For the past 30 years, Toronto’s Picastro has been evolving an intense and idiosyncratic variant of indie rock songcraft, embracing unique instrumentation, unsettling dissonance, and an ultra-personal approach to form and dynamics along the way. The vision of vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Liz Hysen has anchored the project’s sound throughout these three decades, even amidst a diverse cast of collaborators that have come, gone, and sometimes returned. Among these contributors are Owen Pallett, Brandon Valdivia (AKA Mas Aya), Stephanie Vittas, Nick Storring, Matthew Ramolo (AKA Khôra), Germaine Liu, and members of beloved Toronto groups spanning Eucalyptus to Pecola.
The forthcoming EP, Double On Time is Picastro’s first release for Toronto imprint We Are Bodies, who celebrated their 20 year anniversary last year. Historically Hysen has made a habit of adopting surprise shifts in sound with each successive recording. Become Secret from 2009 stripped back the full band sound of her first three releases for an atmosphere of eerie spareness. 2019’s Exit added modular synth (courtesy of Matthew Ramolo) as part of the core ensemble and most of the vocal duties were handed over to male guests, spanning Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart to Chris Cummings (Marker Starling).
Even when subjected to these stark contrasts, Hysen’s disarming blend of vulnerability and aggression is preserved and this remains the case in the present collection, especially given that her choice of subject matter reinforces that characteristic blend.
During the height of the pandemic, Hysen digested a number of books about a varied cross-section of different boxers, spanning multiple eras and geographical locations. She now trained in the sport herself for roughly seven years, and was victorious in both of her matches. Hysen recognizes strong parallels with music, particularly with improvising. “You have to be really good at reading people and understand timing,” she notes.
Sonny Liston was a name that kept cropping up throughout these texts and the fighter became a source of fascination for Hysen. Liston competed from 1953 until his sudden and mysterious death in 1970. Following a 1962 victory over Floyd Patterson, he was crowned World Heavyweight Champion and retained a reputation for being unbeatable for the ensuing two years. However an inflamed shoulder cost him the title to then-underdog Muhammad Ali. Liston then suffered an even more devastating defeat in the subsequent rematch the next year. Ali’s controversial first-round knockout—among the fastest ever in their weight class—was the subject of considerable speculation, and ended up being immortalized in Neil Leifert’s iconic photo.
“Not one boxing historian listed his age or birth date,” remarks Hysen. “Finally, I read in one book that he was part of a family of 12 children born in the southern US and that someone had carved the birthdates of the children into a tree but then the tree was chopped down.” Having worked as an archivist for many years, Hysen understands the socio-political complexity around birth-records, but the anecdote still left an impression on her. “I felt like he needed some recognition not necessarily as a boxer but as a human being. There were elements of him all over the place but none of them felt like records of his existence in any meaningful way.”
Given that the textual dimension of Double On Time retains the blunt-yet-elusive approach Hysen has honed throughout her career, it’s hard to regard these five songs as a document of Liston. Yet in its oblique homage to him, this EP certainly stands to advocate for his humanity.
From a sound perspective, Hysen’s deployment of mangled samples immediately distinguishes this release from other entries in Picastro’s discography. Their inclusion comes as a direct result of her seeking to sharpen her Ableton Live skills under Ben Vida’s guidance, another COVID-era pursuit. Completely coincidentally, American composer Charles Ives—known for his pioneering use of musical quotation—was one of the first things she mined for samples. Hysen’s initial attraction to Ives as a source was purely sonic and intuitive, but the realization that his pieces were littered with citations emboldened her to explore the technique in greater depth.
EP opener “Fell The Family Tree” begins with an anxious truncated loop snatched from Ives’ Study #11, a work in which Ives “samples himself.” The obsessive, stumbling quality of this repeated piano shard sets the tone for Hysen’s use of such excerpts throughout the EP. A more common tendency is to use samples to build a sort of musical scaffolding, but Hysen resists using them to stabilize the emotional landscape. Instead, she prefers them to lay tense, precarious foundations or lurk menacingly on the periphery.
On Double On Time, Ives not only serves as a rich audio source, he provides the model for Hysen’s approach to quotation and its ultimate result. “I used to let influences seep in, but this time I was controlling them,” remarks Hysen, commenting that “the EP is about origins, examining them, celebrating them, re-defining them.” Yet, it may not even be a question of tempering influences for her. Much like Ives, no matter what and how much Hysen samples or quotes other music, these external sources only serve to bolster her singular artistic identity.
Double On Time will be released by We Are Busy Bodies on June 12.