Album Notes

In September of 2006, Cosmo D was visiting his government-agent-in-training cousin Chris down in Washington DC. While Chris was up early studying for Advanced Vehicle Handling, Cosmo D had a little time to poke around the neighborhood. He needed a bit of surgical tubing for his cello bow (it helps enhance the grip) so he found Mega Hardware on the internet and headed up the block.

The particular place also doubled as an all-purpose repair shop. TVs, refridgerators, toasters, etc. The variety of machinery humming about the place was staggering. After acquiring his foot-long piece of surgical tubing, he asked if he could capture some of the sounds of all this machinery on his minidisc.

Cosmo D recorded almost every machine in the shop: three microwaves, each from a different decade, a moped brake system, a welding iron, a waffle iron, a stove, a laser printer, a dot matrix labeler, a hydraulics device. Pretty soon Cosmo D had the sounds of 547 unique machines and gadgetry recorded.

Cosmo D had always sought to merge his passions for beat making and electronic music with found sound, jazz and improvisation. Now he had the pallette to do so. Back home in Brooklyn, Cosmo D threw the found sounds he'd collected into his computer, and soon turned them into grooves, the grooves into songs.

With the songs ready, he called his band together. Toronto-native Myk Freedman brought his near-screaming lapsteel. Todd Neufeld came with his warm, lilting electric guitar playing. Josh Myers added his thunderous low-end. Lastly, Ohad Talmor dropped in the appropriate counterpoint of tenor saxophone into all these textures.

Thus, Sauce. They recorded an album's worth of music early in 2007. A colleague, hearing the mixes, cried, "It's as if Matmos is dueling with Tom Waits' junk band on Prairie Home Companion Hour!"

In addition to Sauce, members of the band are very much active in the New York music community at large. In addition to spearheading Sauce, Cosmo D has been performing in Grammy-winner Matt Darriau's Paradox Trio, the Fred Hersch ensemble and Lee Konitz's New Nonet, which Ohad directs. Ohad also arranges the music for Mr. Konitz in addition to the Steve Swallow Ensemble. Todd and Josh both play in Gerald Cleaver's Nimbih Ensemble and Myk, with one musical foot in Brooklyn and the other in Toronto, has lent his unique Lap-steel sound to musicians William Parker, Marco Benevento and Victor Batemen.