WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 Imagine for a second the idea of a musical collision. 00:00:02.899 --> 00:00:05.400 And I don't mean, you know, a nice duet where 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:08.019 two pop stars just sing a chorus at each other. 00:00:08.140 --> 00:00:10.839 I mean a real collision. Right. The kind that 00:00:10.839 --> 00:00:12.140 makes you wonder if everyone's going to make 00:00:12.140 --> 00:00:14.980 it out of the studio in one piece. Exactly. So 00:00:14.980 --> 00:00:17.320 you take, say, an experimental Italian rock band, 00:00:17.559 --> 00:00:21.140 something kind of jagged, atmospheric. A little 00:00:21.140 --> 00:00:23.460 dark. A little dark. And you smash it together 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:26.300 with American art pop weirdness. And then you 00:00:26.300 --> 00:00:29.199 physically lock them in a studio in Turin, Italy, 00:00:29.339 --> 00:00:31.839 and just see what happens. It sounds like the 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:35.960 setup for a really niche reality TV show. But 00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:38.259 in music, when we talk about these collisions, 00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:41.500 the industry loves to use that term. Supergroup. 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:44.060 Ah, the supergroup, yes. And that word, it brings 00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:46.579 up a very specific image, doesn't it? You think 00:00:46.579 --> 00:00:50.060 of massive ego stadium rock guys from the 70s 00:00:50.060 --> 00:00:52.560 trying to recapture some magic. It's the Traveling 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:54.719 Wilburys model. Totally. It's often more about 00:00:54.719 --> 00:00:56.380 the marketing event than the actual art. It's 00:00:56.380 --> 00:00:58.520 like the Avengers, but for classic rock. Well, 00:00:58.560 --> 00:01:00.899 today we are looking at a supergroup of a very 00:01:00.899 --> 00:01:03.320 different kind. We're going to do a deep dive 00:01:03.320 --> 00:01:06.579 into a project called XXL. A fitting name, I 00:01:06.579 --> 00:01:08.439 think. Maybe not for commercial weight, but definitely 00:01:08.439 --> 00:01:11.359 for artistic weight. And the album we're dissecting 00:01:11.359 --> 00:01:16.060 is their 2005 debut, Chia Otistico. Now, looking 00:01:16.060 --> 00:01:18.280 at our source material here, the credits, the 00:01:18.280 --> 00:01:20.540 track list, the reviews, the first thing that 00:01:20.540 --> 00:01:24.280 jumps out is, who even is XXL? It's actually 00:01:24.280 --> 00:01:27.340 a literal equation. XXL is what you get when 00:01:27.340 --> 00:01:29.620 you add Larson to your shoe. Just smashed together. 00:01:29.819 --> 00:01:32.930 Yep. Larson, the Italian experimental rock band, 00:01:33.049 --> 00:01:35.909 and Shiju, the American art pop band. They didn't 00:01:35.909 --> 00:01:37.689 overthink the name, which I appreciate. Me too. 00:01:37.790 --> 00:01:40.109 It's efficient. Yeah. So, okay, the mission for 00:01:40.109 --> 00:01:43.170 this deep dive. Yeah. We've got this album, Giotistico, 00:01:43.310 --> 00:01:47.030 recorded in 2005. It's post -rock. It's experimental. 00:01:47.489 --> 00:01:50.310 It's got a cover of an 80s new wave hit. It's 00:01:50.310 --> 00:01:52.400 a lot. It is a lot. And our goal here is to figure 00:01:52.400 --> 00:01:54.120 out how this whole cross -continental experiment 00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:56.260 worked. We're going to look at the credits, the 00:01:56.260 --> 00:01:59.140 very strange track list, the reception, and see 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:01.319 if this collision was, you know, a masterpiece 00:02:01.319 --> 00:02:03.500 or just a train wreck. Because it could go either 00:02:03.500 --> 00:02:06.180 way. Oh, easily. Putting two experimental bands 00:02:06.180 --> 00:02:08.699 in a room doesn't guarantee gold. Sometimes you 00:02:08.699 --> 00:02:10.680 just get noise. So let's start with the setting. 