really good listeners. We can go stereotyping endlessly but yeah, it’s just half and half. From different walks of life. Trendy, Shortditchy types, music media types, house wives, older guys that just haven’t heard of the album in a long time, it’s a real mixture. There really isn’t a single defining audience because this kind of music appeals to everybody. And really, it depends upon the album too. So, somebody might come along for the 1^st one, say, I’m a Marvin Gaye fan. Come along to listen to What’s Goin’ On. Then, they realize that they like the experience so they start coming to every single one. So, a lot that, happens. And then, there is a lot of word of mouth happening too. So, people who came to the festival, saying they had friends who came last year and they couldn’t stop talking about it. You know, things like that. 

So, does it rekindle their memories, most of them must have listen to these albums when they were in high school when they really got into it.

Yeah, it does. People say that they fixed their turntables. I actually saw something on twitter, someone tagged me on twitter, saying, “listening to Hounds of Love now, for the 2^nd time. Thank you, Classic Album Sundays. The first time was at Bestivals”. So, yeah, it does which is what it’s supposed to do. That’s kind of the end goal, really.

Talking about “sound” do you think vinyl sounds much better than digital? If so, why?

It’s a hard question. If you have a great system, great cartridge, the turn tables set up properly, you have a great pressing, that is clean, yes, I do.

I do think it sounds warmer. I think the high end sounds better. I think that there is a warmth to the bass. Most people don’t have these ideal situations.

So, there is a lot of great digital alternatives. Much better than CDs as well.

A lot of record companies and even some of those download sites, are now getting into more higher resolution files. You know, CDs are 16 bit/ 44.1 kHz.

They sound awful. But for a lot of people, they sound better than crackly record on a terrible turn table and blunted stylus. So, I can understand it, they’re portable and everything. But really, if you are going to digital, there’s 24 bit files with a higher sampling rate so it’s like 96 sometimes 192 and you can find this stuff. Francois uses this stuff.

Is it getting quite popular in the rest of the world?

I wouldn’t say, it’s popular.

I mean, there is a lot of outlets.

I wouldn’t say, there is a lot yet, I think it’s increasing. It’s kind of like vinyl. It’s never going to be what it was but it’s getting better. You know, Rega, one of the big turntable manufacturers in Britain, for their entry level turntables, they can not even keep up with demand. It’s all young people buying them. It sells for 3 to 400 Pounds or something. That’s the cheap one.

They can not even keep up with it. They’re always behind. They can not even get the orders in fast enough, manufacture it quickly. The distributor in the States are actually air freighting them as opposed to ship and losing money, just to get it to its customers. I mean, it’s crazy. So, but (now) it’s not like the old days, where everyone had a turntable. It’s never going to be. There’s too many alternatives. But I don’t think everyone is going to start, run out and start downloading 24 bit/ 96 either. But even iTunes is making a concerted effort to sell higher resolution files, not that high but….better. Sites like beatport have 16 bit WAVs. And I think the record companies are going to stop manufacturing CDs and get into higher resolution downloads, it makes more sense. The thing is, the CDs aren’t fun to look at. So, you may as well download it. That’s more fun to look at, vinyl. So, it’s either digital downloads or vinyl, really. Vinyl’s the tangible one. You don’t buy a CD because you wanna hold it and covet it. It just serves a means to an end, really. But if you can download a better file online, there are more options..

I discovered recently, there’s a company called e-Onkyo in Japan. They actually sell 24 bit/ 48 to 96 kHz.

 You can do 48 but 96 is better.

And they are starting to reissue the “classic album” from the Warner Brothers catalogue. Like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Talking Heads: Remain in Light,

There you go. I mean for most people, that’s a better alternative than vinyl, if they don’t have the correct set up.

But do you think, there is a market for it?

I think that there is a market for people who love music. I think it’s educating people as well. And I remember this, as a DJ, I’ve always been a supporter of sub-cultures, whether it’s punk rock, or house music in America, you know, like nothing (no support before) there. People are generally force fed what they listen to and how to listen to it. So, when I was growing up, listening to Top 40 radio, if you’re not really passionate about it, and not want to find it yourself, you just take what’s given to you.

Do you think it’s more so than before or the same?

I think it’s the same. Actually, I think it’s better now because of internet radio. Before when you had terristerial radio in America, you had the college radio stations, and a few specialty shows on commercial radio which I was lucky I grew up near Boston. So, we had very progressive radio.

Lots of college radio, it’s more progressive. If I grew up in the middle of South Carolina, I probably wouldn’t have many choices of what to listen to. Now, people have more choice. Almost too much, it could be argued. So, if you want to get into something, it’s very easy to research and find and listen to it on Spotify and decide if you wanna buy it. So, actually it’s easier in that sense to be into sub-cultures and stuff like that.

KH: Like, we’re getting back to “having too much choices”…

That’s why I tell them what to listen to. Haahahah

Yeah, you are the "connoisseur".

You need to know this album. Yeah, that’s why I put up a suggestion board as well, because I learn things from it as well. “Uh, that album, I don’t that album”. 

Has your personal experience of listening to music changed over the years, like from when you were a kid, in the context of the Classic Albums? For instance, when you first started listening to Pink Floyd, Dark Side of The Moon.

