11. Jean-Claude CamorsStrates
It was 2010 and I was working at a record store in Baltimore. This record came in and I was just so blown away by how foreign it sounded. The composition is so crazy, it’s so theatrical and it reminded me of Penguin Cafe Orchestra a lot. I think about a time in music when the avant-garde was so crazy and pop music was so crazy and these things that existed in the middle were so weird. I feel like that record was minimal, it’s not pop music at all. I can’t even imagine it being in the CBGB scene or anything like that. I really like the form.
It just hit me at a tough time in my life. My partner and I had taken a break from seeing each other and it just filled something in me that wasn’t there and it made me think about how the voice can be this crazy instrument and how I couldn’t imagine the album live. It was so much a record. I don’t even know how they recorded it. It just sounds like a really great album. There’s so many quiet soft sounds that would get lost through a PA system or in a room. Maybe it’s because it is such a rare record and I’d never heard of it and I know very few people who have it. It felt very special to me in that way and it’s one of my favourite records to share with people, because I think it’s such an under-appreciated album.