00:02:10.780 --> 00:02:13.560 We mentioned Italy, but the source says it was 00:02:13.560 --> 00:02:16.560 recorded specifically at Larson's own studio 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:20.919 in Turin. And that detail is, it's crucial. Think 00:02:20.919 --> 00:02:23.280 about the dynamic. If you meet on neutral ground, 00:02:23.419 --> 00:02:26.259 like a rented studio in London, everyone's a 00:02:26.259 --> 00:02:28.080 guest. Everyone is trying to figure out the coffee 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:32.500 machine. Exactly. But here, you the Americans, 00:02:32.780 --> 00:02:36.000 they flew to Larson's home turf. So Larson has 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:38.759 the home field advantage. In a way, yeah. They're 00:02:38.759 --> 00:02:40.740 comfortable. They know the room. They know how 00:02:40.740 --> 00:02:43.560 the drums sound in that corner. It forces the 00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:45.960 guests, Jamie Stewart and Carolee McElroy from 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:49.210 Juju, to adapt to the host's environment. It 00:02:49.210 --> 00:02:51.509 definitely changes the power dynamic a bit. Absolutely. 00:02:51.550 --> 00:02:53.409 You're not just jamming. You're entering their 00:02:53.409 --> 00:02:56.370 world. And for this kind of music, that feeling 00:02:56.370 --> 00:02:59.210 of being a little displaced, that can be really 00:02:59.210 --> 00:03:01.650 valuable. Speaking of being unmoored, the timeline 00:03:01.650 --> 00:03:05.270 here is wild to me. The notes say the album was 00:03:05.270 --> 00:03:07.969 recorded in May of 2005. That's right. And it 00:03:07.969 --> 00:03:11.509 was released on September 20, 2005. That is incredibly 00:03:11.509 --> 00:03:14.889 fast. I mean, for a standard indie release, you're 00:03:14.889 --> 00:03:18.759 talking a year. Maybe more. You've got marketing, 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:22.460 mixing, mastering. May to September, that's four 00:03:22.460 --> 00:03:25.979 months. It's so rapid. It suggests a really raw, 00:03:26.120 --> 00:03:28.280 immediate process. They didn't sit on these tapes 00:03:28.280 --> 00:03:30.860 for a year and tinker. They just captured the 00:03:30.860 --> 00:03:33.520 moment in Turin, packaged it up, and sent it 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:35.699 out on important records. Which is a great name 00:03:35.699 --> 00:03:37.780 for a label, by the way. Sets a high bar right. 00:03:37.919 --> 00:03:39.939 This isn't just a record, it's an important record. 00:03:40.180 --> 00:03:42.479 But that speed, it really speaks to the genre. 00:03:42.599 --> 00:03:45.139 This is post -rock and experimental rock. And 00:03:45.139 --> 00:03:46.879 you don't want to over -polish that. You can't. 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:49.280 If you polish experimental rock too much, you 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:51.900 rub off all the interesting jagged edges, the 00:03:51.900 --> 00:03:54.960 imperfections, the room noise. That's the good 00:03:54.960 --> 00:03:57.479 stuff. So let's dig into that sound. When you 00:03:57.479 --> 00:03:59.659 hear post -rock, you're probably thinking long 00:03:59.659 --> 00:04:02.180 instrumentals, maybe some drones, weird time 00:04:02.180 --> 00:04:04.580 signatures. You're on the right track. And the 00:04:04.580 --> 00:04:06.900 source material says the album is largely instrumental. 00:04:07.819 --> 00:04:10.539 But, and this is where it gets really interesting 00:04:10.539 --> 00:04:13.060 for me, it's not entirely instrumental. They 00:04:13.060 --> 00:04:15.740 rationed out the vocals to very specific tracks. 00:04:16.189 --> 00:04:17.990 And that's such a great production choice. You 00:04:17.990 --> 00:04:19.970 know, if every track has a singer, the voice 00:04:19.970 --> 00:04:22.170 just becomes another instrument. It's furniture. 00:04:22.689 --> 00:04:25.209 Right. But if it only shows up on, say, four 00:04:25.209 --> 00:04:27.970 tracks out of nine, then it's an event. You really 00:04:27.970 --> 00:04:29.910 pay attention. It's like a cameo in a movie. 