It didn’t sound as good (before when I started listening to it). So, now I can appreciate that side as well but that doesn’t always have to matter. You can enjoy them in several levels. You know, I still get the same feelings. I think knowing more. I like to know a lot about things. I kind of have an intellectual appetite. When I make the presentation, knowing the story behind it more, that makes me appreciate it more as well. Also, knowing how studios work. I mean I kind of make music. I go to my mastering sessions. I kinda know the process along the whole way. So, I can appreciate when someone says, “oh yeah, Sgt. Peppers was made on a 4 track”. I know what that means. And I can appreciate it even more, because, but as far as the actual music, I think I still love the same emotions that I go through. They’re still the same, really. And it’s funny how you don’t get really sick of this stuff.Like a great album, like a great book, you can read it over and over. Great albums are only 45 minutes so it doesn’t take that much time, like a great book. It’s like a haiku. Hahahha.

Can you talk about the audio set-up, the menu, you know, for the general public…

There’s a lot of different menus though. Oh yeah, I don’t always use Klipsch. No, I’ve used Wilson Audio Max speakers, Bauers & Wilkins 802 Diamond speakers. Linn made a speacial set of speakers just for me, for the festivals. I don’t really move my Klipsch around any more, except for Lucky Cloud. Because for Lucky Cloud, Klipsch are more about efficiency.

Why is it efficient?

Because you put in one Watt, you get 1dB. You can run a lot. You can run them off a 10 Watt amp, or 15 Watts. You don’t need like, “Like, how many Watts is that amp?” “Oh, it’s 200 Watts.” “Great!” It doesn’t… It’s a very very efficient speaker. And they project. And so you could run… Like our set up at Lucky Cloud, we have five columns, we have two stereo speakers… no, I’m sorry, we use three mono speakers and one stereo. So that it’s really efficient for high volumes with sound. But with my set-up I’m using smaller rooms a lot of the time. I don’t need it to project so much. Klipsch aren’t really known for their imaging, so it’s, ah… They’re beautiful, they’re made from a specific time (designed, I believe, in the fifties), and they were designed for a certain kind of music. So the crossover point…

So originally…

Vocals. Vocal music, not electronic music as much. But for a set-up like when you’re doing a party, I mean there’s no other speaker you could use that would give the same response and for you to be able to use it. Otherwise, if you had other speaker… And also you can separate the tweeters and mids from the bottoms. And you can make false corner… I mean it’s just… David was genius in figuring this out. I mean, David Mancuso, I mean, over forty-something years he’s been tweaking this system to our delay times. A millisecond, a foot. It’s not an audiophile system; it’s an audiophile system married with a club P.A., so it serves its purpose.

Now, my audio set-up for instance… I’m not going to say what the best speakers I’ve ever heard are because I don’t want to sit and just, you know… but I have a personal just the best system I’ve ever heard in my life. I don’t own it… But, you know, when you really start to get into this stuff, some of these speakers that take 8 hours to set up; the imaging is not only stereo, but there’s depth and then, when they get really good, it comes from the top. So there’s… Now, those speakers take a lot of power to drive. So you could never do that in a club situation. Plus the Klipsch, you can whack it, it’s fine. These are like the tweeters… There’s no way to separate it. You might have three drivers in the speaker, you know, that you can’t bridge. It’s like there’s a lot of… But if I’m using a room where I don’t need to pr…

For my set up, basically, it’s a turntable that usually has an external power supply, because usually it’s not good, although we use it with Lucky Cloud because it makes sense for other reasons, but for high-end turntables the power supply is always separate because you don’t have a motor under your platter. Vibration. So I use a lot… I’ve used a few different turntables. I’ve used, well we used… Originally, I started with the Lucky Cloud one which is the 1100, with a Koetsu tone arm(?) and re(?) Koetsu. I’ve used Continuum turntables with Koetsus. I’ve used Linn LP twelves, fully decked out ones with a ______ moving coil cartridge. For my monthly I use a Riga P9, which is the highest level Riga, but it’s really easy to set up. It’s like ‘bang’, set it up and they have an Effeda(?) moving coil cartridge. So it depends like how much time you have to set up. If you have engineers, like from Linn who are going to sit and set up the turntable like for eight hours! The Continuum I use was a hundred thousand pounds just for the turntable.

K: What brand is it?

Continuum.

Continuum.

A hundred thousand pounds just for the turntable.

Wow.

And that, someone else sets up. So you have that, then you also… I always use moving coil cartridges. I will not use anything else. But I actually prefer phono stages. I get… I feel there’s more clarity, rather than step-up transformers.

What is a phono stage? Sorry!

A phono stage takes an analogue input and makes it a phono. It takes the phono needle, yeah, so it has like… Each moving coil cartridge has a different output. Well not all of them, but they have different outputs, right? So how many Ohms and all that kind of stuff. And the phono stage, you usually have settings. So you can set it at different settings for what the output of the moving coil cartridge is. And then it turns it into a line output. So on your pre-amp you don’t necessarily have to have a phono input. And I have found from my experience that the phono stage is really… I like the phono stage better than a step up transformer, which seems to have a bit more noise and the phono stage to me is a lot cleaner. The step up transformer’s analogue though, so if you have a nice analogue… It depends on what you want to play. Really, there is no perfect system for everything. If want to hear jazz, you know, on vintage equipment it sounds great! It’s like, you know, it sounds wonderful with step up transformers and moving coil cartridges and valve amps and horn speakers.

