Gemunu de Silva: Industry Standard

I grew up and I became a vegetarian listening to punk albums because there was some real genre in the 80s. There was a real punk scene which talked about vegetarianism, which talked about veganism, which talked about the peace movement and that really influenced me and there was one record specifically by a bank called Conflict that I listened to it and I went vegetarian. And that's the power of music, it's not traditional efficacy. So in a way I'm kind of paying homage to how I got into animal rights and I want this album not to be a traditional advocacy tool. Hi I'm Elizabeth Novogratz, this is species unite. For nearly four decades, Gemini to Silva has gone where almost no one else will. Inside factory farms, slaughterhouses, fur farms, laboratories and the hidden corners of global animal industries. As one of the world's most experienced undercover investigators, his work has exposed cruelty across six continents, helped shut down industries and changed laws, saving millions of animals in the process. But after 37 years of investigations, Gem began to realize something unexpected. It wasn't only the images that stayed with him, it was the sounds. The outcry of the animals, the hum of machinery, the clatter of metal, the silence and the noise animals are forced to live inside every day. In this episode, Gem joins us to talk about his most unconventional project yet. Industry standard. An album built from real recordings gathered during decades of undercover investigations. Part music, part journalism, part art, the record captures the industrial soundscape of animal exploitation in a way that no one has ever done before. This is what animal suffering sounds like, when you strip away the euphemisms, the marketing and the lies, and once you hear it, it's impossible to forget. Hi Beth, it's really a pleasure to come back on your own podcast, it's really one of my favorite podcasts. Yeah, it's a real privilege. So thank you. Yeah, awesome. Thank you, you've been on quite a few times, but you have not been on in a long time. And you're on with an entire new project that, as far as I know, no one's ever done before anything like it. Before we even get to your project, for people who haven't heard your other episodes, I just want to give background on who you are, and we can kind of mesh it in to how this project got formed too, because it's come from so many years of your work. Yeah, absolutely. I've been investigating animal cruelty for 37 years. You know, 37 years ago was when I first entered a factory farm to make a film about factory farming. And ever since then, I've really kind of focused on investigations. So I set up the investigations unit at Compassion in World Farming in the 90s and went to work at cruelty free international working on animal experiments and investigating the primate trade. And then in 2006, I set up this organization, Tracks Investigations. The Tracks really is to provide a service to animal protection groups all around the world and provide them investigative services. For people who haven't heard gums earlier episodes, one of the things that Tracks investigated and uncovered that really blew me away that it even existed in the first place was the horses in Iceland, their blood is used and injected in pigs in the US and EU to make them on cycles so they'll have more piglets and they'll have them at the same time. It's this crazy, horrible industry that only exists in a few countries but a few too many. So go back and listen to that and go back and listen to the episodes about horse slaughter and gums first episode, which goes into depth on many of their investigations, including you going undercover in the primate trade, like capturing monkeys for testing, like really insane stuff. I'll certainly have some experiences throughout my 37 years. I think hanging out with monkey trappers for three weeks, going undercover and obtaining footage of their trapping in Mauritius this was was kind of, that was quite insane as well, that was an insane project, but you know, a lot of the projects that you've just talked about, you know, have had an impact, you know, for example, we uncovered the transport of horses that were going from the US to a certain feedlot in Alberta in Canada and I don't know if you know this bit, but it was about two years ago, the actual feedlot that we were investigating closed down. So that was an absolute, you know, we went back to that specific feedlot for about three or four times over a period of six or seven years and each time they hadn't exposed a, you know, they tried to say it was one off, but you know, if you keep going back things do change. So I mean, that's been one remarkable thing about tracks is that we have actually impacted change. So I think that's something that I think we can be quite rightly proud of, you know, we've done investigations into fur farms in Belgium and France, you know, over again over a period of 10 years, you know, it's the persistence of going back to each farm time and time again. And you know, after six or seven years, legislation has been passing both those countries to, you know, ban fur farming. So, yeah, so that's what keeps me going is the successes that we have otherwise it will be, yeah, otherwise, you know, I think you will go slightly crazy. Well, 37 years of seeing some of the worst stuff on the planet too is a lie. So if you didn't have wins, I can