00:04:30.009 --> 00:04:31.990 You sit up when that character walks on screen. 00:04:32.449 --> 00:04:34.610 Precisely. And let's look at who's singing, because 00:04:34.610 --> 00:04:37.050 it's broken down in a really specific way. You've 00:04:37.050 --> 00:04:39.990 got Carolee McElroy and Jamie Stewart, both from 00:04:39.990 --> 00:04:42.209 the juju side of things. Okay, so looking at 00:04:42.209 --> 00:04:44.569 the list, Carolee McElroy handles the first two 00:04:44.569 --> 00:04:49.569 tracks. Pa -pa, pa -pa -pa -pa -pa. Hang on, 00:04:49.629 --> 00:04:51.529 hang on. How many pa's was that? Let me count. 00:04:52.230 --> 00:04:55.870 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Pa -pa 00:04:55.870 --> 00:04:58.050 -pa -pa -pa -pa -pa. Nailed it. I practiced. 00:04:58.730 --> 00:05:01.230 So she sings on that one and also on track two, 00:05:01.430 --> 00:05:03.870 Minnie Mouse's Stick. So she basically opens 00:05:03.870 --> 00:05:06.149 the album. She's the first voice you hear. And 00:05:06.149 --> 00:05:08.889 then vocally, she's done. That's when Jamie Stewart 00:05:08.889 --> 00:05:11.490 steps in later. Right. On track four, which is 00:05:11.490 --> 00:05:14.100 Pokey, I'm in your cheek. And then again on track 00:05:14.100 --> 00:05:17.180 seven, Prince Charming. We absolutely have to 00:05:17.180 --> 00:05:20.180 circle back to Prince Charming. But just sticking 00:05:20.180 --> 00:05:22.199 with the structure, what does that tell you? 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:24.420 These little vocal drops in an instrumental C. 00:05:24.680 --> 00:05:26.680 It tells me the album structure is deliberate. 00:05:26.759 --> 00:05:29.019 This isn't just a jam session. They're telling 00:05:29.019 --> 00:05:32.040 a story. And the human voice is used for specific 00:05:32.040 --> 00:05:35.040 emotional punctuation. And look at the music 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:37.740 credits. Oh, yeah. The lyrics are mostly Jamie 00:05:37.740 --> 00:05:40.279 Stewart, but the music itself is credited to 00:05:40.279 --> 00:05:44.300 Yuji Larson. As one entity, no and. Exactly. 00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:48.560 No ampersand, no comma, just one name. It implies 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:51.220 this total melding of the bands into a single 00:05:51.220 --> 00:05:53.379 organism. That's a really cool detail. It's not, 00:05:53.420 --> 00:05:55.959 here's the Larson part and here's this Yuji part. 00:05:56.199 --> 00:05:59.990 It's just a soup. A minestrone, if we want to 00:05:59.990 --> 00:06:01.910 stick with the Turin theme. I love a good minestrone. 00:06:02.329 --> 00:06:04.410 And speaking of Italian food, did you catch track 00:06:04.410 --> 00:06:08.069 four? I did. They were definitely leaning into 00:06:08.069 --> 00:06:10.209 the location with these titles. Okay. We have 00:06:10.209 --> 00:06:12.509 to talk about track seven, Prince Charming. Yes. 00:06:13.009 --> 00:06:15.769 The dandy in the room. This just jumped out at 00:06:15.769 --> 00:06:18.230 me from the notes. We're talking about an experimental 00:06:18.230 --> 00:06:21.430 avant -garde album. It's moody. It's atmospheric. 00:06:22.189 --> 00:06:25.629 And sitting right there is a cover of a 1981. 00:06:26.430 --> 00:06:29.350 hit by adam and the ants it is a major curveball 00:06:29.350 --> 00:06:31.769 and prince charming is in some obscure b -side 00:06:31.769 --> 00:06:34.990 that was a huge new wave pop song written by 00:06:34.990 --> 00:06:37.790 stuart goddard adamant and marco peroni it's 00:06:37.790 --> 00:06:40.910 so theatrical and flamboyant creates this amazing 00:06:40.910 --> 00:06:44.089 cognitive dissonance you've got this dark instrumental 00:06:44.089 --> 00:06:47.370 texture and then bam you're dealing with the 00:06:47.370 --> 00:06:49.529 legacy of 80s pop so why do you think a band 00:06:49.529 --> 00:06:52.199 like this would pick that song well In experimental 00:06:52.199 --> 00:06:55.839 music, covers are rarely just tributes. They're 00:06:55.839 --> 00:06:58.459 more like interrogations. An interrogation. Yeah. 00:06:58.519 --> 00:07:00.300 They take the song apart to see how it works, 00:07:00.319 --> 00:07:02.699 or they twist it into something totally unrecognizable. 