Uh-huh.

But there’s all different ways. It’s striking how different the same piece of vinyl can sound on different systems.

And different styles of music.

And different styles of music, yeah. I would say electronic music sounds better with a solid state amplifier rather than a valve; I think jazz sounds better with valves. Valves are very temperamental though. We used to move ours around all the time and it’s like “aaah~”, so solid state’s what I do now! (laughs) It’s a lot easier! At home it’s different so… There is no exact set-up. Like we used a Thorens the other night and it sounded great. So it’s like each one’s different really.

Erm…

But it’s all audiophile.

K: Yeah.

So it’s all high end equipment and, you know, I’ve been playing around… It’s like toys; I’m like a kid in a candy shop. I’ve been able to play around with a lot of stuff. I mean one of the systems I used… We were just talking. It’s either two… It’s usually two mono blocks or better. Mono amps. But yeah, we used… Turntabl… The whole system was a quarter of a million pounds. And we’re not talking a club sound system with delays and EQ. We don’t use any of that. No compression, no delay, it’s just two speakers, two amps, pre-amp, phono stage, turntable, moving coil cartridge.

What’s the difference between… I heard, like… I read recently, in one of your events, you were going to play Sergent Pepper’s in mono… 

In mono, OK…

Of course!

Right. Such a geeky thing!

(both laugh)

But the general public has listened in stereo.

As did I, and that’s the one I know. You have to remember, in 1967, stereo was fairly new and they were all experimenting, and not always doing a great job of it. Some things sound: “That was made for stereo.”

Was Sergeant Pepper’s released in mono?

Mono and stereo. They did two mixes. So they had George Martin, the producer, and Geoff Emerick who was the engineer, and the Beatles, sat, all of them, with the band, for three weeks, mixing it to mono. They were inspired by Pet Sounds, I should tell you, and Brian Wilson did it in mono as well. I don’t even know if there was a stereo of Pet Sounds, originally. I don’t think there was. Brian Wilson was inspired by Rubber Soul, Revolver and Phil Spector. Phil Spector’s stuff is all made for mono, for AM radio. Pop music. Things that punch. Straight out at you, like focused, straight out. Now, by the end of the sixties they start experimenting with stereo. There’s stereo players. They have the FM frequency band. Album oriented rock starts to happen. So, pirate radio stations… People can start playing stuff in stereo. But they’re still experimenting with it, you know? And most of where this stuff is going to get played is AM radio. So the Beatles themselves are present for three weeks to do this mix. And then, when it came time to do the stereo mix, they just left it to Geoff Emerick and George Martin. So which is the one the artists intended? The artists were present for the mono mix. You know…

But not the stereo.

No, they weren’t present. In fact, John Lennon allegedly said, although I couldn’t find the exact place of where he said this, no one seems to know, “You haven’t heard Sergeant Pepper until you’ve heard it in mono.” Now, yeah, so… I sold a really cheesy Madonna record that I had a DJ pressing of, ended up being a hundred pounds on E-bay, (laughing) and I bought the mono of Sergeant Pepper! It was a little bit more, but I could justify it. I justified my love, basically!

(both laugh)

That’s fun. 

So, yeah, and it does sound different. There’s still some people who’ve heard the mono and prefer the stereo. That’s fine, and of course they did a great job on the stereo mix. It’s really great and some things really stand out, but there’s some stuff that’s lost. And, ah, something like Dark Side Of The Moon, that’s when they had a grasp on stereo. You know, and that’s when they knew how to use it, like, “Oh don’t put all the vocals on one side.”

Now it’s interesting because sometimes I play things… that I find that the old jazz records, sometimes they sound better in stereo if there was an original stereo mix done. And Rudy van Gelder from Blue Note, I think from ’57 or ’58, he’d start to run two mixes. He’d run a monaural mix, mono mix, and a stereo mix, but they only released the mono. They didn’t have stereo players. So some of these re-issues are in stereo and to me the stereo sounds better because I can hear the positioning of the musicians in the room. Now, for Beatles, Sergeant Pepper, that doesn’t matter. Because it’s not about that, it’s a pop album. There’s loads of stuff going on. Psychedelic sound effects and weird stuff happening, just like Pet Sounds. It’s not meant to be like, “Oh, we’re supposed to sit and listen to the band play.” One of the reasons they stopped touring is because they couldn’t replicate their music live. They had problems with Revolver. They couldn’t replicate that stuff live any more. Plus they couldn’t hear themselves because of the screaming and the bad PAs. But also because they couldn’t play the stuff live.

Now, you can but then, you couldn’t. So, it makes sense for a lot of pop records to be made/mixed in mono, to be played in mono. But I think for Jazz, if there was a stereo mix being run at the time, yes, where it really had the microphone’s positioned, to pick up where these artists, these musicians were playing in the room, then you can sit back and listen and think, oh, I hear Coltrane over there, or you can hear Elvin Jones over there or whatever.

