Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said, "the flag is moving."

The other said, "the wind is moving."

The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them, "not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."

This epigram is an apt introduction to the musical partnership of Brandon Valdivia and Colin Fisher, whose work together as Not The Wind, Not the Flag transcends the general limits of a band. Genre and even instrumentation are never fixed; it is simply the sound of two minds moving together. Joe Strutt spoke with the pair about tangible points of origin and abstract realms of destination — but it's the journey, of course, that matters most.

[Not The Wind, Not The Flag play WL587 with Chicago Underground Duo and King Weather at The Garrison on Thursday, May 1. Top photo by Doc Dunn.]

Wavelength: What kind of stuff were you listening to/playing when you first became musicians? And then, what was your gateway into improvised music?

Colin Fisher: Singing in church were probably my first deeper connections with music... hearing people singing harmonies was probably my first experience with improvising with form, until the practice became commonplace. I listened to lots of rock, classical and folk growing up, via my parents (Led Zeppelin, The Who, Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan, etc).

Brandon Valdivia: Aye, I started playing the recorder when I was like 8 years old! I was really into the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Bob Marley, and was hearing lots of Salsa and Latin music. Basically whatever my parents were listening to, but I totally had my ears open and some music really spoke to me.

My gateway to free improvising was reading an interview with Billy Martin from Medeski Martin and Wood and checking out the Live at the Tonic record, that was after I had a bit of experience with my rap/rock band in high school doing one free improv/structured improv song. I think we were inspired by Led Zeppelin and the Tea Party, and how they would have certain open parts in their live sets.

CF: When I first started playing guitar it was hardcore music that inspired me (Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, etc) and I moved through shoegaze, indie-rock, etc... J. Mascis [Dinosaur Jr.] was my guitar hero for a long time... The band Polvo changed my life when I was 17 or 18. Eventually I heard Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come and Miles Davis' and that was my gateway into the world of jazz and improvised music.

Ornette inspired me to pick up alto sax. John Coltrane's Interstellar Space was a formative influence, ways of expanding from more conventional melodic/modal and rhythmic phrasing into liberated spaces of expression... I started to hear sounds bigger than myself and felt fascinated by this process because it was a direct analog to my own spiritual exploration.

BV: Once I got to music school I was doing free improv with my friends, and listening to John Coltrane. He was probably the deepest, most serious influence at that time and continues to be so.

WL: How did NTW get started? You guys had previously played together in some other stuff, I think, but what happened for this duo to become its own thing?

BV: NTW started basically out of I Have Eaten The City, our trio with Nick Storring. Nick got busier and busier with his schooling and other interests, and Colin and I got more and more interested and invested in playing together, so we decided to give ourselves a band name and start a journey together.

WL: From what I’ve observed from watching groups like NTW, I’ve come up with the following equation: Improvisation = chops + amnesia + listening. Discuss.

BV: Discussion. Okay. Improvisation to me is not a formula. Or it’s many, many different formulas. One doesn’t need chops to improvise. One doesn’t need amnesia to improvise. One doesn’t even need listening to improvise. Sometimes you can just ignore someone.

Improvisation is so many things. Like Colin would say, we’re improvising all the time in our life. Like right now as I’m typing. Or when we’re dancing. Or when we’re walking down the street. It’s all the time. You don’t need any specific musical techniques!

CF: I agree with Brandon.

There is no formula to improvisation because we are living an improvisation every day of our lives... every moment is a completely new relationship in terms of our own life process to the new conditions present to us... if we choose to see it.

Instead of amnesia, I might suggest a sort of conscious inhibition in relationship to the burden of our associations so we can see each moment anew in which our agency, our experience/training/intellect/etc, can respond unfettered to the stimulus of our experience in the present.

I also like Yusef Lateef's word he supplements for improvisation “Autophysiopsychic”.

WL: One of the outstanding things about NTW is the near-telepathic bond you guys seem to have while playing. After all this time, are you ever surprised by what you hear across the stage? Do you ever worry that you know each other too well, and are at risk of falling into patterns or having rote reactions?

BV: It’s great because we both grow and change as players and as people all the time, so yes, there are still surprises! Sometimes we even surprise ourselves by using a new technique or finding a new sound, it’s what happens when you are continually challenging yourself by trusting in the moment and trusting in yourself to react accordingly. It’s one of the most beautiful, fulfilling things about doing free improv.

Although because Colin and I have played so much together, I would maybe even be hesitant to use the term “free-improv” with us. We’re developing compositions over time. Like even over the span of two years! Then we’ll try something else. Or we’ll do one show with a different instrumentation , and then come back to revisit the composition and redevelop it. It’s a continually developing organism.

