No Filler Music Podcast - Hypnotic, Elegant, Sublime: Thievery Corporation's Downtempo Masterpiece The Mirror Conspiracy

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

If the name Thievery Corporation sounds familiar, you might remember "Lebanese Blonde", the track featured on the 2004 indie film Garden State. On this episode, we dive into the album that came before Zach Braff introduced the D.C. duo to hipsters everywhere: The Mirror Conspiracy. The album effortlessly blends elements of reggae, dub, bossa-nova, middle-eastern psychedelia, and even some Spanish guitar for good measure, with a level of precision and mastery that make for a truly hypnotic and sublime listening experience. Tune in as we nerd out over what makes this record so incredible. Tracklist: Lebanese Blonde Indra Illumination Barrio Alto A Guide for I and I Só com você Dubtribe Sound System - Sunshine's Theme (courtesy of Soma FM's Groove Salad) This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Pantheon is a proud partner of AKG by Harman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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See app for details. And welcome back to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing. the often overlooked hidden gyms that feel the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. I got my brother Quentin with me, as always. And today, Q, we're just moving right along here on our journey through downtown. And albums that we, that was kind of our entry point into the genre, right? Yeah, you know, we mentioned last week that volume, that compilation series called Elemental Chill.

Thevery Corporation was on that compilation record. Was it really? Yeah, they were on there. Yeah. I do think it's probably a safe bet to say that, like we mentioned before, that Garden State probably had a lot to do with our introduction to Theory Corporation and a lot of people's introduction, right? That song that played us in there was the song that was featured on the movie soundtrack,

so you may recognize it. It's called Lebanese Blonde, and it's off the record. The Mirror Conspiracy, which is what we're talking about today. It came out in 2000. So one thing that I think you're going to notice for this record, if you tuned in the last two weeks, so last week we did Quantic and their, his debut record, the Fifth Exotic, the week before, we did Warwick Soop and their record, Melody AM. So one thing that's going to stand out, I think, for this record compared to those other two,

is it's going to sound more warm and like organic and more like worldly if that makes sense. Like you heard a sitar in that song, right? Yeah, it's got like some some Eastern influences on it. Yeah, that's a big part of what they do is bringing that kind of stuff. It's also a pretty big part of the genre, you know, in that chill out, trip hop, those styles of music. There's a lot of influence from like the Middle East. Dub and reggae and yeah, Indian, Middle Eastern music, yeah, definitely. All right, so Thevery Corporation is Rob Garza and Eric Hilton.

They formed in 1995 in Washington, D.C., which kind of makes them unique, and explains why they have a very politically motivated underlying theme to a lot of stuff that they do, a lot of the music that they write. in 2005 they participated in this thing called Operation Ceasefire where they essentially staged a protest concert in front of the Washington Mall and had a bunch of different musicians perform with them to protest the Iraq War right so it's part of their identity right are there a lot of lyrics in their songs yeah there are and when you look at the some of the record labels and the song names and stuff like that. There's that theme there, like culture of fear, radio retaliation. They actually refer to Washington as, or Washington, D.C. as Babylon. That's kind of what they call it. And there's this

interview that I watched that I'm going to play a few clips from this, I don't know what it was. I didn't really look into what the program was, or like what channel it was a part of or what publication it was a part of. But it was just sort of like this introduction into these guys, and they were sort of walking around D.C. and talking about, you know, where they, where they formed, where they met. They, they walked through, gave them a tour of, like, the studio. So they have a house in D.C. that they own where they have the studio upstairs, right? But they were talking about how, like, you know, they were showing him the Washington Monument and all this kind of stuff. And they were saying, this is what most people see, right, when they think of Washington, D.C.

And they, they refer it to it as like a, like a Disney World type thing where it's like, this is all just a show, you know? Yeah. This is what they want you to see, right? Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, so let me actually play a clip here. Speaking of this documentary, it's called Embedded.

And basically the idea is this publication. They're called Current Music, sort of dig deep into an artist, whatever they're interviewing. So anyway, let's listen to them talk about where they met and how they started making music together. 18th Street Lounge was founded in 1995. We saw the potential and the guy was giving it to his chief. So I wrote a check for $10,000 to the landlord with no money in the bank as the down payment. And we just scrambled. When we opened, it was right about the time the trip hop and that whole sound was exploding.

