Words:

Welcome to radical/love/DRUM,  the monthly newsletter of JB Ledoux. Not just pretty words, r/l/D has become the philosophy behind a lot of the music making that I've been doing, mostly under the banner of Jo Bled and the le duo. It speaks to my belief that everyone is capable of radical personal & social upheaval via the drum. 

A little backstory-I'm a Vermonter- I'm a fat queer musician who deals mostly with improvised percussion and other sorts of noise making. My music making career (or at least my creative music making career) started in the early 2000s when I was in a group in Burlington Vermont called Nest Material that was an experimental rock band in the vein of Sunburned Hand of the Man, and (to a lesser extent) MV & EE and Akron Family. After NM disbanded, I started a group called the le duo (thld) which was more on the free jazz or free improv side of things, (in its earliest iteration) but which has morphed over the years towards being a psychedelic experimental improv rock band. 

My most recent outlet has been Jo Bled, the solo project that I started in 2018. Up until that point I had never performed solo drumset in public, and Jo Bled (where I wore a mask in the early days) allowed me to lose myself in the anonymity, thus giving me the confidence I needed. Solo drumset performances led to drum and electronics performances, which led to other sorts of percussion/electronics performances. I have now gotten away from solo drumset to focus more on my washboard and gong (that I filtered through delay and, in some cases, loops to create a “gratingly meditative” form of music). 

This will (most likely) be the only time in these newsletters that I give you so much biographical information- I just wanted to say thank you for subscribing and I'm going to share some words, some art, links to some upcoming releases of my music, things in town (Burlington Vermont) that I enjoy and that I think you would enjoy, too.

My Music:

When I was in rehab I became obsessed with the gong, and I couldn't wait to leave to get to work using the gong for meditation purposes. I started reading books with titles like “Gong Consciousness” and trying to figure out ways that I could use it as part of my own meditation practice. I have always been interested in different ways that people go about altering their states of Consciousness and experience- with or without drugs, with or without music- ways people train themselves to experience different things. The titles of the two pieces explore some of these practices. The Metallic Industrial Other, for prepared and unprepared gong, contains two tracks: Breath Work is named after one of the more simple (in my opinion) ways of altering one's Consciousness-  that is deliberate and repetitive breath. The track is nothing more than the gong and the two mallets trying to lock into some sort of repetitive sound that can be focused on both literally and figuratively, consciously and unconsciously, to help one along the way. The second track is for prepared gong which I prepared with an array of different instruments- bells, tambourines, maracas, chains- called Heroic Dose,  it explores another way to maintain and visit different levels of consciousness- taking heroic doses of psychedelic drugs. The track may remind one of a of a psychedelic experience in the fact that different sounds and different layers come and go very subtly and surprisingly and without warning- so by the time that you actually notice a sound there will be a new sound coming along that's already gone. The album is released on Friday 10/14 on Histamine Tapes. Preorders are live now at https://histaminetapes.bandcamp.com/album/the-metallic-industrial-other-ht076

Performances this month:

TURNmusic premieres "Women of Aeronautics" by Danielle O'Hallisey https://www.facebook.com/events/571981437961700

Listening:

Greg Davis "New Primes" https://greyfade-label.bandcamp.com/album/new-primes

Moth Cock "Whipped Stream and Other Earthly Delights" https://hausumountain.bandcamp.com/album/whipped-stream-and-other-earthly-delights

Sana Nagano "Anime Mundi" https://577records.bandcamp.com/album/anime-mundi

Reading:

Luke Stewart "The Execution of Sun Ra (Volume II): A Conversation with Thomas Stanley" https://soundamerican.org/issues/sun-ra/execution-sun-ra-volume-ii-conversation-thomas-stanley

Art:

"Untitled" by Em Ledoux