imagine anyone could do this for this slide. Yeah. I mean, the wins keep us going. We've got live exports banned from the UK as a result of our investigations. We did investigations for animals Australia in the Middle East and also Indonesia. And as a result of their campaigning and their lobbying and we're really a small part of this, you know, we are just do the investigations and I should say the credit goes out to a lot of the organisations that work we work with have amazing lobbying, lasing campaigning skills. And as a result of those investigations to deliver to animals Australia, you know, live exports is going to be banned from Australia from 2028 live exports or sheep. So, you know, there are wins and that means millions of animals won't suffer on four to five week horrendous long tea journey. So, these are real tangent will effects that, you know, investigations have resulted in. And just to clarify that for people who don't know, live exports, like Gem just said, thousands of animals are put on a ship crammed in there together and for a month, month and a half, they're at sea. Right now there is a ship outside of Turkey with thousands of pregnant cows on it and it's stuck and it now has to go back to Uruguay. They came from Uruguay and as often in these things, there's problems at customs. When you've got a ship, it's actually evaporated, you know, I've been doing the transport trade on road throughout Europe and yeah, you do have problems at customer's border and sometimes animals are just abandoned. In fact, one of the major things that we saw was in, when I was about working for compassion and well farming in 1998 where we saw two chipments or two lorry loads of sheep just being abandoned on the side of the port because they couldn't go over and they just, and yeah, it was horrific. It was horrific. Live exports is kind of the untold story really and the more transport because people don't really think about transport as being a welfare issue but it's absolutely a major issue. And I think most people are very unaware that it exists in the first place, especially like these month long voyages and boats with thousands of animals on them. I just don't think there's a lot more about that. And it's crisscrossed throughout Europe and it's crisscrossed throughout the world. Australia to the Middle East was a major route so the fact that, you know, millions of sheep won't be having to make that journey in the future from 2028, it's a real milestone and that is the result directly of investigations. Well done. Okay, but this is not what we're here to talk about because 37 years you have been doing investigations and you have seen and witnessed a lot of horror. But, and I never really thought about this until you told me about this a few years ago, you've also heard a lot of horror. And so when you talk about your latest project and what it is first and then we'll get into it. If you go onto a factory farm or when you do investigating animal cruelty, it's not just one sense that's attacked. It's really all the senses that you're attacked, you know, it's, first of all, it's the smell. You know, you go to a factory farm and the smell of the monew kind of burns your eyes, burns your nostrils and then there's a sea of suffering in front of you that you're trying to document. But there's also the sounds and that really hasn't been documented and they stay with me. You know, I've been doing investigations for 37 years and it's not just the visuals that stay with me, it's the sounds that stay with me. And so I've decided to explore my artistic phase and do a album called "Industry Standards" which really lies at the intersection of art, activism, journalism and music. And users' field recordings from the investigations that I've done as a basis for a record. When you first told me about this, I'll be honest, I was a little bit like, who is going to listen to these sounds? Because they're like, and for a project I was doing a couple years ago that we didn't end up doing. I asked him for some sounds from a pig slaughterhouse and he sent them and they were so hard to listen to like 20 seconds of this pig slaughterhouse, but I didn't realize you were doing something much bigger than just the actual sounds and it's a lot more sounds than the horrible sounds. I mean, they're all horrible in the sense of what the animals are listening to. But so, will you talk about this concept? Because when you originally thought about this, what were your thoughts? It really goes back to, I think, probably about 25 years ago. And 25 years ago, there was an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the UK and that's a big contemporary art studio right by Buckingham Palace, you know, it's by the mall. It's quite high profile. And I had an installation there and it was called "Injusly Standard" and it was a video installation and it's where I manipulated the sound and manipulated the visuals and it was part of, it was a great show, it was looking at animals, science, art and ethics. And it was, and it was my first exposure really to working within the art sector. And it was a real tremendous exhibition and I really loved making the piece and the trouble is with art is it kind of takes a backseat with me, you know, I've always been interested in art. My background is filmmaking and it's also experimental filmmaking but documentary filmmaking, but I decided to explore sound really because, as