Do you think that, for some of the general public that have come to your events, they’ve never been to listened to it (music) in a hi-fi system that you cater, or have never been to for instance, a Gallery party with their amazing sound system in Aoyama Cay, or bonobo in Tokyo or The Loft in NY or some of the legendary clubs that had their legendary sound systems in the past and present, do you think that you have convinced them that sound quality is something to take note?

OK, I think that is a really good question and I think that there are levels of this.

When I first walked into The Loft, I was like, “Oh my God, I love this place!” I couldn’t tell you why? “Oh, it must be those Klipshorns and the Koetsu moving coil cartridges” I didn’t know anything and then, it was like, “Gosh, I feel so good in this place! I feel really good. Gosh, I can dance, really for 8 hours and not have to leave the dance floor”, “Wow! I can share a conversation with someone and not lose my voice.” So, that’s the initial thing there.

“Wow! I danced at the Gallery” a woman came up to me and said, “I just lost myself for 7 hours!” Now, if it was a really terrible club P.A. she would not have been on the floor for 7 hours. I can assure you, she doesn’t know, she loves the music, yeah but it’s also the sound system that helped her stay on the dance floor. She doesn’t know that.

Then, as people come along there more, they see the effort that goes behind it, then they might start to recognize the fact that, oh, it’s actually the system that is helping to facilitate this as well. You know and then, a lot of people say, well, a lot of people when they come into Classic Album Sundays thinking, uh, they come in with a bad attitude (hahahah), very cynical.

It’s like, I’m being tested, yeah.

Is it because, they’re British?

Yeah, it’s the Brits. The Americans are like, “This is great!” hahahah

But the Brits, they wanna be cynical. And I haven’t had an unhappy person yet.

There were a few people, journalist who were cynical but they never came. Interesting.

I think that a lot of people from when they are in their 20s, they go to night clubs and stuff and really like it but after a while, they get really tired.

Ear fatigue.

They think clubs are just really loud places

Totally. You shouldn’t be exposed to music, over 100db for long periods of time.

I mean I have been a lot. Whether it’s me standing in front of the speakers at Ramones’ gigs or going to clubs, you know. I’m sure I have done ear damage. Everybody gets ear damage but.. People don’t always know why. I remember we had some people who came to Lucky Cloud, then they went to a regular club night, I think Moodymann playing some place, they couldn’t believe how bad it sounded. It was a Function One system but I’m not gonna blame it on the Function One system because I’ve played on good Function One systems. Cielo has a really great one. But it was how it was set up in the room. But then, when you heard a great system that is very musical, not about like, “how much bass can we get out there?” You know, it’s hard for your ears to adjust. A lot of come in to, it’s probably happened at The Gallery, they come to Lucky Cloud, The Loft and they’ll pause to hear a lot of bass but actually, the bass response is just as much. It’s the same response but it’s just that we don’t add any extra.

And at clubs are used to having all that bass added on and what it does, this is how much information you have but if you add the bass, ok now, now this is how much you have left for the mid-range and the highs. It just eats into that so (the overall sound) it’s not balanced.

For instance playing Dark Side Of The Moon last Friday, it was actually played quite flat?

 Yeah, no EQ. That's why I try to find a great pressing ‘cos it’s amazing how different a pressing can sound. So you try to get the best situation you possibly can, how clean the vinyl is, you know.

But at the Loft, The Gallery…At the Gallery there’s no EQ is there? Exactly. Fillmore North, Lucky Cloud, Loft, Classic Album Sunday there’s no EQ, no compression so it’s just open. And the other thing is, you have to remember the more ‘additives’ you put into something the less you’re getting the real thing, right? So it’s like, “Look at this new Pioneer desk, DJ mixer. Look at all the knobs!”

Well, the audio path has to travel through all those little things getting more and more degraded each step along the way. This why an M.O 1 is great, the Mark Levinson M.O 1 is fantastic. Very simple, simple circuitry. You want a simple path, like a UREI is much more simple and it sounds better. You know with all those things, “Isn’t that great!” Yeah, it’s great that you can do stuff but it just degrades the signal.

It’s funny you should say that. Last night I was thinking about all these questions and I was thinking, how should I ask that. But you actually answered it for me.

 Yeah, I mean sometimes you do have to use EQ. I’m sure like at Cielo you do. It’s a Function One system and it’s made for electronic music, sounds great and the way that everything is set up, it’s not like an open system like David developed…

What do you mean, ‘open’?

There’s nothing compressing it, there’s nothing manipulating it, it’s just as it’s supposed to be. It’s very spiritual in a sense, the signal just kind of floats through. It’s not like being manipulated. If you think an audio signal is travelling a straight path as opposed to, “Now we’re going to go here and this is going to be done to it. Then we’re going to go that way and that’s going to be done to it.”

So it’s very simple...

It’s very simple, yeah. Just using high-end components it’s so easy to put together! I mean once you move everything into place it’s really easy. Whereas, you know, the first thing is you get a great room.

Is that very important?

It’s the most important thing out of anything I’ve said so far. Before I do a Classic Album Sundays - I already knew the room at The Gallery – I go and check the rooms. The festivals, before I committed I went to hear the rooms.