Sometimes we go to the same places, and that’s okay. Especially when we’re on tour playing every night for a few weeks straight. Some folks always want to change and do fresh things all the time, and if they repeat themselves then they feel like they’ve failed or something, but I feel like we’re okay with playing something similar to what we did last night, or the night before, or that one show two years ago. Because even when it is similar, it’s never really exactly the same.

CF: I think a great example was the set we just played for your birthday show at the Tranzac [stripped down to just drums and saxophone]. That was something we’ve never done before and I found myself surprised, yet somehow not surprised, at all the beautiful moments converging… a constantly changing landscape.

We’re always growing as musicians and are supported by the deep friendship we have fostered along the way. I think our friendship is paramount to the music we make.

The music we are playing is, like Brandon said, long-form compositions that unfold over the duration of years sometimes. But the larger gestalt of that is our lives... our lives that we share together is the piece that we’re playing — filled with all of our personal details, our explorations of politics, spirituality, various cultures and ideas. As much as our individual explorations sometimes take us far apart for periods of time, there is love for Brandon as a friend and collaborator that I hold in a very auspicious regard: it is the unity of experience and theory, of the individual and collective. Maybe even an experiential proof of how those binaries are some sort of fallacy…

WL: Sometimes you also get to mix it up with new collaborators, like the recent show you did at the Music Gallery with NYC free jazz double bass legend William Parker. What was that like?

BV: Playing with William was an honour. He is such an inspiration to us both and is a living master musician/healer/shaman/Bodhisattva like his long time collaborator Hamid Drake has said.

We felt like we would just do what we do, and William would be there with us, no matter where we went. We had just finished a US tour and had played like 15 shows in a row just us two, so adding a bass player, especially William Parker (!), was a bit odd at first — just 'cuz it’s like being so used to one person in bed, and then there’s another person there who you really want to get with too, so it just takes a bit of getting used to.

He’s a master improviser. We met up, played for a while, and then said goodbye. Now we’re looking to release the recording in the near future. What a humbling experience to play with Mr. Parker and with Colin.

CF: It was a completely humbling experience... I agree with everything Brandon said! It's also humbling to recognize Brandon and I as equal collaborators with William. We are peers sharing the beautiful legacy of those that have came before us. The expression is something that transcends localities, bodies, cultures…

It's an active listening that enables us to recognize our facility not just as receivers but as creators. Our relationship to powers greater than ourselves that define materiality/sound, that is our vehicle for those forces.

WL: Musically or otherwise, what’s inspiring you in Toronto right now? And what about beyond T.O.?

BV: Nice question! Yes, lots in Toronto! Petra Glynt, Lido Pimienta, Prince Nifty, HVYWTR, the whole Healing Power crew, Zones, el Doomsquad, all those Maracatu and Forró bands, The 6th Letter, A New Tradition, Beehive Collective, Aluna Theatre, No One Is Illegal.

Beyond T.O.: Urian Sarmiento and Maria Jose Salgado going all over Colombia to research, document and support the traditional music, the MAYHEM Crew in Copenhagen, Tanya Taqaq, Kendrick Lamar, the Sahel Sounds Label, Zuzuka Poderosa, Angel Haze, Chris Corsano, the collective that was at La Brique (Xarah Dion, Marie Davidson and their crew) in Montreal... Shabazz Palaces, MIA, Calle 13!

CF: There is such a wonderful community here in Toronto I feel connected to.. so many friends and allies.

Community becomes such a sprawling, huge, beautiful experience once you’ve been out on the road a bunch like Brandon and I have. So many good friends all over the place who I consider my kin.

WL: You guys have a nice range of sounds on your recorded efforts. Any new albums in the pipeline? Any studio work with your other projects that you’re eager to have the world hear?

BV: Ya! Like I said earlier, we’ll be releasing the live recording we did with William Parker soon! A record with Buffalo saxophonist Steve Baczowski is in the planning stages, and of course more of just us two!

I’m releasing a new Mas Aya LP this year on Tomaturj, and maybe Healing Power [and Mas Aya of course plays Wavelength next Wednesday, May 7 at the Garrison for CMW], and have plans to record a collab/clash with Lido Pimienta!

I think Colin has a bunch of things coming out this year with other projects.

CF: I have a record called Suspended Definition out on Tzadik with Many Arms, my buds from Philly/NYC. We’re playing NXNE on June 18th for our release show.

I Have Eaten the City has a tape coming out on Tombed Visions very soon! our first release in ages!

