Isaiah Collier and Sonny Daze on improvisation, hi-fi and recording direct-to-tape.

“I used to put a fan in my grandparents’ window and a speaker next to it, and I would host my own little radio show on Saturdays,” says DJ and Isaiah Collier manager Sonny Daze, recalling his first experiments with sound. “I don’t know if anybody was out there at nine in the morning listening, but it was something I wanted to do, share music with whomever was out there. So it’s keeping a childlike energy to now do it on an international level.”

That sense of play pulses through Isaiah Collier and Tim Regis’ performance at Devon Turnbull's Listening Room. The Chicago saxophonist and his collaborator approached the project with an open mind. “We show up and we’re like, well, we don’t know what’s gonna happen, but let’s see. And I think that’s a good thing in life when you just show up and you give your best effort to do something good,” Daze says.

In a new conversation, filmed at the Listening Room at 180 Studios, Collier and Daze go behind the scenes on their new release for TVF – Live in the Listening Room – and discuss their relationship with hi-fi, meeting Devon Turnbull, and preparing for an improvised recording.

The two have been working closely with Turnbull for the past four years, creating site-specific recordings in spaces that reimagine what hi-fi can be. “I tip my hat off to Sonny and Devon for just being able to see a different concept of how sound can be applied,” says Collier. “In a different context, in real time, there was no preconceived notion for us about what we were gonna do, and we just went in and we just got straight to it.”

There’s reverence in their approach: one mic, reel-to-reel tape with no edits. “It gives honour to the people who did it before us,” Daze explains. “Really putting your hands into what that sound is, and to see it expand internationally is really exciting.”

The performance is captured on Isaiah Collier & Tim Regis – Live in the Listening Room, a new release on The Vinyl Factory. Available here, the 26-minute performance,  recorded on January 30, 2025, unfolds across three tracks and is pressed on heavyweight 180-gram black vinyl and housed in a colour sleeve featuring exclusive session photography.

Isaiah Collier & Tim Regis – Live in the Listening Room is limited to 500 copies. Order now via The Vinyl Factory.

Tracklist

Side A
"Pacing (Devon’s Room)"
‍
Side B:
"2nd Genesis"
"Den of Iniquity (Orange Satan) (Beelzebub)"