So we were really into DJing those styles. And I think the lounge is the only place in town doing that. You know, you have the Washington business people, you have hipsters, you have punks, you have Rastas. Just people from everywhere in D.C. It was a great place to have a studio because there was so much music going on. And there's always DJs downstairs playing stuff. It really kind of was the epicenter of the sound and the music that we wanted to create.

What a perfect origin story. Like they were birthed out of a lounge, you know, that was playing this kind of music. So they were spinning these like trip hop records. Yeah, right, exactly. And then they would take them home and throw their own beats on it. No, they would go upstairs. in this lounge is where they started mixing and sampling and starting to put together some like early early they've recuperation tracks right he goes on to say that like you know people would just

sort of like stumble into their studio space and like spill drinks and stuff on their equipment and whatnot so they're like oh you know let's get our own our own space but anyway they're obviously 18th street lounge is still a thing and that's what their label went on to be called it was called 18th street lounge music and that's where they really east, some of their early stuff. So anyway, a really cool origin story. Like I said, they're from Washington, D.C. And as he had mentioned, like, that was the only lounge that was really playing that kind of music. So they were just surrounded by it. And they had these DJs that would be downstairs. So they probably were able to collaborate with these guys or get influence from

these other musicians that were downstairs and stuff at the time, right? Yeah, that's really cool, man. So, all right, like I mentioned earlier, I think what you're going to be. going to hear out of this record is just some more warmth, right? So I got another quote here. This is from a really great interview that I read. It came out in 1999. So right before, basically, they were in the studio piecing this record together when they were interviewed by this magazine called Index Magazine. So that already released a single, I think Lebanese blonde was released as a single before the record actually came out. The interviewer asks him, who have you been listening to lately? And they said, Eric said right now we're listening to a lot of late 60s soundtrack music. And they went on to talk about

this, I think actually, I swear I mentioned this guy before, Lalo Schifrin in one of our other episodes. I don't remember which one, but that's ringing a bell. Anyway, and they go on to say stuff like that is very inspiring. If we were to start taking all of our inspiration from electronic music, we'd limit our scope. I think it's a real detriment to be stuck in one genre. I need to listen to all forms of music. And that's something that I think we talked about with the Quantic guy too. It's like, if you want to be a really successful

down tempo producer, you've got to take it all in, you know, because that's what makes a great downtropo track is being able to fuse very different sounds into like one cohesive beat, you know, one cohesive smooth, fluid sound, you know?

Yeah, you've got to be a huge music fan. Yeah. For one. You know, you've got to be a huge music fan. Yeah. For one. You know, you've got to to be a crate digger. And you've got to be really well-versed in a lot of different styles of genres from a lot of different decades. Yeah. And then he goes on to ask, do these films themselves work as inspiration for theory songs?

He says, a lot of your music is so cinematic that it could be from a movie, which is exactly what I think we mentioned that too. This music sounds like a movie soundtrack, right? Absolutely. And Eric goes, sometimes we want a song to invoke images, and that relates to the soundtrack quality of what we do. But watching the actual films, I'm not sure if that has any influence or not. And then Rob says, I'd say no. We compose right there in the studio. It doesn't have much to do with outside influence. It's more about what we're listening to at the moment and how we're feeling.

We take our cue from our lives. All right, let's jump into it here. So I think that's a good, a good segue into this first track here, Q. And as you had mentioned to me earlier, you're not sure if you've listened to this all the way through, right? Or maybe it's been years, right? I really feel like I might be most familiar with the songs that showed up on Garden State. Okay. I recognize Lebanese blonde. So yeah, dude, I'm excited, man. I'm hoping that this is all going to be brand new music to me. I hope so, dude. That's, I love it when that happens. All right, so I want to say one more thing before I play. Because we've talked about this before. This record is the, like the epitome of what you and I talk about and what you and I love with layer building.

Awesome. Just going to say that. All right. I'm all about it. And then we'll talk about that more a little bit later. So I'm going to play this first track here off of the record. This is actually track three. It's called Indra.

I'm going to pick it up for another clip here, Q. But I wanted to at least get the stage set, right? Yeah, that's got the basics all set up. It's like they've introduced all the layers. Yeah, exactly. You heard the little sitar thing. I like the simplicity of that song. Yeah.