I just finished recording an amazing record with my good pals in Bernice, which will most likely be coming out later this year or next. Plus there will be a tour this summer with Devon Sproule.

There's also a duo record with drummer Mike Gennaro, and a record with viola player James Annette and upright bassist Josh Cole, which is my first recording as a drummer. And a power trio record with Oneida drummer Kid Millions and Many Arms bassist Johnny Deblasse. There's also a trio record with drummer Julius Masri and saxophonist Keir Neuringer.

Plus solo projects also in development, and an unmixed record by the supergroup Bad Breath, another Body Help record. SO many exciting things happening this year and into 2015!

WL: That's amazing! Thanks for your time.

BV: As always, it’s our pleasure Joe. One love.

CF: Thank you for all your questions and presence in the community! xo

Purveyors of: Plaintive yelps and looming - but stoppable - sonic glaciers.
File next to: The Mouthbreathers, Magik Markers (you’re welcome, Matt)
Playing: Thursday April 24 at Tattoo Queen West as part of the NICE festivities.

Ought are a Montreal-based four piece and are the newest additions to consistently wonderful label Constellation Records. The young band’s sound has been compared to legends Cap’n Jazz and even — gasp — Talking Heads. Their debut release More Than Any Other Day will be released upon an ill-prepared populace on April 29th. Dean Williams caught up with all four members and they discussed some heavy shit, brah.

Hey guys. Great record! So, what do you think happens when we die?

Tim K: As a child, I once got trapped in a deflating jumping castle at my Dad's corporate family Christmas party and I thought I was dead. It’s probably like that.

Tim B: We turn into whatever breed of dog/animal we were most like in life. If you have any say in that, I would like to be a horse. Or else something that lives in a warm climate.

Ben: Someone once said, “If you get shot by an arrow, is it more important to ask where the arrow came from and where was it going, or to remove the arrow?” That's a bit on how I feel about that question. There is an intimacy in the notion of one life to live that is important, but I think some interpretation of reincarnation has more didactic and edifying value.

Matt: Special Agent Dale Cooper will guide me into the light.

Who are Ought, what do you stand for and why do you exist?

Matt: I stand because playing the keyboard sitting down would look silly. I, however, don’t exist to play the keys, most likely.

Tim B: Ought is a band. Ben makes people dance, Matt makes people smile, Tim makes people's hearts race, and I do silly dances and get very sweaty. I think we try to be as conscientious and compassionate as possible.

Ben: We are four friends who just want this album to be a springboard for our career as a wedding cover band.

Tim K: Ought is an elaborate front for laundering extremely small sums of money. We have so far successfully laundered dozens of dollars.

The music of Ought: unstoppable, looming glacier or thunderous machinery of death?

Tim K: Yes.

Matt: I’ll take looming glacier because I like penguins a lot, and a lot more than being unable to stop, or causing, someone else’s demise.

What's a misconception regarding Ought you've read in the press and would like to clear up?

Matt: I really like a lot of bands we get compared to — shout-out to Graham at Constellation for putting Cap’n Jazz on peoples’ tongues! However, I don’t think we (or I, at least) look to or listen to Wire, or Gang of Four, or some other bands of that sort more so than, say, The Raincoats, Yo La Tengo, The Mouthbreathers, or Magik Markers, but we never get compared to them, much to my chagrin! Also, the rumour about Ben that’s been circulating lately is definitively not true.

Tim K: I agree with Matt, that thing about Ben has been totally exaggerated. Just because someone can breathe underwater for hours at a time doesn't make them legally a fish.

Which logical fallacies do you find the most infuriating?

Matt: Probably something about time travel or the expression “that's just the way it is” or anyone's claim to having objective truth or taste.

Ben: That the violence of the State is necessary to maintain peace.

Tim K:

What does your rehearsal space look like? How would you describe the energy of the place? So much of how a band turns out has to do with the character of the spaces they occupy, and I don't read much about people describing the spaces in which their songs are written and refined.

Matt: There’s a window overlooking the street, so for me it often tends to reflect whatever is going on outside. The space is a bit messy but mostly feels really warm and open. The lighting sometimes can be truly awful, but the natural light it gets during the day is great. Some days we sound more or less like the lighting.

Tim B: Our practice space is affordable and lots of sun comes in. It looks out on a playground, which I think is an important reminder when we play: to play. It can be political to shake your hips, especially in very large groups.

Ben: It's a messy loft with a nice history. One side is a forest of drums, the other is a forest of amps. The space has the energy of many bands who learn from each other and care for each other, so it feels good to play there. It also on a very special street in relation to how our band maps onto the geography of Montreal.