you said, no one's really done anything on sound and animal advocacy before. And I decided to make this album and you're absolutely right. When I kind of first describe it to people, people think why are you going to listen to this? This is going to be horrible but I wanted to make it listenable, actionable and listening experience really and give an ear witness account if you want to what was actually going on. What were you thinking in terms of like, were you thinking there'd be music with it then? Well, I live in Oxford in the UK and they, as you probably know, Oxford has a great university and I did a part-time course at this university on Sonic art and environmental sound and that kind of really opened my eyes to what you could do with sound and I always have the idea of using sound as an advocacy tool. So I kind of took this course to just explore some of the areas that you could use, sort of as art and sound and at the end of the term when we had to produce a piece, I did a prototype of this interestly standard but it was kind of very basic and it was kind of very much field recording. So I needed something else really, I needed something else but so I kind of sat on this project for a couple of years thinking how can I elevate this project. And then I had a chance encounter with a guy called Carol Orchewski at an animal rights conference and he works as a resource director at Fornalistics and we just got chatting at this conference a couple of years ago and we were really talking originally about investigations because he's doing an investigation state-of-base and I just mentioned this project and lo and behold Carol is a musician, he's not only any old musician, he has been performing and producing albums for about 20 years and his experimental musician he also does Doomwrap, he does lots of different genres and he kind of got excited about this project so we decided to start a collaboration and the beauty bet with collaborations is you don't really know where they're going to go with, you know, you just like you have to trust the person and you have to trust the process. So for a period of say 18 months we just had fortnightly Zoom calls, I'd send in ideas, I'd send in bits, you know again I've got an archive of field recordings, I've got hundreds and hundreds of hours or tapes which I had to digitize and I sent some of the concepts that I liked of what I wanted to Carol and then he worked his magic on it, he absolutely worked his magic on it and made these amazing tracks that you all hear and yeah I would just say part of this is I don't want to get too technical back in the 50s there was a concept called music concrete which was an experimental music scene where they were trying to use raw sounds as basses for tracks and it was a guy called Philip Schaeffer originally and the guy called Pierre Henry in the 60s and that was a real inspiration because it had been done before but obviously not for animal sounds that you used the raw material but then you'd either manipulate it to make it a new musical track so so what Carol did was he looped it he stretched it he sampled it and he added rhythms he added beats and what you get in the end I think it's a truly listener ball experience you know it really opens your eyes oh I've heard it I think it's incredible listening experience and it's really really good music I was stunned because I don't I don't think I was expecting to hear just straight up sounds of terror because I knew what you were working on you know when you sent it to me and it's awesome it is really good we're gonna be playing parts of each track throughout this next part of the conversation so people can understand and hear how good it is and and how meaningful it's it turned out you really feel like it's just a whole nother level of understanding what we're doing to animals I feel like well it's cool industry standards because it's an industry you know these are animal industries and when you normally hear the sounds of animals you know in nature you hear the hound of nature the wind the river the sea you know you don't hear industry and that's what we've tried to capture so it's not just the animal sounds it's actually the industrial sounds so it's the sounds of the fans the sounds of the transport you know the sounds of the metal it's not just the animals and of course we've added another element in that's people because it's quite a personal film to me as a sound to me because we've included some of investigators stories you know reactions during the production you know some of my you know when I actually went on a chicken farm for example you can hear me talk about my initial reaction you can also hear about news clippings as well so we can kind of got now the prime minister talking of of Australia talking about their reactions to investigations so we kind of use different elements to make it a listenable experience really yeah it's an album that you want to actually just sit and listen to and not do anything else that's why it's on vinyl you know I grew up on vinyl I mean again that's another really important homage you know I grew up and I became a vegetarian listening to punk albums because there was some real genre in the 80s there was a real punk scene which talked about vegetarianism which talked about veganism which talked about the peace movement and that really influenced me and there was one record specifically by a bank or conflict that I