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:05.160 The arrangement credit is listed as Zizou Larson, 00:07:05.220 --> 00:07:06.779 so you know they didn't just play it straight. 00:07:06.860 --> 00:07:08.899 They deconstructed it. Totally. They probably 00:07:08.899 --> 00:07:11.300 stripped it down to the studs. When you run a 00:07:11.300 --> 00:07:14.199 bright, loud pop song through the filter of an 00:07:14.199 --> 00:07:17.300 Italian post -rock band and an American art pop 00:07:17.300 --> 00:07:19.920 band, you're probably going to end up with something 00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:21.980 that sounds like a haunted memory of the original. 00:07:22.240 --> 00:07:23.740 I would love to know what that actually sounds 00:07:23.740 --> 00:07:25.759 like. Yeah. The source doesn't say, but just 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:28.899 the fact that it exists is amazing. It suggests 00:07:28.899 --> 00:07:30.560 they had a sense of humor. That's a great point. 00:07:30.980 --> 00:07:33.220 Experimental music can get a bad rap for being 00:07:33.220 --> 00:07:36.360 too serious, you know, very dour, covering Adam 00:07:36.360 --> 00:07:38.300 and the Ants. It suggests... they were actually 00:07:38.300 --> 00:07:40.819 having fun in that studio. And speaking of fun, 00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:43.920 or at least eccentricity, the rest of the track 00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:46.459 titles are a journey. They really are. We've 00:07:46.459 --> 00:07:49.459 got the seven paws, but we also have distorted 00:07:49.459 --> 00:07:52.860 duck. Track five. Distorted duck. I mean, what 00:07:52.860 --> 00:07:54.959 does that even mean? Is it a metaphor? Does it 00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:57.660 sound like a duck? With this kind of music. from 00:07:57.660 --> 00:08:01.199 this era, it could very well be a literal sample 00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:03.300 of a duck that they ran through a distortion 00:08:03.300 --> 00:08:05.699 pedal. I would not put it past them. Or it's 00:08:05.699 --> 00:08:08.319 just a nonsense phrase that's stuck. Yeah. But 00:08:08.319 --> 00:08:10.879 it sets a tone. It tells you, don't get comfortable. 00:08:11.060 --> 00:08:13.699 We might throw a duck at you. And then there's 00:08:13.699 --> 00:08:16.160 Lipstick Fair, which is the shortest track. Just 00:08:16.160 --> 00:08:19.720 over a minute. 1 .14. A little blast. And then 00:08:19.720 --> 00:08:23.300 there's the title track. Well, sort of. Track 00:08:23.300 --> 00:08:26.519 three is Ciao, Ciao, Tistico. A little play on 00:08:26.519 --> 00:08:29.040 the album title, Ciao, Tistico. Which I'm guessing 00:08:29.040 --> 00:08:32.899 is a mashup of Ciao and something else. It seems 00:08:32.899 --> 00:08:35.019 like a portmanteau. Ciao, the Italian greeting, 00:08:35.120 --> 00:08:38.460 and Autistico, which is Italian for autistic. 00:08:38.779 --> 00:08:40.980 It's a made up word. Feels like an inside joke 00:08:40.980 --> 00:08:43.039 from the recording sessions. It sounds like Spanglish, 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.799 but for Italian. Italgush. Let's not make that 00:08:45.799 --> 00:08:48.259 a thing. But yes, it reflects that linguistic 00:08:48.259 --> 00:08:50.700 collision in the studio. We also mentioned that 00:08:50.700 --> 00:08:53.679 Jamie Stewart wrote almost all the lyrics, but 00:08:53.679 --> 00:08:55.919 the notes point out one really important exception. 00:08:56.100 --> 00:08:59.840 Yes. Track two, Mini Mouse Eye Stick. The lyrics 00:08:59.840 --> 00:09:01.960 for that one were written by Marco Schiavo. And 00:09:01.960 --> 00:09:04.440 Marco Schiavo is from Larson. So here you see 00:09:04.440 --> 00:09:07.000 the collaboration bleeding right into the songwriting. 