So this pub in London?

 Yeah, it’s nice. Not perfect acoustics but it’s good, it’s wooden floors. There’s a nice balance of reflective and absorbing surfaces. So you don’t want it too reflective, like tiles and you don’t want it all ‘soaked’ either. It has windows, it has wood, it’s a nice shape. You don’t want a square because of the way the audio waves bounce around, the sound waves. You don’t want ceilings that are too high or too low so there’s a lot of factors. One of the reasons we use balloons at the parties is to drop the ceiling and to make it flat. So we have a very high ceiling at Lucky Cloud but it’s dropped. So the balloons are used, it’s partly atmosphere but it’s partly for sound.

So the balloons absorb the sound?

 Yeah exactly. See when you have really high ceilings the sound keeps travelling up and up and up and up and you have a really long reverb time. A dead room has no reverb and a studio is generally like that. Like a mastering studio is dead because you have to hear exactly what’s coming, you know it has to be. For a party when you’re playing on a P.A the room has to be somewhat live, it has to have some kind of response but not too live. So room acoustics is the number one thing. I can’t go on enough about it. The guy from Function One will say the same thing. Anyone who’s into audio knows, number one thing. And this is the thing that really gets me, so many clubs they open and they pay more for their lighting rig and they’ve never tested the acoustics. That place I was telling you about, the guy from Lucky Cloud when he went to hear us and he went to hear Moodyman, that's why I say it’s not the Function One system. The room, I played there once and I said I’d never do it again. It’s a concrete box! Amazing that people think that sounds good! I mean, The Gallery, wooden floors, solid. Right? First of all, how do you dance on this? It’s not good and it doesn’t sound good either. And it doesn’t look great, it looks like you’re in a prison cell. It’s amazing how many people think, “We’re building a club” and they never even give it a thought. Like, “It’s a Function One system so it must be good.” And the Function One guys will say it has to be set up properly in the right room and you see at Cielo it is but I’ve heard so many that haven’t been. And that is number one before you open a place or do a party or do Classic Album Sundays, a listening event. The room has to be right. I’ll say this, it’s an American slang term, “You can’t polish a turd” (Manic laughter!) And it’s just very much like that. Really, when it’s bad it’s just bad, there’s just nothing you can do.

What are the criteria for selecting a classic album?

It’s an interesting one because it’s not just about age but how do we know then with a new album it’s going to be a classic album. These are the things we ask ourselves. Sometimes it’s a public response and sometimes it’s an album you’ve listened to through and through and through and through. And there’s new albums that I can listen to from beginning to end and I don’t get sick of it. Even Adele, I think it will be a classic album, it’s a great album. My daughter bought it. And I was so surprised she covered The Cure, it was a nice little addition there! And also she won all those Grammy’s, I think that's pretty obvious that this is going to be a classic. Same with Amy Winehouse. But the old ones it’s pretty easy to tell, isn’t it. Because they’re in the Rolling Stone 500 Hundred Greatest Albums Of All Time, they’ve lasted people still reference them. It’s the newer ones you don’t really know and sometimes they can surprise us. But there’s also old albums that can surprise us and become classics like Nick Drake. When Nick Drake came out, early seventies, it didn’t sell that much, six thousand which is a lot now but it wasn’t much at that time.

Six thousand! Really? What Pink Moon?

The first one, Five Leaves Left. But he didn’t tour. Painfully shy.

I guess it’s still selling.

Now it’s selling more. It didn’t get played on radio I think John Peel may have played it but no one else played it so no one was exposed to it nobody bought it and it was the same with all of his albums. Then Pink Moon was used on a Volkswagen ad’ plus newer acts were starting to, I think Dream Academy had a song about Nick Drake. So people in the 80s, like bands would start referencing him saying it was one of my favourite albums then the Volkswagen ad’ came out and now it’s still in print!

I think people in the 80s when they had this 500 Greatest Albums in the Rolling Stone issue I think Pink Moon and Five Leaves Left were in it. It’s still continuing.

Totally! I did a session at an art gallery that did a whole exhibition on him. There’s another book that’s just come out, another gallery that wants to get me involved. I interviewed Joe Boyd and that was very interesting because he was very close to him and produced the first two and signed him. And he said when he sold his Which Season Productions to Island, Chris Blackwell, it was under the proviso that Nick Drakes albums would always stay in print. So he was an artist who wasn’t someone who spent 741 weeks on the billboard charts but has become a classic later. And I would say another one who I think it’s going to happen to is that guy Rodriguez. You know I just watched that documentary, ‘Searching For Sugar Man’ that’s just come out and I watched on the plane.

Is that the Rodriguez whose album got re-releases on Light In The Attic?

No this guy his album has probably just been re-issued. It was on Sussex, which Denis Coffey was on, that label and it became massive in South Africa and they all thought he was dead.

That’s the same guy.