listened to it and I went vegetarian you know and that's the power of music you know it's not traditional efficacy so in a way I'm kind of paying homage to how I got into animal rights and I want this album not to be a traditional advocacy tool you know I wanted it to reach out to people in the music world you know I don't want to reach out to vegans I don't want to reach out to you know people who are already aware of what's going on I want to be able to get this album out like I was you know back in the 80s you know when I first encountered it I wasn't interested in these issues and music brought me into these issues so that's why I yeah I really made wanted to make an album and just so I can't totally get rid of the visual world and some of those albums back in the 80s had great sleeve notes and they had great pullouts so this album has an eight-page booklet of some of the images that inspired the tracks and gives us some information about where the field recordings were and the number of animals used so there's no compliment to it so and I kind of see it as an artifact so they kind of go together yeah the booklet the booklet are so incredible and it's it's stunning I've just listened to it before we came on airbeth and what I love about it and when you've got an album you've got to give 20 minutes each side you kind of focus on it and and it's kind of an antidote to the streaming world and it's an antidote to perhaps Instagram when you just look at images and just scroll on and that's why I wanted to explore sound because I think sound it gives us some of opportunity for people to go deeper into a subject and really not just have fleeting glances of what they're seeing and scrolling and moving on it's actually demanding attention and I'd like to demand attention in a pleasurable way you know it's an interesting listening experience because I think you're absolutely right if it was just screams and torture no one would listen to it whereas I've hopefully made it with carols amazing assistance something that's really good and I'm really proud of it I love it I yeah it's not often I think oh this is really good but I love it it's really good so let's let's go through some of these tracks start with La Voyage is it about animal transport and it's kind of musically it's the most music orientated track so that's why we started with it because I'm aware that people might not be used to experimental music so I've started off and I asked Carol to produce a what's called a motoric soundtrack which is a kind of an industrial beat soundtrack and you know using the tyres the the hums of the transport just to create a beat so I really wanted it to be a starting point and transport and especially for me personally I've done so many hours following trucks right across Europe you know I've probably spent three or four years just thousands and thousands of miles criss-crossing Europe following trucks along Europe so it's kind of personal to me so that's an a reason why I wanted to kind of start with that one because that's the thing I've probably done most and I think we mentioned previously in this podcast that experience of at the port in Italy where those animals were left and one thing that struck me about all that footage was just hearing the investigators reactions and I really wanted to capture that so often so that's in this muse that's in this piece but also it has the prime minister of a country saying they were shocked by the footage it's got news it's got news articles it's got to be recorded yes and yeah so it's really trying to build a picture that transport is never ending it carries on it carries on and it's it's such a massive part of this industry these animals are all on these horribly uncomfortable to say it like nicely uncomfortable journeys that end at a slaughterhouse that track actually ends up on you actually hear seagulls at the end because it's a sea journey and it's the sea journey it was from if this one was a short sea journey it's just a sea journey from the UK to to France and it's just the noted at the end of all this industry that you hear you hear the sounds of freedom but they're not the freedom of the animals that you track what's about is other animals so it's just a light just the position of of what's going on that some animals are free and some animals are traded and transported millions of miles across billions billions of animals are exported right across the world the next track I don't think many people have any idea about this industry but and this one did make me a little nervous the first time when I was able to listen to it yeah this track is angora in f-bager and it's from an investigation when we put hidden cameras into the angora trade so this is how for angora wolf or angora jumper what they do is they live pluck angora and not angora rabbit they're basically ripping the fur from an angora and what made this track footage interesting is the person doing this had a radio station you know he was listening to the classical music and in the background was this track by Schocherskowicz called angora piano pit concerto number three and it just seemed so incredulous that something so horrific distressing was happening with this jaunty classical music in the background and we were almost thinking of keeping it as alive recording a like a field recording piece but you're absolutely right it was kind of too distressing to to keep it natural so we