Tim K: Anyone who said that our jam space is “warm” or “sunny” has forgotten the dark days before we figured out how to turn the heating on. It is home to the second most drum kits per square foot in North America, losing out only to the back room of the Milwaukee Guitar Centre.

I wish someone would make eye contact with me on the train and tell me everything is going to be okay. Is everything going to be okay?

Matt: It probably depends on your astrological sign, and whether Mercury is in retrograde or not, if I can be totally real.

Tim B: I think people are doing this. Those lyrics started off as sardonic, sarcastic. Over a year of playing it, [they] became hopeful, totally of their own accord. This is part of why I love working on songs for so long, playing them live until they've lived and breathed a bit. Where you are one week isn't where you'll be the next. I love looking around the bus on a sunny day and making eye contact with a few people; I don't think anyone has to say it out loud. But, hey — we could. One time I was on crutches and was pretty foolishly trying to crutch my way a very long ways to work. My arms were hurting and I was thinking about hailing a cab when a man just appeared next to me and said “it is very hard now, but you will be strong tomorrow.” He walked with me for a while and told me about various times he had been on crutches. It made the blocks slide by. (I did get a cab for the last couple of blocks, a very steep hill.)

Ben: Yes, even if not.

Tim K: Where I come from if someone starts making eye contact with you on the train and says, "You're going to be okay,” they're probably going to beat you up, similar to the phrase "this won't hurt a bit", I think. (See: truth telling paradox, your question about logical fallacies.)

Ought are playing alongside Complaints Dept., Most People and pHoenix Pagliacci as part of “NICE (Nifty Innovations for Cultural Enhancement)” on April 24th at Tattoo Queen West. It won’t hurt a bit.

Purveyors of: BBQ, axe-throwing and dissonance.
File next to: TV Freaks, Waylon Thornton and the Heavy Hands, Family Curse
Playing: Saturday, April 19 at Smiling Buddha (961 College St.) for WL #595

Connoisseurs of Porn are a Toronto-based, three-piece DIY indie/garage/punk/rock band. The Mississauga-raised trio of Grant Spooner, Greg Keefe and Chris Thomas describe themselves as "three pale white men, who play loud, pounding, fuzzy music." Sam Kadosh kept bugging them to answer his stupid questions. This is what they had to say.

It seems like you guys go back a long way, which came first friendship or music?

Greg: Grant and I were a year apart in high school, but we did not really overlap. He struck me as being a chubby little ball of hate, and he, true to my assumption, didn't have any particularly nice thoughts in regards to me. A mutual friend invited me to come play with the band he was in with Grant at the the time. Friendship and our musical relationship grew from that. Chris met Grant a couple years later and sweet talked his way into the band (and hearts).

Chris: I sort of forced my way into both. Grant had started working in the dish pit (where I still work) and I had heard of his band before. So I basically begged him to let me try out. I had never met Greg prior to the audition. They let me in and then it took like 3 years before we could even write a decent song. I think that was my fault.

Grant: Yeah, after I met that red-headed lanky fuck I realized he was the only other kid into weird music. We went from there.

What's the best kind of porn?

Chris: I prefer amateur porn, because they aren't usually starring guys with 12-inch dongs and women that would never give me the time of day.

Greg: Over-the-top home-video sort of stuff that years of sexual boredom builds into — shaking cameras, middle-age bodies, plastic sheets, used-up-everything.

Grant:Beyond it being free, it all depends how thirsty I am.

Connoisseurs of Porn abbreviated spells COP —how do you feel about Toronto's police force?

Chris: The COP thing is a total coincidence. Cops have had to deal with me many times throughout my idiot teenage years, I do give them credit for not totally beating the shit out of me. Plus the cops I serve at work generally tip me fairly, so I'm down. I don't do (many) illegal things anyways.

Greg: Fuck tickets.

Grant: I have no problem with them at all. I stay out of their way, they stay out of mine.

Where did you guys grow up and do you feel like it influences your sound, musically or philosophically?

Chris: We all grew up in Mississauga within a stone’s throw from each other. There isn't really any music scene in Mississauga, so I think we all had to be influenced by things outside of our city.

Greg: Mississauga. I think at least in part my attraction to the sort of thing we’re doing was (and probably still is) a reaction to being surrounded by a bunch of stuff that really doesn’t resonate with me — which pretty much encapsulates Mississauga. That being said, I think a whole lot of other life-happening-sort-of-stuff has shaped my attitude towards music (and life) more than anything else.