00:09:07.080 --> 00:09:09.519 It's not just Jamie writes the words, everyone 00:09:09.519 --> 00:09:12.700 plays. Right. But who sings it? Carolee McElroy 00:09:12.700 --> 00:09:15.200 from Shiju. So you have a Larson member writing 00:09:15.200 --> 00:09:19.110 the lyrics and a Juju member singing them. That's 00:09:19.110 --> 00:09:21.529 the definition of a true collaboration. It totally 00:09:21.529 --> 00:09:23.929 blurs the lines. You can't point to that track 00:09:23.929 --> 00:09:25.529 and say that's the American part or that's the 00:09:25.529 --> 00:09:29.289 Italian part. It's just XXL. And then to cap 00:09:29.289 --> 00:09:31.730 it all off, we get the closer. Yeah. Track nine, 00:09:31.970 --> 00:09:35.870 Sunday. The epic. Seven minutes and six seconds. 00:09:36.309 --> 00:09:39.370 It's the longest track on the album by a pretty 00:09:39.370 --> 00:09:41.490 wide margin. Which is very traditional for post 00:09:41.490 --> 00:09:44.230 -rock. You end with a long building piece that 00:09:44.230 --> 00:09:46.580 kind of resolves all the tension. You spend 35 00:09:46.580 --> 00:09:49.039 minutes on distorted ducks and adamant covers. 00:09:49.259 --> 00:09:51.179 And then you give the listeners seven minutes 00:09:51.179 --> 00:09:54.039 to just breathe. Exactly. Ending with a song 00:09:54.039 --> 00:09:57.500 called Sunday. It has a certain feeling, doesn't 00:09:57.500 --> 00:10:00.259 it? The end of the week. Maybe a bit of melancholy. 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:02.799 The Sunday scaries. It feels like the come down 00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:05.039 after the party, a chance to digest everything 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:06.820 you just heard. Right. It's the period at the 00:10:06.820 --> 00:10:09.740 end of the sentence. So we have this weird, wonderful 00:10:09.740 --> 00:10:12.720 album from 2005 made in four months in Turin 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:15.340 on important records. The big question is, did 00:10:15.340 --> 00:10:17.240 anyone actually care? What was the reception 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:19.899 like? Well, we have one major data point from 00:10:19.899 --> 00:10:24.009 the source. Pitchfork Media. Ah, the gatekeepers 00:10:24.009 --> 00:10:27.850 of 2005 indie rock. For sure. Back then, a Pitchfork 00:10:27.850 --> 00:10:31.009 review could make or break a band's career. They 00:10:31.009 --> 00:10:32.970 were the authority. So what did the authority 00:10:32.970 --> 00:10:36.049 say? They gave the album a 7 .0 out of 10. 7 00:10:36.049 --> 00:10:38.710 .0. Yeah. Okay. In Pitchfork terms, that's... 00:10:39.340 --> 00:10:41.159 That's pretty respectable. It's what we call 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:43.100 the Gentleman's Seven. The Gentleman's Seven. 00:10:43.179 --> 00:10:45.919 I like that. It basically means this is a good 00:10:45.919 --> 00:10:48.419 record. It does what it set out to do. You should 00:10:48.419 --> 00:10:50.700 listen to it. But maybe it didn't, you know, 00:10:50.700 --> 00:10:53.120 change the course of music history. So a solid, 00:10:53.159 --> 00:10:55.700 successful experiment. Exactly. Not a flop at 00:10:55.700 --> 00:10:57.840 all. And honestly, for a project this weird, 00:10:57.980 --> 00:11:01.320 a 7 .0 is a win. It's validation that the experiment 00:11:01.320 --> 00:11:03.779 actually worked. And we have proof that it worked 00:11:03.779 --> 00:11:06.230 beyond just a review score. Yeah. Because this 00:11:06.230 --> 00:11:08.649 wasn't the end of XXL. No. And this is a really 00:11:08.649 --> 00:11:10.549 important context. A lot of these collaborations 00:11:10.549 --> 00:11:12.950 are just one -offs. They get together, they record, 00:11:13.230 --> 00:11:14.889 and they go their separate ways. Or they just 00:11:14.889 --> 00:11:18.029 get busy with their main bands. Right. But XXL 00:11:18.029 --> 00:11:20.070 came back. The source lists their chronology. 