kind of manipulated and we sampled a bit of the rate that the track and we sampled a bit of the sounds and that's another thing with this thing we're not trying to make people distressed it's really important to stress that it's not it's to make people think what's going on there then what's going on there it's like leave a bit to the imagination because I think that's what sound can do really because it leaves you know people's imaginations to run right hopefully yeah I didn't find any of it distressing in the sense that I wanted to turn anything off I knew a lot going in right just for people who are planning on listening to this it's not it's not distressing I didn't want to make a distressing album because that's the last thing I want to do because I I wanted to make a listenable album something that people would be you know would have feelings too and I think that's where art's really important because it's not telling you what to do it's it's encouraging you to feel something and that's the whole purpose of this this album you know is to make people feel something and how they act I'm not going to tell them how to act but hopefully they will take it on board some of the sounds that they've heard and perhaps act a bit differently or act you know it's it's just to open people's ears up to things how was it for you to go back through many many years of archives and footage and listening to all of this when I started it I knew I had to have certain bits because some memories a sound still you know it's really evocative you know for for example there's a track on the album called "Till From The Wild" which is monkey trapping and and what it starts off with monkey trapping and then goes to primate farms and then goes to animal labs and there's one specific bits on that on the trapping aspect which is really evocative it's like a plaintive sad little monkey crying because its mother has just been caught and it's not yeah I just knew I just needed to capture that specific sound within within this piece so there were a few other pieces like that there was a few other pieces that I knew I specifically had to get because they have stayed with me you know so you know like images stay with you some sounds have stayed with me with you know right throughout you know doing the investigations so yeah so you had an idea of what I was going to what was going to go on here how I constructed it is I went through we decided on what tracks to use and then I literally collated approximately about 40 minutes for each track or field recording that I sent to Carol and it was really nice working experience because for example he pick up certain hums you know it sounds really bad but it's a real hum that I liked in a pig unit because the pig unit I mean this is nothing about factory farming it's just so unnatural it's so unnatural and the tracks call concrete mothers [Music] [Music] and it's because every time you go into a pig unit it's just concrete there's no earth there's no sound there's no grass there's no air you know a blue sky in front of you it's literally concrete and you have hums because it's an industry and these factory these are factory farms and they're called factory farms for a reason because they are factories you know and they have industrial sounds and there was one particular hum that I really liked and it sounds a bit crazy and I said to Carol you know this is really I really like this sound and he managed to isolate the sounds and then worked out what key and note it was because he's a musician and replicated with the beats and synths that accompanied it so that's where there's a real dynamic of collaboration because you know you've got the industry but then you've also got the music and it's really important that this is a music album as well yeah for sure for sure talk about Lamb of God so again if I if I describe it you would listen to it you know so ultimately it's about a journey through a slaughterhouse for some sheep it was an in the Greek slaughterhouse but again this one's quite subtle because there's no screaming there's no screaming because often in slaughterhouses there is no screaming you know and it's just an industrial so it's a very much follows the journey from Lamb's being unloaded so you have the sounds of transport you have the sounds of them being heard into large fins and you have the sounds of distant voices of people telling trying to move these animals and then we move on to I think quite a poignant scene where we hear a lot of and you don't know if what exactly it is but it's the clatter of a killing line basically so there's just shackles so how Lamb's slaughtered is there held up by their legs and then moved along this line and then killed and stunned and killed and you don't hear the screams but you hear a lot of metal clacking and so what we've done is trying to use that metal clacking but make it a bit more poignant and again that's where you know we have some music we have some synths involved which kind of gives it a sort of ethereal end to the priest and that's the end of side one really it gives you an end of a kind of reflective piece because you know we want people to be reflective we don't want to shock we want people to think oh what they heard and yeah the original metal clacking that you heard there right that's the kind of sound that would stay with me for life there's something really powerful about it it does something to you it's