Hugo Race at home on the stage.
After listening to Josh Lord and Hugo Race's LP "Memento Mori" for so long I'm in some kind of extended swoon. Took two showers and a handful of aspirin, plus an 11-year-old’s netball final to finally get me to shake out of it.
Melbourne visual artist Josh Lord collaborated with musician-producer Hugo Race (Hugo Race Fatalists, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and The Wreckery) for the artwork of Hugo's albums “Dishee” and “Star Birth/Star Death”. In 2021, they spent a day in the studio channelling their own improvised music, creating a wall of sound with guitars and devices. “Memento Mori” is the result.
I decided to ask the perpetrators of this unholy haze a few questions: the same questions, equally, and hoping that they wouldn't confer with each other.
As The Barman says: Full disclosure: I know both of these gents, and know also that their personalities are fundamentally different - although what drives them is a very similar creature.
John Lord (left) with Hugo Race and photographer Ross Waterman in the middle.
Thanks, for doing this interview, Hugo. Let's start at the very beginning, because that's a very good place to start. Could you tell me about your very, very first musical instrument? Did you ever master it?
HR: The 1970s demanded all kids play the descant recorder. No one speaks of this but it’s how I discovered the recorder came in different sizes and ended up with a tenor recorder which morphed into a clarinet. By this point there was no turning back.
Look, one of you came up with the notion of you both doing music together. Who was it? I mean, surely you didn't BOTH come up with the idea at the same time, in the same moment...
HR: It came up when Josh and me talked on the phone during melbourne lockdowns when time seemed bloody infinite and bitch about life and modernity and how basically everything is shite. A lot of negativity! That was the creative process. We never discussed what we planned to do musically.
And anyway, what's this 'artist as musician' stuff? Shouldn't creatives stick to your own side of the tracks?
HR: I think if you can find a reason to actually do something, you probably should pursue it. Finding a reason to create is half the struggle. So it doesn’t really matter what form it takes if you have a strong passionate idea. To me, this music is about resistance to the dominant culture, it’s a soundtrack for defiance. I like how Josh’s paintings project that feeling.
Can you tell me how each song shaped in the studio? Did you rehearse the songs at all?
HR: No, we just asked Carl to press record. The first two takes we discarded, neither of them caught alight and we were sorting out tech issues as they went. But then the third take opened the doors to this wall of sound. Our set up was very primitive, two guitar amps, no computers or clock. I’m switching through the amp both guitar and a synth and they’re running through a looper too. The layering of sound is happening in real time. There are zero overdubs on “Memento Mori”. Everything is played, improvised.
What's this Replicant/ Copy of a Copy/ Simulation concept all about?
HR: Unreality is the new reality? Nothing is original and no one and nothing is exempt? AI is us? Josh has more to say on this…
Neat guitar line in "Dharma'"... who was it?
HR: That’s my ‘59 Harmony Stratotone. It’s small scale and lightweight with a mercurial tone that really brings out detail if you don’t touch it too hard. I bought it in London in the eighties. Fact is, it’s a spooky guitar. I wrote a lot of songs on it or it wrote them through me.
Did you record “Memento Mori” with Josh's new work in mind, or did you have a different concept afoot?
HR: I didn’t know what he was going to do. But I knew his work and the style and I think he’d mentioned the replica skulls. Or not. It’s hard to say now because the evolution of the paintings through the music has been symbiotic as the tracks which were only numbers took on the names and epithets of the paintings. I didn’t go into this with any concept, I just wanted to see what would happen in the moment.
Has “Memento Mori” turned out the way you expected when you first recorded it?
HR: When I first heard the takes back I didn’t remember anything. It was like somebody else had made it. Josh later said that he couldn’t always hear what he was doing. Neither could I exactly. We recorded at pretty low level under headphones…. so when I started mixing I heard the detail on a quantum kinda level and it was a revelation - I’d never heard it during the takes. It was mysterious how there were these great accidental moments happening but at the time neither of us were aware this was going on. That’s why I think of it as channelled music - because it’s not composed. Nor is it random either. It’s just available if you tune in.