Grant: I grew up in Mississauga. A lot of paved open space and nothing particularly exciting. Spent a lot of time with a pair of headphones and a few decades worth of music.

Are you guys trying to become a big deal or is this still about pissing off your parents?

Chris: I would love to become a "big deal," that would be great. Realistically though, I don't know if our music is currently what anything that could be considered mainstream is looking for. My dream isn't to fill stadiums, I would just like to not have to have a day job.

Greg: It’s more about feeling like a person than anything else. Despite us being pretty good at pissing people off, my Mom is into it.

Grant: My parents have always been behind what we've been doing. I think from the very beginning, it was just about making music we felt was ours. As for aspirations for world domination, it would be nice, but unnecessary.

Do you feel like your band would be better if you were American?

Chris: I don't think being American would change anything for us. That whole "Internet" thing really closes the gap of people being able to hear your stuff. We're just as likely to become viral or not in Canada.

Greg: If I lived in the South, I would do nothing but eat BBQ. There would be no band.

Grant: I have no idea.

Connoisseurs of Porn unveil their long-awaited debut album, Dead Pets, tomorrow night (Saturday April 19) at Smiling Buddha (961 College St.) as part of Wavelength #595.

Purveyors of: Hard rock/loud rock infused with crunchy keyboards and weirdo vocal tricks
File next to: Butthole Surfers, early Trans AM
Playing: WL 595, Saturday April 19 at Smiling Buddha, 961 College St.

Cellphone aren't an easy band to categorize. This Toronto outfit definitely love their guitar riffs, but their music is perhaps most notable for an atypical usage of keyboards that augment the general "heaviness." However, don't mistake Cellphone for dance music, industrial or Moist (and please, never forget this dude rockin' out). Instead, appreciate Cellphone for creating music that keeps the listener off-kilter in the best possible way. The band's debut full-length is slated to drop some time in 2014. Cam Gordon caught up with band member Mike Wirth Broth. They talked about the new album, their famous producer friend, and facial trauma.

Status check on the new album: when can we expect something to surface? How many songs? Any changes in sound?

The album is pretty much all done. I'd say there's been some changes in our sound. We decided to ditch the drum machine and go with a real live drummer. Our talented friend Corey Brenn played drums on the album. It was amazing how fast he learned the songs, since we jammed with him for only a month before we hit the studio. He had to move away to Scotland shortly after we laid down the bed tracks, sadly.

So who are you guys swapping in going forward?

Rob Gordon [Owen Pallett, From Fiction] is now playing drums for us, his unique style is continuously changing our sound in a way that makes each live performance marginally different from the other.

I see you recorded with Don Pyle. How did that come about? Were you fans of Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, etc?

We met Don Pyle through our friends' band, the Soupcans. Don mentioned that he was into Cellphone, so we figured that going with a producer who was actually into the band is better than going with someone who's just a producer. I never really got into Shadowy Men, but that's just because I was raised in Florida, and sometimes it's hard for Canadian content to make it down there. Don Pyle is also associated with projects such as Greek Buck, Filthy Gaze of Europe, and Black Heel Marks. All of which are worth checking out.

Much has been made of your ability to mash "heaviness" and "synthesizers." Collectively, are you fans of other bands who can pull this off? If so, which ones?

I think plenty of bands have pulled this off before. Bands like the Screamers, Nervous Gender, Ministry, SPK, Trans Am, Iron Maiden, Manowar, Metallica, and Rush have all used synthesizers or organs to thicken up their sound. As far as influence goes though, we're not too concerned by whether or not there are synths involved. Collectively, we all listen to a wide variety of music. But as far as influence goes, as of lately we turn towards Black Sabbath, Slayer, Siege, Void, Motorhead, Metallica, Blue Cheer, some White Zombie, and a hint of Joe Meek and Bruce Haack.

From your Long Winter appearance last fall, NOW Magazine referred to Cellphone as "mosh pit-inducing punks". Do you personally have any good mosh pit stories? Either as a performer or an audience member?

I once I got kicked in the face by a Nike Shox shoe. Not as bouncy as they look.

Last question and it's an important one: what cell phone do you use? What was your first cell phone? 

Let's not talk about that. Let's talk about a dream I had in which I directed a tasteful movie about the Sasquatch and how the Sasquatch exists within the body of a four-year old boy. The tasteful aspect existing in the unoriginal morality that true love is real despite the frequent terror caused by the child Sasquatch.

Fair enough.

Cellphone play Saturday, April 19 at Smiling Buddha (961 College St.) as part of WL #595.

- Interview by Cam Gordon (Completely Ignored)