Low Earth Orbit Retrospective

by pb

17 September 2024

The sign adorning the cover of the Low Earth Orbit EP sits in the field across from Servus Place on Campbell road in the tiny little conservative christian haven of St. Albert, Alberta. I, to this day, don’t understand the exact mythology crafted around this blank sign in a farmers field, or why the artist chose it to visually summarize the sum of the recordings. I know that me and Bruno used to bike there pretty frequently, sometimes joined by some friends and other times just the two of us. We met only a few months before this and hit it off very quickly. Bonded over music and movies, the only important things to a 19 and a 20 year old. I remember talking to Bruno about the minutiae of different synth waves, or lore dumping about my favourite bands. This was also the beginning of going to shows together. I speculate that two of these first concerts forever changed the trajectory of my friends life. First was GY!BE with Kevin Doria opening, it was a long drawn out ambient set followed by a long drawn out Post Rock set. I came up with this joke... How do you know you’re about to see a post rock band? the bassist is sitting in a chair.

The second was Pigeon Breeders with Ghost Cars. These non typical Alberta dudes played a set of improvised songs where one of the instruments was, and I shit you not, a cheese grater. We sat on the floor right in front of them, the barrier between performer and audience erased. After the set I noticed Bruno talking to the band; being a real gear geek. Learning. I could see in his eyes that he had some epiphany that night and as only a witness to this miracle I speculate it was something like this: “There is no barrier between what can and what can’t, you can go on a stage and do anything and it will blow minds”

He had a Pigeon Breeders poster hung up in his room; one of the only ones on his otherwise barren wall at that time. As if some kind of reminder of the miracle. Some people do this with crucifixes. From then on our friendship became about ambient music. We would try our hardest in an embarrassing young adult way to create something meaningful without saying much. We were going to be called Oceans of Solaris. OOS would play concerts for ourselves in my parents basement on days the house was empty. Hours at a time at the loudest volumes our gear could bellow. Fully sober (which might make the image more embarrassing). I think we both dreamt of being on a stage, joining and proving ourselves in the extremely inspiring local Edmonton ambient scene; equipment was bought, ideas were had and Alejandro Jodorwosky was on our minds.

The train was derailed. Lockdown. Out the door with these dreams. In the early months of the pandemic out of a combination of boredom and wanting to be heard I schemed up starting my own record label, Total Trash Tapes. I offered Bruno the maiden release (admittedly out of self doubt for my own songs, a similar thing happened at a show we played in vancouver) and he gladly accepted. Thus began the process. The songs were recorded, the tapes were ordered, I learned about cassette assembly and out came the Low Earth Orbit EP. When I first heard the songs I felt proud of my friend. He crafted these beautiful, full sounding songs out of seemingly nowhere in seemingly no time at all.

A favourite instantly and likely for the rest of my life is It Smells Like Dust And Moonlight, for it is so tender. Droning synthesizers develop their own meaning to the listener but for me the meaning I derive from these drones is beyond my own will. Naturally the meaning of that song will always be about the intimacy of friendship, laughing over penis jokes, meeting up at airports, record shopping, talking about our respective heritages. Maybe its no coincidence that the sign on the album cover happens to be on the other side of a long field that I used to stare at from my childhood home; I leave the vastness of childhood and on the other side I find a literal sign of my friend. Total Trash Tapes is no more and only existed for a few months but I’m so happy that maybe in someway the torch was passed down. Many years later the songs still mean something to people, people are still drawn to the amateurish ambient dude from the northern most big city in the country. Low Earth Orbit & Slacker Tape group forever. Release it forever I say, the people need to hear it all around the world.