it's always going back to interesting standards and that's why I think it's it's the good name because if there are industries there are industries and industries are metal industries are cost concrete industries aren't natural these are factories so it's really emphasizing that this is an industrial use of animals that we're using yeah these are units of production these aren't individual sentient beings these are units no and no matter how I mean you heard a lot of these sounds often throughout your career do you get numb to them ever it's interesting with sounds because it's it's a sense that it's it's some it's I think it takes you back and it is you you don't get numb to them but you don't often hear them again so often with visuals you'll see it and you think oh god I remember this whereas I mean this is why we wanted to put this out but because the sounds of industrial farming sounds of fashion aren't generally heard you know so this is what we wanted to do is actually you know people have done the hidden lives of animals and worked with photojournalism but these are the hidden sounds of what's going on that's what we wanted to do it's just show yeah what goes on it's and it's entirety as it were yeah what about live fast day young with a growing number of consumers switching from red meat to poultry the chicken industry is booming over the last 40 years the price of chicken has tumbled so dramatically that it's gone from being something special to being an everyday take away throw away food but how come it's so cheap the birds are pushed to reach their slaughter weight in just 41 days which is twice as fast as 30 years ago genetic selection so I love that title and I can't claim to own it it was actually I am that title was made for a film I made a compassion in well farming and the person that came up with it was Leah Garces back at I think she was one or two years into her career of animal advocacy that's amazing so she was cool she was cool and she thought of a great title and I thought oh okay I'm going to nick that title again for this track I love it because because it's so appropriate because it's the life of a broiler chicken and the broiler chicken lives for 41 days you know that's the whole entirety and that's why and it sounds really rock and roll as well it sounds like a music track so that's one of the few tracks that has a description of what's going on to start off with it kind of gives you something it's kind of a voiceover it's actually from that film original film setting the scene but then it uses then we follow the journey of a broiler chicken so we went to our team went to China and saw these vast hatcheries and again a major major and you can't believe and the front cover actually is a it's a still from that factory because you've got thousands of chickens being de-beaked basically so their beaks are they just go around on a conveyor belt and industrial machines taking their beaks off and so I'm going to interrupt you for a second for people who don't know will you explain why that happens so broiler chickens are made of the chickens that you use for meat are de-beaked because it means they can't pick each other basically so you know you're actually in a farm and they don't want and when you've got 20 to 30,000 birds in one shed or 30, 40,000 birds in one shed animals don't behave their you know their natural behaviors and what would it often happen is they'll attack each other or cannibalism and so what the industry has decided to do instead of what the industry has decided to do is take the beaks off the chickens so they can't pick basically and and so what you see is these day old chicks going around on a small conveyor belt or large conveyor belt and it's just industry and it's just a sound of them their beaks been cut off and it sounds again it's going back to industry it's a vast scale and we have on this piece we have you know it's a it's a vast machine and we have somebody saying it's the machines from America because you know they're very proud of their American machine that's gone over to China that's revolutionary rise them their industry we have the sound of the broilers when they were young and then we follow it through to the factory farm you know whether in the sheds and then we we have interludes where you know that's where I come in and talk about some of the reactions that I've seen actually on the you know first-hand reactions because one of the farms I went to was supposedly what they call the farmer short farm food that you could trust you know food that they're proud of this is what the industry has said and it was it was terrific it was terrific and so so it has some reactions to that and it also has some reactions to American free range farmer talking about the industrial chicken and what their reactions or their thoughts are about the industrial chicken so it kind of uses lots of people's reactions so that track I like because it talks you know it has people and it has animals and it has the industrial sound and I think the more people like listen to this and get curious about it also the more the learn about what's really happening as well I think that's the purpose of this album this album's not for your animal rights audience really it's really for experimental music audience your music audience and it's you know what people would listen to it and then they'll hopefully engage with the subject and then bring it to new