Well, that's another thing that this record, it's just, it's so smooth, man, that's all I can say. It's so elegant and simple, like he said. And everything is just so, like, effortless and seamless. Dude, it's making me want to grab my pipe. Just kidding. I don't have one of those anymore. I've still got mine. Pipe tobacco music, dude.

Dare I say it again? Two episodes in a row. row. For some reason, it just makes you, it makes you think of like the sort of like, I think you said posh the other day. Last week. I did. I did.

I mean, but it's, it's, which is funny because these guys are like, you know, they, they are very. They're activists. Yeah. They are. Yeah. But he owns a lounge in D.C. He also talked about in this interview.

He owns a restaurant, which is actually kind of cool. He owns a restaurant. I'm talking about Eric. He owns a restaurant called Marvin, which is devoted to Marvin Gay, who's, also from DC, which he said a lot of people didn't realize that. Anyway, I'm not going to play that clip from the documentary, but, yeah, it just makes you think of movie soundtracks, right? That's the strings and stuff.

I think add a little bit of a kind of like a cinematic flare to it, kind of like they were saying. But I'm going to pick it up here right where we left off because something else happens in the song. I'm actually going to do that for a couple of the tracks that I'm playing today because they really do. They build it up. They build up the layers. Like we were saying, like, they build a foundation for like, sometimes like a full, like two minutes. And then they layer something else on top of it.

So I'm going to jump back in here. Here's the second clip. Again, this song is called Indra. Breakdown of all that, all those layers. That's kind of what makes it great down to both drag is you build the foundation. Maybe you add something new. Then you take one of the later, one of the foundational layers and like do something different to it, you know. It always catches you're off guard. You're just not ready for it.

Yeah, you're not expecting it. I was not expecting that at all, dude. That was really cool. So anyway, I was trying to figure out who the female vocalist is because they work with someone named Pamela Bricker. She was the one who was, she did the vocals on Lebanese blonde and a couple of other tracks. But nobody is listed as vocals for Indris. So that could have been a sample from like a Middle Eastern track or something like that that they found. There's actually no musicians listed for Indra.

Crazy. I'm going off of the Wikipedia page, which has instrumentalists credited for things like the Lebanese blonde. They credit a guy named Rob Myers for the sitar. So the sitar you hear on some of the tracks at least is an actual sitar player that they brought into the studio, right, which is cool. Anyway, so another thing that we talked about Q last week, and this is another example of that, how it seems like a lot of electronic.

music is done by pairs, right? Like two producers working together. Yep. Toska does it. These guys do it. Def Punk does it. You know what I mean? Roexap does it. With their powers combined. Scalpel does it.

A bunch of the artists that we've covered under this umbrella are two musicians, right? I think I may have the answer. Or at least I have an answer from them as to why they work this way. So I'm going to have, I'm going to jump back into that exact same clip that I played, that interview that I played just a moment ago here, I'm going to pick up on another spot and listen to them talk about how they approach making music together. When Rob and I work on music, it's a pretty free-form process. We'll generally work up rhythms first, you know, just kind of chop some beats up and get something going. And then that'll be

a foundation that we can play over. Sometimes Eric might have an idea for a track and I'll be like, oh, I could add something to that, or I might come in and I have a song that I'm kind of working on. I'm kind of the drum and bass guy and he's more the melodic guy. We'll do a Latin track like El Pueblo Unito. Following that might be an Arabic sounding track. Might do a song in Farsi and then we might do a song in English and then one in French. So yeah, there you go. He was talking about how, that was Eric talking when he said, I'm more of a drum and bass guy and he's more of the melodic guy. That makes total sense, right? You have one person who is doing the beats and then the other person that's more more working in the melodies and the

music and stuff like that. Yeah, and they'll come together and hey man, I got a bunch of new beats I've been working on. Exactly. Let's see if you got anything that we can throw on them. Exactly. I bet you that's how a lot of them work, you know. I bet you we may have had that answer for Tosca on our Tosca episode. You'll have to go back and listen to it.

We covered them way back early on in the podcast. So long ago, man, that was like within the first year, probably the first few months, actually. Yeah, definitely. Of going live with this show. Yeah, some of the music that was playing in the background, those are tracks off of that record radio retaliation. I liked those songs, man. Yeah. Those are cool, right.

