After moving back from Sheffield to Mexico in the twilight of 2013, one of the hobbies I picked was podcasting. Nothing fancy, just a zoom H1 recorder, a few drinks, and whatever fancy bread Superama had on sale that day.

Recording a podcast is fun. Editing out plosives and coughs not so much. It’s a skill, though, and although it was just a hobby that sputtered out later, I learned so much.

Everything got uploaded to Mixcloud. It was the place where all Sloucher audio content lived. YouTube was out of the question as we would get copyright strikes after uploading due to music.

It was hard to edit around music but I couldn’t remove it for two reasons: it was part of the mood and I wasn’t technical proficient to do so. Eventually we stopped having music in the background. Sorted.

With that said, the one song that always reminds me of those days and that now defunct podcast was Devin Townsend’s before we die. A song where Devin invited fans to sing along as a chorus of thousands. It’s a beautiful song and it’s as far as you can get from his previous days in strapping young lad.

Honestly, I only knew Devin Townsend from his previous band. It was co-host Gonzalo who introduced me to his solo stuff and I will always be grateful to him for this. This one’s for you, brother.

-Sam J. Valdés López