While at The Village Recorder (in West Los Angeles) working on new music, I asked André and Nate if we could record a conversation that I would later transcribe and submit as my offering to International Anthem’s 2023 Tracing The Lines zine. They both agreed and this is what we talked about:

A lighter is heard being struck throughout, the flame burning the Sweetgrass that André is holding, Many concurrences, smiles and nods happening, I use “...” to note breaths, not so much words that I left out. Here goes...

C TO A
Does Guillermo grow that? (Referring to instrument maker Guillermo Martinez, who’s Flutes André plays, and who André is an apprentice to as a Flute designer and maker*)

A
No, he just came from a Powwow in Idaho, and brought back a whole bag of these braids...

[As seen in the photo from the studio]

This week there is an even bigger one [Powwow] in Montana...

C
I’m sure that our friends, the WildHorse Native American Association, Los Angeles, Jorge, Art and their families, John, the Apache elder who came through, all know about that one, and will likely be there..

(Referring to our recent collaborators*)

I sent you a video of a great Mystical Musician named Rafael Bejarano, he was playing this amazing Ocarina, did you get a chance to check that out?*

A
No, not yet...

C TO A
I feel really inspired by these instrument makers and I know that you have been making a lot, and we are always talking about instruments... Ocarinas are such fascinating instruments, that one that you have from Nash, it has like 12 holes, right?

(Referring to Nash Tavewa*)

A
Yeah, you use every finger, and your thumbs, then you use the meat, the chicken wing meat of your thumbs, the drummet meat, (laughs...)

N
That’s the Choir Of Doves one, right?

A
Yeah, that’s like multiple Ocarinas in one...

C
This guy Rafael Bejarano, sounded like 4 or 5 people playing at the same time, the way he could circular breathe, and that instrument... It’s amazing how these instruments are designed and constructed... (TO N) What do you think about that?

N
That’s reminding me of this album that I was just gifted by my friend Erik Bailey... Eberhard Weber’s The Colours of Chloë, there’s that big Ocarina theme that he plays on there...

C
Oh yes, I Love that ECM record... inspiration, aah…

N TO C
What are you inspired by right now?

C
I feel inspired by everything... We have this Magical Being that has just come through in new Human form, and it makes me think a lot about that I do not know how many times this Being, (that I refer to as our Baby,) has been hear on Earth before, or what they may be hear for now, or what they want to get into... I feel so open, with so much Love to share with them and to kind of, not get in their way, you know to give them some nice good guidance, we’re just Loving and bonding so much... It makes me feel inspired to come in and do the work that we have been doing too... To show up and keep creating, to keep creating things that we can offer and share with others... It’s really like that, I feel like my whole life is just flowing that way...

A
Both of you have small, small children, and it must be amazing to see a Being discover things for the first time, like to actually be able to sit there and watch it...that’s a gift that comes with having little children, it kinda reminds you of the newness, the newness of everything... and thinking of inspiration, sometimes I try to look at stuff that way, try to figure it out, like wow, I Love when I am discovering something, and that is very inspiring to me.

N
I feel like so much of my inspiration is coming from witnessing my daughter Juniper’s passion and intensity, within a moment she seems like she is experiencing the most massive range of emotions, and sometimes happening all at the same time too, and I know that intimidates some parents, but for me, I find it inspiring, yeah, that’s what it is... totally pure...

C TO A
Do you remember that, as a father, with Seven?

A
Yeah for sure, like seeing something that they are seeing for the first time, or be excited about something passing them and seeing their heads turn, that is really interesting to see...

C
I have been collaborating with my grown child Azul for a long time now, making videos, (TO N) and you have too.

N
Yeah, Azul and I have created a lot together..

C
I’m excited to have Seven come out and get in the studio with us soon too...

A
Yeah, I’m trying to get Seven to come hang out at Guillermo’s man, and at the ceramics school, cause I feel this kinda wanting to make things with his hands energy from him... Shout out to Tony Marsh, Kiln Master at Cal State Long Beach where I work... That gig actually came about through happenstance, art imitating life, life imitating art... I was working on a film and I was playing a Kiln Master...I’ve never done pottery or anything so the production company sent me to hang out with Tony, because he is the real deal. He asked me if I had ever really ever touched clay... and I said no, I’ve never done it, and he sent me home with a block of clay and invited me back, and I haven’t stopped going...

C
You’re turning your drawings and your visions for instruments into ceramics, right? Many Ocarinas and many Flutes are ceramic...

A
I’m a beginner so it’s starting off as more, freehand forming, but I think it informs everything that I am trying to do, like making instruments and visual artwork, it’s all folding into each other in a way, like if I make something with clay, I can take that design and scan it, 3D print it, and make it into something else... It’s all kinda speaking to each other, and I’m doing the woodworking side with Guillermo. Computers, woodworking and ceramics, they’re all coming together...

C
Yo, you know what I am hearing right now, I hear Nate sampling the ceramics space and the woodworking space and us making music from the sounds of the hands on clay and the Kiln and the tools used to make the Flutes... Nate you gotta go...

A
Yes! and for us to play inside the Kiln too! Like my friend Theaster (Gates)* does in Japan...

N
See this is what I Love about making music with you guys, I come here, and it’s just like infinite possibilities, that’s what I feel here, and it’s not just in the sound we are making, it’s in the conversations, and you bringing a new Flute or a new drum, we’re gonna make something with this, or the technology that I am exploring with the sampler-guitar, it’s all encouraged...

C
Like that day, we were finishing a Live thing and you started sampling the conver- sation that we were having after, and next thing we know you’ve made this whole Guitar Synth Beat out of what you sampled us saying, then we went back in and layered on top of that...

A
Yeah it all kinda folds into each other, like stacks of creativity man, coming from everywhere...

…and it went on from there...

Thanks to André, Nate, Engineer Ken Oriole, Eddie Roberts, Annelise, Moss, Jeff Stabenau, Alyssa, Juniper, April, Maia, Adam Rudolph, Jesse Peterson, and Luis Pérez Ixoneztli.

- Carlos Niño, Topanga, California, 082223