That Spanish one was really cool. Yeah, that was actually called, it was called El Pueblo Unido. Yeah, I'm going to have to check that out. But yeah, as you could see, I think radio retaliation, they brought on a lot, a lot, more musicians and vocalists and stuff like that. So anyway, let's move right along here to the next track. So what I want you to pay attention to do on this song cue, okay? I'm actually kind of giving it away by talking about this, but I want you to, to, okay, let me just back up even further here. Okay. I don't know if we've ever talked about this before, but another thing that I like about

this kind of music is anticipating the layer that was taken away being brought back in, right? Because you know it's going to happen and you're waiting for it to happen. Right? And you maybe have an idea like, oh, it's about to happen.

Oh, yeah, dude. I'm usually like rubbing my hands together like, oh, this is going to be good. Exactly. So just keep that in mind when the song plays and then we'll talk about your expectations and if they were met or not. Well, I hope they are.

They will be. All right, this song is called Illumination. Okay, I actually spoke too soon. My second clip is going to have the moment cue. I loved it. I loved every second of that one. Okay, well, you're going to love the second clip, dude. But anyway, there's another great foundation that's been laying in Q.

But they did, I mean, they did sort of do what I was talking about, where they brought back the drums, right? That happens all the time. Those horns, though, man. Yeah, I love the horns, right? They are yummy and tasty But let's just jump right into the next clip here, Kew. I wanted to chop it into two because I didn't want it to be a really lengthy clip.

But again, so there's the foundation and kind of like Indra, they're going to introduce something different to the second clip here. And I feel like this song, a lot of songs on this record, but this one especially, really puts you in like a trance almost,

which this music can sometimes do, probably because it's so repetitive. like you've talked about before, right? Right. But like this song, especially with the way that they introduced like Middle Eastern kind of stuff into it, it really does kind of put you into this trance. All right. So here's the next clip here from Illumination.

From now on, I'm going to, if anyone is curious about what it is about down tempo that I love. Yeah. I'm just going to press play on Illumination. It's the perfect example of everything that we like about this type of music, right? Very hypnotic. The vocals, right? The vocals with all that reverb and like delay. Yeah, it feels like, you know those scenes, the one I can think of is actually from

Pick of Destiny, you know, and he takes the drug or whatever and he's, I guess, seeing cartoons and imagery and stuff like that. He eats the mushrooms, yeah. Yeah. But you know, like those scenes like that where like they move their hand and there's like a trail of their hand and stuff. Right. That's what it makes me think of.

I felt like I was a snake, dude, being coaxed out of that basket. Yeah, dude, totally. So when they bring the vocals in for the first time, the drums are cut away, right? So you're just waiting for the drums to come back in. I assume, like, I'm anticipating it and expecting it to happen like one or two measures sooner than when they actually, I feel like they draw it out longer than they drew out the first time that they took the drums out. I think that's what's happening. And I could probably just go back and determine if that's actually what's happening. But that's what it feels like.

They're not going to give you what you expect, dude. Yeah, because think about it, I think they took the drums away in the beginning part of the song. But they maybe introduced it back one measure sooner than when they brought it back with the vocal track, which is why, like, you're expecting it to hit. Throws you off. And then they extend the vocals one more measure, if that's the right term to use. I'm not a music theorist major. Amateur hour.

That's what we should start calling this podcast. For real. But anyway. Well, dude, and one thing I noticed, and so I've been listening to a lot of my old down tempo tunes from my old music collection. And I've noticed in a lot of these songs, and it happened around the very end of that last clip you played, there's a break. I think that's what they're called.

What it feels like to me is an area that is there. for the sole purpose of other DJs to use that section to sync up another, the next song in their set list and faded in. And I've noticed that in a lot of down tempo songs, you know, they're kind of catered towards the DJs, you know, and being able to queue up and sync up the tempo and cue up the next song. Let's take a quick break. So I feel like, I feel like Elimination and Indra had a lot of similarities to it. as far as like the structure of the song, it sounded like a very similar female vocal sample,

the way that they didn't bring this female vocal. I mean, I had notes on here as to when I was going to fade the song for the first clip and the second clip. I faded them around the same time. And in both songs, the second clip is when the vocals came in. So like, anyway, the point I'm trying to make is those two songs were very similar. This next one is interesting because it's actually, not on the original release of the record.