That’s the same guy? So it’s just been re-issued. I listened to the album on the way over as well because they had it on the Virgin thing – it’s great! Again it’s going to be a classic album after the fact. It’s a classic album in South Africa. So you know it’s not always evident. Adele, right now and Amy Winehouse the sales and the attention proves it. But there’s probably some albums around us right now that someone might really discover in ten years time that we kind of overlooked as a society and will end up being a classic. It’s one of these things, it has to be good from beginning to end…

You mentioned in a conversation on Friday about Mr Fingers – ‘Introduction’ although it was released on MCA and it was quite popular within club music but it’s not an album that would be included in Rolling Stone…

There are a lot of great albums that aren’t in that. I feel bad for these guys actually! I’m like don’t even ask me! I can’t even tell you my top ten. It’s up to people though. For instance KLF – Chill-out, classic album to a lot of people my age who are in a certain set, especially Americans. There’s not many Americans, more Brits know KLF because as the Time Lords they were in the charts. Thank god the Time Lords weren't in the charts in America, that's all I can say. But you really had to be into English music and Rave culture to know about the KLF but they’re packed sessions so enough people know. (Looking at book?) I don’t know if it’s in that it might be I don’t think it is…Is it? I mean to me people like David Bowie, he has so many classic albums you can’t fit them all in there. You know, it would be unfair! Or Eno, but that's my personal taste. I can listen to ‘Before And After Science’ and ‘Another Green World’ so there’s personal taste too.

But all these albums are quite renowned and acclaimed but some of these more recent electronic albums do you think it will become…?

Yes, because if you talk to someone like Beardyman, who my husband manages, one of his favourite albums of all time is Aphex Twin, that's his generation, that's what he grew up listening to. That’s what influenced him. I get requests for Leftfield all the time…

‘Not Forgotten’?

No, ‘Leftism’ and sometimes ‘Global Communication’

But that ’76:14’ it’s in a lot of lists!

Yes I guess it is but I think there will be some newer electronic artists that will be on those lists. Kids that are listening to them now that might go on to make music, that's going to be their influence, that's their reference.

I guess a lot of the young Dub Step people they’re getting back or discovering these things…

Yeah, James Blake. His stuff is the musical side of Dub Step not just the sonic stuff. Like a lot of the Dub Step in clubs is just about sonics. There’s no arrangement. I think his album will be a classic album, I really do actually…

Yeah, it’s a good album...

It’s a good album and I think it’s going to influence a lot of people. My godson in the states, he’s fourteen, loves it.  And he makes music. So when he’s twenty-five and hopefully famous, a big rock star hopefully that's going to be a classic album to his generation. So it’s not all like seventies, I try to cover all the decades. I haven’t really done classical music yet because I’m not an expert and I would really need the right people to do it with. I can’t even pretend to be.

That's quite interesting because classic(al?) albums sound great if you play them on a proper sound system.

James Blake sounds great so I think there is room for all of these things and I think people are influenced. There’s all this music coming out now, the variety of music…I mean, people always bemoan the state of music today. I printed this, I was researching Sgt Pepper and I read the review that came out in the Times in May of 1967 a couple of weeks before…And you know what it did? It bemoaned the state of pop music, that's what it did. “Oh except for the Beatles album, this is really good” So you say pop music today is just awful, you know, they were saying the same thing. It just that the albums that were great are the ones that have lasted. And we have so much bad stuff now, but we have so much great stuff as well. And there’s so much great stuff in all different genres, you know. We have this folk revival thing in the U.K I don’t know if it’s big here? Laura Marley (?), Mumford & Sons, It’s great, you know. It’s really great. And there’s some great pop stuff, like Florence & The Machine, they’re great you know. There’s a lot of great stuff. There’s great electronic music and great Dub Step. Burial are really interesting. Or, you know, James Blake, what does my godson call it…Dub Soul I think he called it. So there’s classic albums being made now and I think also younger people, it’s almost a novelty – albums –and there’s more of a move towards it again. Look at Radiohead, Adele’s album sold a lot on vinyl. Radiohead have always been really supportive, they’re an album band. Yeah, and I think more and more some people are saying I only want my album on vinyl. So there are people who are making albums and they’re very conscious that they’re making albums. Adele – ‘21’ it’s about that year in here life. It’s a document. Genelle Monet (?) - ‘The Arch Android” It just flows from beginning to end, it’s a piece. I tried to pull a song out to play on my radio show. I couldn’t. I just gave up! I said I can only listen to this thing as a whole. I know I’ve mentioned a lot of females haven't I. I don’t like to say it was better back then and now there’s no classic albums. I don’t believe that to be true.

“Technology has progressed so much since then, but beyond the machines, what matters ultimately is the music. The emotion can only ever come from the musician. Electronic music has crossed over into so many areas. But I believe it is only now that digital can match analogue sound for quality and finesse. This presents electronic music with so many possibilities. I think we are only just beginning.”

In the recent Mojo magazine, The 50 Greatest Electronic Records article featured issue, Jean Micheal Jarre stated as follows, which I find quite interesting and feel it is quite connected with this interview, so based on this, I would like to ask a few questions.

Though Mr. Jarre expresses comments within the electronic music historical context, it strikes a cord in regards to the development of general recorded music from the 1960s to the present as well. Though CAS only presents/ plays Classic Albums from the past on vinyl and on special hi-fi system, right now, as he stated, “it is only now that digital can match analogue sound for quality and finesse. This presents electronic music with so many possibilities. I think we are only just beginning.” Do you think that there is still “so many possibilities” in recorded music whether it be recorded in analogue or in digital?