audiences you know that's the purpose of it I've got to realise it's not it's not Taylor Swift you know even though Taylor Swift has revolutionized vinyl over the last few years it's not going to be your Christmas number one or your number one so I'm aware of that but what I'm learning just talking to people about the distribution there's so many outlets and there's so many opportunities to talk about advocacy so many opportunities to bring this this advocacy tool to a new world you know that's what I'm really excited about it's because you know you've got to advance advocacy animal advocacy and you know I started off filmmaking and in my day job which is the investigations you know and I still love investigations and I work with you know some great organisations but I really wanted to explore something different with this project because it's not been done before I really I'm absolutely certain it's not been done before you know you've had and it's you know you've had seminal albums listening to albums before for example I think you had on your show somebody talking about in the 1970s whale sound somebody did an album of whale sounds and how that album kind of ignited the save to save the whale camp that album actually saved the whale like literally saved millions and millions of whales because it all of a sudden introduced the world to the fact that whales could sing and therefore after centuries of having zero empathy for whales humans changed their tune and realized that oh wait they can sing there's more to them and it started major campaigns to save whales so no pressure then on this album but I really I really hope it has an impact that you know that's an unusual impact but it breaks through you know into the music world it breaks into you know the sonic world the art world you know and as I mentioned I think it does lie at the advocacy at the intersection of our advocacy journalism as well and music you know it's really it's really quite hard to pigeonhole but I think it lies at the intersection of all those specific genres yeah I think so too I do there's a couple more tracks that I want to talk about let's first is cage variations so cage variations it's about life on a fur farm and in a way this is a hopeful story because these were investigations that I did in France and Belgium where we investigated 49 fur farms you know throughout those countries and as a result of those investigations fur farming was banned in both countries but what it actually sounds like it's the sounds of animals and cages you can't get away from this one it's the repetition the boredom the the distress and it has investigated this again has investigated a reaction on about seeing in quite a journalistic way he just documents what he's seeing you know and he's documenting what he's seeing in quite a I think quite a neutral manner but when you kind of juxtapose that with that show what's going on or what the sounds are it's kind of disturbing perhaps not disturbing kind of unusual we also have interesting spokesman's taking about how wonderful the their fur farms are so yeah it's a contemplative track of all these industries it's the one that we can pretty much bet on and it's on its way completely out it's moving in that direction and that's why I say it's a hopeful track because you know as a result of those investigations you know fur farming was banned in those countries and it's kind of a domino effect right across Europe so you know I think at the moment there's 21 countries that have banned fur farming in Europe so it's kind of a hopeful one and it's just in a way I hope it's like and it sounds strange you know if it could be there with the last sounds of a fur farm wouldn't that be great yes and when the kids listen to this 20 years show them now they're like what is that what's a fur farm so there is hope there is hope and then hopefully all these other things follow follow suit at some point and you end the album with beloved we talk about that (upbeat music) (upbeat music) So, I love it. We started the track, the album, with a musical track. And we kind of end the album with a musical track as well. And it's got a beat. And the love it is about, and again, if I mentioned right the start, what is about? You'll think I don't want to listen to it. It's about the dog meat trade in Vietnam. And so we've investigated this trade for a number of years for a couple of organizations. And the purpose of this track is just to show, and the title of the track is beloved. It is tried to ask ourselves why we favor one animal and don't think about another animal. Because often when the organizations I've worked with put posts up, you know, you'd get horrific reactions to the dog meat trade. And there seems to be some descendants regarding other animals which are used for fashion, for use for food. So it's really, that's why I want to end it with it. It's just to make people think about the track. So it starts off with beats basically because the metals of cages of animals in the dog meat trade are often transported on lorries, just like pigs, cattle, sheep. They're putting crates. And these crates make noises when they're loaded up. And so we kind of use the crates. So you don't really hear the animals or dogs at all. And we finish on the track because, and it is the last track. And this is one bit I would say. There's probably about 15 to 20 seconds at the end, which is, can be uncomfortable. And