There's a couple tracks on this record that were featured on the reissue, but it was reissued just a few months later. So it's not like this was years later that these songs came out. You know what I mean? They just weren't on the first pressing, if you will. So these were definitely songs that were recorded at the same time. I mean, it could have been something from their back catalog, but probably not. Because, you know, this wasn't their first record.

They actually had a record before this that came out. It was called Sounds from the Thievery High-Fi. All right, anyway, so I'm going to play this next track here. This is track 14 on the record. It's called Barrio Alto. Yeah, that's kind of, that's what makes this record stand out to me and what makes them so good. So I guess that's Eric, right? Because, I mean, Eric said that he was the German bass guy.

I like how a lot of times they take it away, but then pretty quickly bring it back. Yeah, but they could also hold it for a long time. So that, you know, they do a little bit of everything, but that's what I love about it, right? And, you know, what was great about this track is, is that guitar work, right? It features this guitar, the entire, like this Spanish guitar. Is there an accredited guitar player? Yeah, his name is Ramon Gonzalez. So they brought in, you know, an actual guitar player into the studio.

I don't really know much about him. He could be a studio musician. It could be a very well-known, you know, Spanish. guitar player. Let's see if I can figure out. Yeah, there's nothing on him. Musician in Houston. There's really nothing, nothing that I can find from a two-second Google search. So it's interesting that, you know, we talked last week about Quantic, Will Holland, and, you know, it took him a little bit later into his career before he really started bringing in musicians to the studio with him. These guys were doing it pretty early on. Well, the thing about Quantic is, well,

actually that's not true Q. He actually had, he had musicians on that, on that debut record. He had himself as a guitar player, but he also had, uh, he, he would pull in his sister. He played saxophone. Okay. But, but, but, but, you know, I guess what made, well, made Will stand out, Will Holland was how he made, he had these side projects where it was nothing but live instrumentation, right? Live bands. No, no keyboard. or, you know, no laptop, no, nothing electronic about it, right? Nothing sampled, yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, these guys have always collaborated with musicians, at least from mirror conspiracy onward. I'm not sure about their first record. Because their first record was really kind of made by sampling in and mixing those records that they were spinning downstairs in the lounge, right? So anyway, I feel like that's the way to do it, man. If you're just two producers making music, bring in as many musicians as you can,

because you're not like tied down to like an image of a band that you've created, you know. Yeah. You're not just four dudes in a band. Bring in as many outside creative forces as you can. Yeah. What's great about this kind of music is if you like electronic music, you like drum beats and stuff, like cool beats. Well, you're going to hear every type of genre on top of that beat that you like a lot, right? You're going to hear maybe some Spanish guitar like on this song.

You're going to hear some jazz, Basanova stuff. you're going to hear some like funk and reggae and dub type stuff and you know a lot of groups like the group corporation they have songs that do all of those types of things right so you're going to hear all of it maybe on one record totally same with quantic last week there's a lot of that stuff mixed in on the same track you could hear all of those things fused together it's really cool man if we haven't sold you on it yet um i don't know what's going to sell you on it honestly i don't think there's anything we can do at this point maybe you'll we'll finally get you on our down-tempo mixtape episode coming up in a couple weeks.

But anyway, we're not done with Thieverick Corporation just yet. I got one more track. And you're going to hear another vocalist. This guy, his name is, I might not pronounce this correctly here. Plasia. I know nothing else about him other than that he contributed to this record. This is his only credit on discogs, at least. Anyway, this is the very last track.

And again, this was not featured on the original release of this record, but it was featured on the reissue. It came out like a few months later. So, all right, this is the very last track on Mirror Conspiracy. This song is called A Guide for I and I. Fucking. I really like that reggae style, like vocalist, right? I mean, that goes back to the origin of a lot of, of,

of this kind of music. Like a house and dance music, yeah. Totally. Reggae dub. Yeah, we touch on that, I think on the sidetrack episode for Tosca that we did. But yeah, another example of like, you know, how they hold that note that he's singing, and then they just kind of loop it really effective. That's cool.

Again, kind of puts you in a trance. Hold on here, dude. Sorry. I'm looking at your screen Wikipedia. track nine, keyboards by Desmond Williams. Does that mean anything to you, dude? Desmond Williams, isn't he like an... He's a down-tempo artist, man.

I might actually be bringing one of his tracks to our down-tempo mix tape, dude, yeah. That's cool. Well, he's also a keyboard player, cute. And guess what? He shows up on the Elemental Chill Records. I think he's on a couple of them, actually. Well, this is also cool, dude. Look at that.