Yeah, I also think making music is a lot of what he is talking about as opposed to play back as well. I mean I agree with him. I remember Bjork saying a computer is just another instrument. You know like some people say, “But the computers are making the music”, no it’s a human making the music, just on a computer, you know what I mean. And yes it sounds better now than it used to because you have bigger hard drives you can have bigger files, bigger sound files. You know things can move quicker, you can experiment a lot more easily. I don’t think computer music has necessarily impeded the progress of music at all in fact I think it’s enhanced it, in the right hands. The problem is that anyone can make music so we have to sift through a lot more terrible stuff. But as far as the playback goes as far as I was saying before on the digital side, the 24 96 is really high resolution. I disagree in the sense of I still think the highs sound better on vinyl. I still think there’s a certain…he may not have even heard, his stuff sounds great on vinyl! I’m sure he has actually but most people won’t get the chance to hear it on a superb 1/4 million pound, not that it matters – the money, but I’m just saying on a really high end system where everything is just tweeked to the utmost ridiculousness, you know. And the pressing is phenomenal. I think there is something about the physicality of the medium that is part of the whole listening experience. You know, how it was mastered the actual vinyl. It sounds…I still haven’t heard something better. When I heard vinyl in one of the best systems I’ve ever heard in my life, one of the best pressings, I haven’t heard anything that's matched it. Personally. So I think having a little bit of that analogue side in there is more human maybe, I don’t know. But music on computers there are so many more possibilities and maybe it will get better. Maybe it will, I can’t say it wont, I can’t say it won’t. I think one thing, I do Classic Album Sundays as an event and there is a ritual to vinyl. There is no ritual to streaming. There just isn’t. And a lot of the music that I’m playing was made and sequenced on to two vinyl sides, not all of it, but this one was. It’s segued, this goes on side one and this goes on side two. Kate Bush, same thing. She says they’re two separate albums. So a continuous stream maybe you don’t get the same feeling, the same effect. You know Classic Album Sundays is an event, you know, I’m putting a record on the turntable and I’m just pressing play. And streaming…I’m not saying you can’t you know, but that's one of the reasons I lean towards it as well. Also it does to my ears, it’s still the best system with vinyl nothing beats it. And that's what I’m always trying to get to. But I agree with him on many things. I believe in computers as instruments and I believe that it’s getting better and better.

 The studio is an instrument.

 Yeah, exactly. Brian Eno….(not sure what she says here!)

Lastly, although I went to experience and to listen to Pink Floyd’s classic album, Dark Side of the Moon last Friday, with the audio set up of your Classic Album Sundays event and to be honest with you, it did sound truly amazing and was quite a unique experience not something that one can do at home or maybe somewhere in public quite easily, but do you think it is possible to hear the sound better, without extra quality, audio enhancement?

It’s all subjective and our relationship with music is a personal thing. And you might get just as much joy sitting on the plane, I love sitting on the plane and putting my iPod on. I’ve got great headphones! WAVs of course. And I love that experience. Sitting there in the clouds it’s a wonderful experience it’s a whole thing you know. So of course you can enjoy music just as deeply without a great hi-fi. I think what I’m presenting with Classic Album Sundays is an alternative to peoples usual listening experiences, that what it is. I’m not saying you’ll have a better time listening here than you will at home, I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is you hear the story, you’re going to shut off for a while, you’re going to hear things maybe you haven’t heard before because of the system, because we’re using really high-end audio equipment. And people do generally say, “ God, it sounds like Joni Mitchell is in the room!” And she’s just not going to sound like she’s in the room on a terrible system. But that's not to say listening to ‘Blue’ at home isn’t going to make them cry, that they might still have a truly deep and engaging experience. With an iPod you can! I’m trying to offer another way to listen to music that was forgotten. And that you can only do if you’re…and you know using the high-end audio equipment is a big part of that because most pepole don’t have access to that. You know there’s a guy who came to Sgt Pepper, he’s in his 60s he was someone’s dad – you know people bring their kids and their parents it’s really funny. He lived in London when it came out. He’d heard it loads of times and he said I’ve just never heard it sound like that. So even a guy who’s heard an album over and over and over again heard things he hadn’t heard before and that's kind of what I want. But I’m not saying that that kind of invalidates all of these other experiences, that mine’s the best! I’ve never said best. It’s just another alternative. Maybe listening to it in the car, which is one of the worst acoustics ever, I love listening to music in the car! I love it and the acoustics are horrible. Yeah! Car companies, I think Mark Levinson did Lexus, Linn works with…I can’t remember which car company and they just hit their head against the wall all the time. But it doesn’t mean it’s not great listening to music in a car. It’s just another way. It’s probably a bit more immersive in a sense because there’s nothing else going on, there’s more detail and clarity.

And you have a view.

Yeah, exactly it’s like a video, you know. It’s great.