I expect the Europeans (not mentioning any nationalities with a reputation for being a tad OCD and rather strict with their humour) will be asking you what instruments and effects and what not you both used. What will you tell them?
HR: What I just told you. It’s ok if people don’t know about the gear I’m using beyond the guitar. At the same time I’m not secretive about it - there are no digital effects, it’s an analog chain but anyway, it’s not the gear you use but how you use it.
Who is the most inspirational person in your life?
HR: Alannah.
Over the last three years the world has completely pivoted. Does that affect your work - how? How are you coping with that?
HR: That’s a huge question Robert. Where do I start? Theory of relativity… we are observing a world in motion and we are moving at the same time but not in the same direction, so everything we see is distorted. As are we distorted to the world.
Sometimes I don’t want to do anything except watch the birds and the sky change. Then next minute I’m back in Europe all fired up about a project. Depends on the time of day but the world is in terrible shape. It’s less compelling now to move through it. Restrictions, propaganda, banality, absurdity.. . Everything has changed in subtle and unsubtle ways over recent years but so have I. Or I’m just imagining this...
Which public figure most influences your creativity?
HR: I’ve got no idea
And, lastly, partly because I want to hear more, and partly because I know you're going to get asked this a lot so I want to ask first: Are you two going to do this again?
HR: Maybe ...
Hugo gets handy.
So I asked Josh Lord the same questions...
JL: I hope these are okay answers mate. You know I hate homework and that reading and writing thing ... you bastard!
Could you tell me about your very, very first musical instrument? Did you ever master it?
JL: My voice? And no, I didn’t.
Look, one of you came up with the notion of you both doing music together. Who was it?
JL: I think that was me. I did a demo track at Carl’s Studio Ear Drum and asked Hugo would he like to hear it. So I sent it and we started talking about it, unfortunately that was the time we’re all in and out of lock downs ...
I mean, surely you didn't BOTH come up with the idea at the same time, in the same moment...
JL: Well, Hugo had already done the "Dishee" LP, and I got to work with Hugo on the artwork, and we were talking about noise-based sounds then.
And anyway, what's this 'artist as musician' stuff? Shouldn't creatives stick to your own side of the tracks?
JL: No! But in saying that, I do think you should make one your strength first.
Can you tell me how each song shaped in the studio? Did you rehearse the songs at all?
JL: Arrrrrrr, well I think Hugo said it best when he walked over to where I was in the studio, looked down at my pedal and said “So that how it’s done, you just turn your pedals right up, yeah?" We didn’t rehearse ...
What's this Replicant/ Copy of a Copy/ Simulation concept all about?
JL: Read more Jean Baudrillard.
Neat guitar line in “Dharma”... who was it?
JL:That is Hugo.
Did you record “Memento Mori” with your new work in mind, or did you have a different concept afoot?
JL: I kinda did, but the music help shape the idea and imagery.
Has “Memento Mori” turned out the way you expected when you first recorded it?
JL: Yes and No, as I left the editing up to Hugo. Because I live so far away from Hugo it would have been pretty hard to spend that kinda time organizing, so we had phones and sending files ...
I expect the Europeans (not mentioning any nationalities with a reputation for being a tad OCD and rather strict with their humour) will be asking you what instruments and effects and what not you both used. What will you tell them?
JL: That I played guitar through pedals, which made it sound like something ethereal or a jet taking off ...
Who is the most inspirational person in your life?
JL: I don’t know
Over the last three years the world has completely pivoted. Does that affect your work - how? How are you coping with that?
JL: Don’t we now have global amnesia now? We all seem to have forgotten it ever happen. What’s next!?
Which public figure most influences your creativity?
JL: I don’t know.
And, lastly, partly because I want to hear more, and partly because I know you're going to get asked this a lot so I want to ask first: Are you two going to do this again?
JL: Yeah, I think we will.