Babel Gilberto. daughter of of Zhao Gibhabilta of Kitsyn Goberto. You want to talk about a famous Basanova. So what's happening right now everybody listening is that we're

looking at the track list and commenting on the vocalists and stuff that show up and the other musicians that show up on this record. A couple of tracks that were singles had some cool musicians backing the track.

And one of them was a song called Socoma, So I'm not going to be able to say it, dude. I'm sorry, man. She says it in the song. So come voce. I don't know if I can know. Track seven.

It features Bebel Gilberto. And if you know anything about jazz, Gilberto should ring a bell to you. That's, you know, gets in Gilberto. Girl from Impanina. Girl from Impanina. Yeah. Jiao Gilberto is the mother of Bebel Gilberto, which is really cool.

We could just play it, even though it's a single. You want to just play it? We make the rules around here, brother. That's right. That's right. All right, let's listen to, let's jump. You know what?

This is actually a really good example of another side of this record. Because, you know, Indra and Illumination had sort of the Middle Eastern flair to it. Barrio Alto had sort of a Spanish player to it. The last one we just played had that reggae dub sort of influence. Here's another track that's going to feature some more traditional jazz sounds to it. So here we go. I mean, that could just be a jazz song, you know. I was going to say, dude, that could be on Getson Gilberto.

Right. That just really, just smooth, clean jazz. I'm telling you, man. That's what, that's what this record is. It's just smooth and just effortless, you know. So I've got another, I've got another quote from them from that interview they did with Index Magazine that I thought was, it was pretty great. I talked about how they were talking about movies, right? movie soundtracks and the guy asked him if any of that inspired, like directly inspires a

the reason. I'll read the last part of this answer that leads into the next question. They say, we compose right in the studio, doesn't have much to do with outside influence. It's more about what we're listening to at the moment we take our cue from our lives. And then the interviewer says, that attitude must be part of your studio work as well. And he says, definitely. The way we design our music, it has to have roots in something sort of classical. We like a lot of organic sounds, for instance. So we try to keep a nice simplicity and modernism about all of our work. I feel like that's a good way to describe a lot of down tempo is simple and modern. Yes, dude. It's like simple, but it's also got some like, and that's the electronic backbone of it,

right? And the beats and stuff. That guy that you quoted last week on Quantic, He was talking about how, you know, after he lit up a duby and listened to the Fifth Exotic for the first time, you were starting to, you could see all these colors. And, but he was talking about the way that Quantic produces with the space that he gives his songs, the reverb and all that. Yeah. The delays, the use of panning, extraordinary variety and textures. So, you know, that's one side of what you can hear with down tempo is a really cool, like, effects that they'll throw in on these samples that they pull from. With Thievery Corporation, what I like about them is how it's the simplicity and the modernism, but they really keep it, like, true to what you would hear if you had these instruments and musicians in the studio with you actually, you know, recording those. instruments, you know, they keep it really true to life.

Yeah, right. I love that. So much so that some of the tracks just sound like jazz tracks, right? Yeah, and you can't tell what is sampled and which tracks have artists that were actually in there in the studio with them. Yeah, they were actually talking about that on that interview. They said that a lot of times for samples, or at least by the time they got to radio retaliation, So, you know, several years after they put out this record, they were saying that samples for them most of the time now is just they literally take just a like a second of something and just like manipulate it to use it as a sound and their sound bank kind of thing.

Right. So anyway. All right. I got one more quote. This is actually from the pitchfork review of this record. Sometimes, you know what? These guys aren't half bad. these pitchfork reviewers.

It's a love-hate relationship for me with pitchfork, dude. You know, basically what it comes down to is if pitchfork is critical of a band that we love, then we're going to not like them. And back in the 2010s when we had that music blog, it seemed like they were hating on every, I guess, chill wave and like the indie stuff that was happening around that time, because that's all we were talking about on that music blog. Anyway, the point of this article, you know, he's kind of setting this up as like, oh, you know, everybody likes to have soundtracks to their lives.