00:11:20.429 --> 00:11:23.610 Tratistico was the debut in 05, but they released 00:11:23.610 --> 00:11:27.529 a follow -up album, Speakeology, in 2007. So 00:11:27.529 --> 00:11:29.190 the chemistry was good enough that they decided 00:11:29.190 --> 00:11:32.409 to do it all over again. It legitimized XXL as 00:11:32.409 --> 00:11:35.289 a real band, not just a side project. It meant 00:11:35.289 --> 00:11:38.129 that this new third identity they created actually 00:11:38.129 --> 00:11:40.950 had more to say. I love that. It turns this album 00:11:40.950 --> 00:11:43.269 from a weird curiosity into chapter one of a 00:11:43.269 --> 00:11:45.509 real story. It does. It shows they're committed 00:11:45.509 --> 00:11:47.649 to the whole thing. So let's zoom out. We've 00:11:47.649 --> 00:11:50.169 got the who, the where, the what. Larson and 00:11:50.169 --> 00:11:54.259 Juju, a studio in Italy, distorted ducks. Why 00:11:54.259 --> 00:11:56.220 does this matter? Why should someone listening 00:11:56.220 --> 00:11:59.899 right now care about this album from 2005? I 00:11:59.899 --> 00:12:02.039 think it matters because it represents this moment 00:12:02.039 --> 00:12:05.039 of, I don't know, real cultural openness. You 00:12:05.039 --> 00:12:06.779 have two very different bands from two different 00:12:06.779 --> 00:12:08.960 countries who decided that the sum could be greater 00:12:08.960 --> 00:12:11.320 or at least stranger than the parts. It's the 00:12:11.320 --> 00:12:13.720 idea that you don't just feature a guest, you 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:16.240 create a whole new thing with them. Precisely. 00:12:16.240 --> 00:12:19.799 And it challenges the ego of the artist. To make 00:12:19.799 --> 00:12:22.679 this work, everyone had to give up a little bit 00:12:22.679 --> 00:12:25.299 of control. Larson had to let these Americans 00:12:25.299 --> 00:12:27.879 into their space and mess with their sound. It's 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:29.419 a real lesson in collaboration. You have to be 00:12:29.419 --> 00:12:31.279 vulnerable. You have to let the other person 00:12:31.279 --> 00:12:33.759 mess with your stuff. And for you, as a listener, 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:36.179 it's a reminder that some of the most interesting 00:12:36.179 --> 00:12:39.000 art happens in the margins. This wasn't a chart 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:41.960 topper. It didn't win a Grammy. It's this 40 00:12:41.960 --> 00:12:44.379 -minute slab of weirdness that you might miss. 00:12:44.889 --> 00:12:47.129 if you aren't looking for it it really does reward 00:12:47.129 --> 00:12:49.450 digging a little deeper you know looking at a 00:12:49.450 --> 00:12:52.450 source like this it's really just a stub we have 00:12:52.450 --> 00:12:54.669 the facts yeah we know it was recorded in may 00:12:54.669 --> 00:12:57.429 released in september we know the track lengths 00:12:57.429 --> 00:12:59.129 down to the second you have all the metadata 00:12:59.129 --> 00:13:01.830 but there's so much we don't know that phrase 00:13:01.830 --> 00:13:04.629 largely instrumental it's doing so much work 00:13:04.629 --> 00:13:07.129 what actually happens in those wordless minutes 00:13:07.129 --> 00:13:09.470 that's the mystery and that's the beauty of it 00:13:09.470 --> 00:13:12.720 we have The scaffolding, the dates, the names, 00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:15.539 the track list, but the actual texture of the 00:13:15.539 --> 00:13:19.159 sound in that room in Turin that's left for you 00:13:19.159 --> 00:13:21.899 to fill in. We can analyze the data, but you 00:13:21.899 --> 00:13:24.000 can't replicate the feeling of hearing distorted 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:26.019 duck for the first time without just pressing 00:13:26.019 --> 00:13:28.639 play. The map is not the territory. Exactly. 00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:30.980 We've given you the map. We've pointed out the 00:13:30.980 --> 00:13:32.679 landmarks, but you still have to take the hike. 00:13:34.269 --> 00:13:36.309 Keep an eye out for Adam Ant's covers. And the 00:13:36.309 --> 00:13:38.649 Ducks. Don't forget the Ducks. Thanks for listening 00:13:38.649 --> 00:13:41.909 to this deep dive into XXL. Go find something 00:13:41.909 --> 00:13:44.450 weird to listen to today. Until next time. See 00:13:44.450 --> 00:13:44.509 ya.