In your introduction about CAS Goes to Tokyo, you say, “A little audio yoga…” but do you think that if one gets in better shape inside of themselves spiritually, become more pure within, getting rid of their internal karma, emotional baggage, fixations, somehow, develop a more “sound”, balanced state in both mind, body, soul, without external stimulants intake such as alcohol, etc., is it possible to get a better listening experience, whether it be, with super hi-fi audio or with by listening to a mp3?

If you’re a self-realised person you’ll be able to focus better on anything. That's the whole point of meditation, yoga, zazan (?) Like everyone that is on some kind of spiritual quest is just trying to get to that moment where you just are and you’re just dropping everything else around you because we’re all distracted constantly. So yeah, of course you’re going to enjoy the moment more, you’re going to enjoy as I’m in the Japanese garden trying to let go of my thoughts and enjoying the butterfly. I’m going to enjoy it more because I’m trying to drop ego. The ego is the hardest thing to drop and to keep you’re mind focussed. When I lived in Japan in 1989 I did Zen Buddhism and I went each week on Saturdays and went to Zen meditation just for an hour. And you know the whole thing, you stop, you’re sitting there in position, ‘Full Lotus’ or whatever and you’re trying to push thoughts away, it’s really hard. It’s really hard to do. But when you do even if it’s just for a moment it’s magical, you know. So then you’re open to receive things and to receive the music. I don’t think we had any self realised Buddhists in the audience, although I’d love to do one for them, I think that would be amazing! But it’s just trying to get to that place of using music to clear away your daily troubles and your daily problems. So yoga is physical positions to help do that.

Female voice: So you have done yoga? 

Yes I’ve done yoga myself. It would be kind of fun to do a yoga session. I would love to do stuff like that. But I think I’m already mad enough by most people’s standards! But yeah it would be amazing to do something like that. I think you’d have to have the right album, like Alice Coltrane, something really spiritual.

I think Alice Coltrane was really into meditation.

She’s from an Ashram. She’s one of the few people, she follows Sachi Ananda (?) John Coltrane got her into it. After he died, she took a vow of celibacy and she still finished raising their kids. Then once the kids were raised she really pursued her spiritual quests. Unlike a lot of people who were musicians at the time and became followers of Shiva Ananda (?) Sai Baba whoever it was because it was ‘cool’, you know a very hippy thing to do, she was real about it. I mean she gave up music, she became what she called a ‘private musician’ until shortly before her death and she released another album. She didn’t release albums. She lived in California and she just continued her practise. You know, it’s amazing. She’s very, very deep. That stuff is no joke. She did some stuff with Carlos Santana.

So she gave up making music and performing in the late 70s then?

Yes then until about the early 2000’s, she died in 2006, shortly before that she had an album and a tour. I think she was encouraged by her children to do that. But she was till playing I’m sure, I mean she was a musician, but she was a private musician who wasn’t doing it for commercial reasons.

One of the reasons I ask these questions, well recent questions is I’ve started meditating three years ago and one thing with mantra…my master has achieved true enlightenment. Basically she’s a Shida Master, Japanese lady called Yogmata. And one thing I found out when I started meditating was like what I hear is, wow! What is this profound change? Even if it’s listening to it on vinyl on a great system like Bonobo, I’m accustomed to it, or even on an MP3 I can hear the essence. And it’s like, wow! What is this?

It’s an art, the art of listening and also it’s like giving up your ego. I mean it’s hard for us to do in the modern world. But if you can just for a few minutes, push all the thoughts away about what you have to do tomorrow and what you’re going to make for dinner tonight. Just all that stuff that's constantly swimming around in our heads. So it can be a form of meditation listening to music I think. Even if it’s Rock, whatever, if you can lose yourself in it, you know. Become passive as opposed to…It’s not really passive, you’re an active listener. I guess it’s having, your ego is passive and your listening is active

And the concentration is more deeper.

Mmmm, absolutely. Someone that's sitting there talking to their friend that's why I always say just refrain from talking, But there’s always people at a show that can’t stop. It’s amazing! It’s like you go to a movie and it’s like, can’t you just drop yourself for a minute. Sometimes I joke about that in Britain. You know if I go to a festival, if you really have to hear yourself talk, if it’s really important that you have to keep talking…whisper

Or go somewhere else.

Exactly. I don’t want to sound like too much of a school m’am but I’m just trying to point out that you know, sometimes it’s good to stop talking. I definitely think that could really help. It would be great to do an Alice Coltrane album…

You haven’t?

I did do one at Bestival, Camp Bestival. I did three days of sessions so the first one was Alice. One of my personal favourites, which is probably not in here. I did ‘Journey To See Sachi Ananda’, I did that one.

Not err, what do you call it? Ptah, The El Daoud or something. That's the one I really love.

I have loads but that’s the most accessible. I have to think of my audience. I have like four or five of her albums and I listened to all of them.

They’re great.

But I think that you’re also trying to turn people onto stuff. It’s like you don’t start with giant steps for John Coltrane. Too crazy for most people. You’ll start simpler. You’ll start with ‘Bitches Brew’ for Miles Davis. It’s just too much, ‘Kind Of Blue’ we can handle that, all right! So it’s thinking about your auduence too. What’s going to appeal and make sense. Then hopefully they’ll go get other Alice Coltrane albums, you know but that’s her most accessible one...