And then he goes on to say, and he is Zach Hooker. This came out in 2000, August 2000. He was reviewing this record that I've been playing the reissue, right? Because August of 2000. But he says, the mirror conspiracy has everything you need. espionage chases thinly veiled deception shady dealings in back rooms canasta which i don't know what that means probably some like some shady stuff going on right muted earth tones washed out tundracines lurid tropical flourishes pungent soil odors the reek of triple canopy jungle whiffs of

patchouli god damn was here a fucking word county was trying to get to probably jesus the reason I liked that is that we've talked about this before. Like sometimes you just get imagery that's evoked when you hear this kind of music. Sounds like he's describing all the scenes in a movie. Yeah. Which goes back to what we said, dude. This is great music. Like it just feels like a soundtrack to a movie. Yeah. And like you said, espionage chases. Yeah. We talked about that before. Like this is like the soundtrack to an Ocean's 11 movie or like a Bond film or something. Shady dealings in back rooms. Yeah, dude. And then he goes on to say, sure, it's just acid jazz with disco and Basanova influences. Actually, he says inflections, my bad. Naturally, the arrangements are less than surprising.

Okay, there he is, just putting his, he had to put a little dig in, right? Of course, the beat could use some variation. It's like, fuck, take a fuck off. There's that pitchfork we know in love. There it is. He had to get it in there. Then he goes on and says, this is about transference, not transcendence. The mirror conspiracy provides the soundtrack, your mediated soul,

choirs and that's all that's important. Anyway, I just like how he, he kind of spells it out. I're like, yeah, this music makes you sort of, it takes you places, right? Like you might be in a jungle. You might be in some backroom with some shady dealings going on and something like that. I'm definitely getting whiffs of Pachuli from this album. Sure, dude, especially, you know, like the incense and stuff. Yeah.

Anyway, that's it, man. Well, this is great, dude. The only song I recognized was the intro track, Lebanese blonde. You probably recognize Focus on Sight as well. That's Track 5. That was featured on the Memento soundtrack. Do you remember that movie? Oh, yeah.

With Guy Pearce, I think, his name was. Yeah. That's a great movie. A lot of good electronic kind of stuff on that record as well. Anyway, Focus on Site is a great song. If it wasn't a single, I would have played it. But anyway, yeah, cue this up if you like this stuff. There's, you know, 10 more tracks, I guess nine more tracks that I didn't play.

Well, technically eight, because I also played Lebanese Bond. Anyway, there's more music. Okay. And it's all great. This is a start to finish record, for sure. It's very seamless and smooth, and it'll take you many, many places. Yeah, man. Good stuff.

Do you have any other album suggestions from these guys? I guess if I would to recommend one or two, it would be. The richest man in Babylon. And again, now that I know this, I didn't realize this before, but they refer to D.C. as Babylon. There's a couple of great tracks on that one. And then I also really like the Cosmic Game, which is the next record, came out in 2005. But, you know, these guys have been doing stuff pretty consistently their entire career. So they put out something last year, which looks interesting.

Oh, it's actually, it looks like it might be like a, ooh, interesting. Oh, they're all symphonic versions. Symphonic per. I wonder if they have a symphony involved. Yeah, there's Lebanese blonde right there. So that could be cool. Anyway, the point is, you know, there's lots of stuff. If you like this, there's a ton of stuff in their catalog that you can go back and listen to and enjoy.

But yeah, so next week. we're going to pivot, probably the biggest pivot that we've done in this down tempo trip that we've been on. I feel like Quantic and Theory Corporation, there's kind of some similarities there. Roiksov, they're just kind of their own thing, right? Here's all I have to say. The last three artists that we've covered, and I keep going back to Elemental Chill. Yeah. But the next artist we're covering is nowhere near those compilation records.

And this is the album and the artist that I'm most. excited to cover on here. Agreed. And this stint, dude. Agreed. Because it's so different. Yeah. So we're talking about this group, another duo called Underworld.

And I feel like they cross a lot of different genres underneath the electronic umbrella. Like I was actually looking up to see like, is this record even considered a downtempo record? And it is. It's one of the many labels that's put on this genres, I guess, that's attributed to this record. We're talking about the underworld record 100 days off. It came out just two years after this record, American Spirits. He came out in 2002. But some of the labels, the styles, I guess, attributed to this album,

Don Tipo is one of them, but also progressive house, techno, broken beat. And that's, you know, that's it. But yeah, a lot of stuff going on, right? They're bringing more of the songs that you might actually hear at a club. Yeah, some of these tracks for sure. They're definitely still more like refined and posh, but yeah. One of my favorite moments in any down tempo song happens on the very first track that we're going to play from this record next week.