it is uncomfortable, I think, because I think sometimes you need to just remind people what it's about. And it's about the slaughter of dogs. And unbelievably dogs, when they're being transported or when they're just awaiting slaughter, are just so compliant. It's unbelievable. You know, you'd get five, 10 dogs in a crate. And they'll just, you'd think they'll be whining. They'd think they'll be screaming to get out of it, but they're compliant. And I, to this day, I don't know why they're compliant. It's, I really don't know. But when they take enough, those cages to be killed, that's when you hear, that's when you hear a scream. And so I wanted to finish the album just at the end with just about the reality. And that's, I'd say, throughout the whole listening experience, that was the only bit that I would think might be a bit difficult. - Yeah, but I think also ending with it is a reminder that this is all real. - Yeah, I like to listen to albums. I like to sit down and you kind of contemplate it. It's going back to when I went vegetarian. You know, I listened to this track. And then I stopped. I thought about it. And, you know, just there's a bit of space at the end to think about something. And I think that's why we put it at the end. It's just to have it enable people to think about it at the end. And think about not just the dogs, but everything that they've heard beforehand. So it's kind of, yeah. - And I think this is also the kind of album, one thing that would really be nice would be listening parties. Like people listening together. - I mean, it's really funny you say that Beth because I've got a friend who runs record label. And he contacted me yesterday and just said, "Hey, this would be really good at a listening party. Are we going to organise one?" And I think this will be absolutely the way. So again, and we're going to organise one. And it's again, you know, with a record label. And it's with, you know, you know, it's a music event. So it's not an animal rights listening party. It's a music event or an experimental music event. So absolutely, I mean, there's lots of advocacy ideas that I have with this, and listening parties is certainly one because then you'd be able to just gauge people's reactions and then talk about it. And we're also looking at exhibition spaces because I think this would work really well in exhibition spaces where you've got either a darkened room. You know, I've been to some exhibitions where you've just had a total audio experience. So you've been into darkened rooms. And I've been in there for 20, 40 minutes just listening to things. And I think that would work. But we also have, as a backdrop, we do have all the images that we have from our booklet. - Yeah. (laughs) - If I can't quite get rid of the visual take. But yeah, I think there's so many opportunities for advocacy with this. And this is another person's reason to doing this project is to actually ultimately am an animal advocate. Yeah, generally normally an investigator. But this time I'd like to explore art again. - How do people get, first of all, can they only get an unvinyl or other options? - So this album is out on our website. You can buy it on our website, www.tracksinvestigations.org, or via Carol's Bank Camp page, Nostek Front Bank Camp. It's also available on normal digital outlets, on Spotify, Apple, Music, and all streaming platforms. - And we'll have links on our website too. So people can go to theirs too. - Yeah, but I really would emphasize the listening experience of vinyl. (laughs) I see it's an artifact because it is again, it's a homage to the albums that I grew up with. The albums that I grew up with weren't just fleeting glances or songs. You'd get a record, you'd look at the lyrics, you'd get the whole thing in front of you, and you'd digest it in no other way. So that's why I was really abdiment that it would be a vinyl record, as opposed to just a streaming record. But I do realise that the world is different and not everybody has a vinyl turntable. So yeah, you can get it on streaming platforms. - Awesome. - Yeah, I can't wait for everybody else to hear this. - There is a real movement for having art advocacy. I'm really excited about it. And it's not often, I'm really excited about a project that I've done, but this one I really think is, it's kind of unique, it's unique. No one's done it before, and I really hope it has the impact that I believe it can do. - Me too, and I think it will. Well, thank you for today, for the album, and for 37 years of undercover investigations. It's awesome. - Thanks, Beth. That's been really pleasure speaking to you. (soft music) - Industry standard will be out in the world on January 18th, but you can pre-order now if you're listening to this before the 18th. Go to the links, get mentioned, or go to our website, speciesunite.com, and we will have links to everything. We are on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok at SpeciesUnite. If you have a spare moment and can do us a favor, please subscribe, rate, review on Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find the show. I would like to thank everyone at SpeciesUnite, including Gary Canutson, Caitlin Pierce, Amy Jones, Paul Healey, Santina Polkielink, Hannah Gabrielson, Bethany Jones, Patrick Norton, and Anna Calder, who wrote and performed today's music. Thank you for listening, have a wonderful day. (soft music) (soft music) (soft music)