Me too, man. Can't wait. All right. And then after that, we're going to do our standard what you heard, which, you know, the funny thing is if I was being honest, what I've heard. what I've heard this month is nothing about downtipo. I've been going back and listening to all the old stuff, but that's because I'm preparing for our down tempo mixtape episode,

which will come out after next week's Watcher heard. Well, I'm going to keep it interesting for our What You Heard's. I've been building this playlist of the songs. I'm trying to narrow it down to five. Oh, you're talking about for the down tempo mix. For the down tempo mix, yeah. I guess what I was trying to say is that like my What You Heard for this month should just be down to my music because that's all I've been listening to. But we're going to

save that for the mixtape episode. So after this month's what you heard, we'll circle back one more time to down tempo and just play a bunch of different songs from a bunch of different artists. It's going to be the same format as what you heard. We'll each bring five tracks. This was just basically a way for us to close out this stint of down tempo episodes and feel that we got to share enough of the artists that we want to share with without having to do another three months worth yeah yeah because we totally could so if you hate this kind of music definitely skip over that one right but i would say if anything that is our last attempt at being like isn't this stuff great because like you know if you didn't like if you don't like theater corporation's style of down tempo i bet too there'll be

at least one artist that is featured on our what you heard mixtape episode that you'll be like Yeah, you know what? That actually is kind of cool. Yeah, I'm bringing some that are different. For sure. I'm purposely trying to bring five very different sounds. Yeah. That all live under the umbrella.

All right. So that's that. Hey, you know what, Q? There's some news here to share as far as where you can find us. There's a bandwagon that we jumped on finally, dude. Yeah. Finally jumped on it. The funny thing is it's like the bandwagon probably drove by like months ago.

and we just missed it, you know. I mean, really, it drove by us when we started the podcast. That's what I'm saying. No, thank you, man. I was not, I was not ready to join Instagram three years ago when we started this thing. So yeah, we are on Instagram now, and we're kind of phasing Twitter out, I guess. I mean, we'll still be on there. If you still want to reach out to us on Twitter, you can.

We're not going to delete the account or anything like that. But you can now find us on Instagram, and we would recommend that you follow. us there because we're going to be a lot more active. The content that we're going to be able to post on Instagram, I think is going to be a little bit more interesting, more interactive, just better. We're really going to try to share even more music with you all through Instagram. Yeah. On a weekly basis if we can. Right. Yeah. So yeah, just look us up. Just type of No Filler podcast. You should see it. The handle, if it's called a handle on Instagram. is the same as the Twitter handle. It's at No Filler Podcast.

But yeah, we've started posting on there, and we will continue to do so, so follow us there. And yeah, we are part of the Pantheon Podcast Network as well. That's the home of all music-related podcasts all the time. If you like our podcast, chances are you'll find another one or two or three, perhaps, under the Pantheon podcast umbrella. Lots of great content that covers a very wide range of music. That's pantheonpodcast.com. Next week, Underworld, 100 days off.

I think I'm with you, Q. This is probably, I'm looking forward to this record, maybe more so than anything that we've done in a long time. There's a handful of albums that I can point to in the run of this podcast that I was just, you know, over the moon excited to share with our listeners. and this is one of them. I hope that we're bringing this music to people.

I hope that they discover it through us. Yeah. This is just one of those, yeah, just one of those gyms from that era. And yeah, dude, I can't wait to listen to this music again, dude. It's been a while since I've listened to it, so I'm stoked. Maybe you should not listen to it then. No, dude, I want to listen to it. Okay.

I'm listening to it. All right. Well, I was getting my track list picked. I got a laundamow, dude. That's true. I don't know if this is. This is lawnmower music, though, dude. I'll make it work, brother.

Okay. So tune in next week for that. And yeah, that's it. So I'm going to have, I did this last week, and it worked out really nicely because the song was awesome. I am going to fade us out by tuning in

to Soma FM and their down-tempo station that's called Groove Salad. I'm going to play something from the Groove Solid classic, a radio station that basically is playing all the downtempo music that we were listening to in the early 2000s. So Soma FM, internet radio, I'm just going to press record,

and whatever's playing on that radio station is going to fade us out for today's episode. So thank you, as always for listening. My name is Quentin. And my name is Travis. You all take care. Thank you.