“One can better deeply listen in Ojai, [California]” jokes Matthew McQueen, the co-founder of the “all-genre” Los Angeles label, Leaving Records. Though spoken with an air of absurdity, like all good jokes, there is a grain of truth. East of the city center in a small and storied enclave in Southern California, a space is dedicated to the simple and transformative pleasure of listening. The Listening Garden’s seasonal editions are held at the Light and Space wellness and yoga studio.
Initially a mid-century gas station, then an auto body shop, Light and Space retains the original architectural silhouette. The utilitarian facade feels appropriate for The Listening Garden’s focused sense of purpose. Here, live music and deep listening are treated with reverence.
As part of their 15-year anniversary celebration, Leaving Records partnered with The Listening Garden to host an intimate edition featuring mesmerizing performances by V.C.R. and Celia Hollander. As their all-genre ethos suggests, Leaving Records operates on many levels. Their ongoing series “Listen to Music Outside in the Daylight Under a Tree” brings out droves of Angelenos, and the festive gathering allows for what Celia Hollander calls “a gradient of listening”.
However, Leaving Records veered towards a more singularly attentive approach for the anniversary celebration in September 2024. The Listening Garden, originally the brainchild of Earthtones (Serge Bandura) and John Alderson, was launched in August 2022. While highly considered and profoundly comfortable, it is not a casual listening environment. The quietude of Ojai extends into The Listening Garden, and subtle musical gestures that may be lost in other contexts are, in this space, made rich with life.
The evening began with a multiformat DJ set by Matthewdavid, the musical alias of Matthew McQueen. Playing ambient compositions from around the globe on vinyl and cassette, as well as unreleased music from his phone, Matthewdavid set the tone for the night ahead. He came to Ojai shortly after moving to Los Angeles nearly two decades ago. In the fall of 2023, he played a set at The Listening Garden as part of the tour for his expansive and exploratory album, Mycelium Music. In the relaxed and familial atmosphere, the ease and joy imbued in his set felt like a fitting overture.
People filtered into the studio as Ojai’s famous “pink moment” faded into a deep twilight. Candles and plants were arranged over hi-fi speakers, and while some people remained outside around the fire pit, blankets and cushions provided seating for the group of 90+ guests. Veronica Camille Ratliff, who goes by her initials, V.C.R., took the stage along with musician and multimedia artist Philip P. Harper, known professionally as Tru, and the sound healer Ari Gabrielle.
V.C.R., a Memphis-born, LA-based classically trained violinist and “cinematic soul” artist, released her debut album, The Chronicles of a Caterpillar: The Egg, on Leaving Records in 2022. Along with Matthewdavid, she was one of the Leaving Records affiliated artists who was tapped to contribute to André 3000’s zeitgeist-defining New Blue Sun in 2023. Her music is eclectic, expressive, and bold, and her performances can be similarly striking. However, her performance at The Listening Garden entered a uniquely ethereal space.
V.C.R. dedicated her set to her grandmother, Charlene Jackson, who had recently passed, and through the fog of grief, she delivered a ceaselessly captivating performance. The set started not with a song but with a sound bath. Gabrielle’s resonating singing bowls created a soundscape for V.C.R.’s soaring violin to hover, followed by her melodious intonations.
Throughout the set, musical motifs from The Chronicles of a Caterpillar: The Egg were referenced but primarily abstracted in their instrumental form rather than played in their entirety. Reverb-saturated acapella sections punctuated the instrumental passages, and R&B vocal runs jetted out of a sea of ambiance while synths, singing bowls, and violin drones provided a bed for emotional exploration. This was not a series of songs. It was a cohesive sonic experience and a beautiful tribute to Ratliff’s grandmother.
V.C.R.’s set was followed by Celia Hollander, the LA-based composer and producer working with Leaving Records since her debut, Draft, in 2017. Her performance at The Listening Garden was also the live premiere of Perfect Conditions, a vast and absorbing album self-released in November 2024. Both the album and her live realization of it are utterly transportive. Each composition on Perfect Conditions juxtaposes two of the four elements. Earth is paired with water, water with air, and so on until all sixteen possible permutations are achieved. On this earthy and celestial exploration of the “perfect conditions” for life, Hollander leads the listener through an ever-changing interplay of elemental forces with an exhilarating sense of anticipation and awe.
While glancing at the room, each person appeared to be on their private sonic journey and yet simultaneously a part of a collective voyage. Towards the end of her set, V.C.R. was joined by Evan Shornstein, known professionally as Photay, the electronic music composer and producer whose most recent album Windswept was released in September 2024 and who, the night before, delivered a kinetic three-hour DJ set at The Dance Ground, the other facet of The Listening Garden’s musical world. Shornstein appeared like another natural element, adding electronic percussion to the set’s final moments. Hollander closed with “6:33 AM”, the effervescent opening track from her 2021 album, Timekeeper.
When the music subsided, there remained a dreamlike quality in the air. Members of the audience looked at each other in near disbelief. Refocusing the energy, Bandura said a few words, thanking the artists and reflecting on the importance of Leaving Records. “Leaving is not just one of the greatest labels around right now. Leaving is a label that will go down in history.” This seems unequivocal at 15 years strong and with vital records being released constantly, but it is a point that can just as easily be taken for granted.
After the final applause and words of appreciation, the evening didn’t end so much as fade with the same gentleness and ease as it began. Although The Listening Garden’s sense of care and flow feels natural, it is not accidental. Its growth and success have been fostered through a dynamic team effort between Alderson, Bandura, and co-producers Vera Rodriguez and Amber Deylon. Alderson says, “We couldn’t do it without the four of us. Not even close.”
In many ways, The Listening Garden had been developing for years, but it also came from specific circumstances. A year before the start of The Listening Garden, in 2021, as COVID restrictions began to lift, Alderson found himself knee-deep in hi-fi projects. In 2019, he became a founding member of the hi-fi sound system Sound of Make-Believe (SOMB), producing all-night house party-style gatherings in a sequence of spaces in and around downtown LA. The same team also collaborated on parties known as Home with founder Wayne Elliott, a dancer for the last 40+ years at NYC’s The Loft, with the motivation to further that foundational party’s legacy. Alderson is quick to point out that this was not the beginning of hi-fi parties in LA; nonetheless, these efforts did help to reinvigorate the scene, especially after COVID-19 had brought the city and the world to a halt.
Bandura founded Light and Space in 2019, and the previous year, he and Alderson launched International Sunshine, a monthly poolside party at Ojai Rancho Inn from early spring to late summer. According to Alderson, “The concept was to celebrate and provide a platform for music connected to a diversity of styles in a global sense.” While these parties featured DJ sets, they also prioritized live performances, and many of the artists who performed at International Sunshine, such as Mia Doi Todd, Carlos Niño, and Fabiano Do Nascimento, would later return to perform at The Listening Garden. Alderson and Bandura met at this same venue a few years earlier, in 2016.
While Bandura has been teaching yoga for over two decades, he has also never stopped DJing and making music, and while his monikers have changed, he has been releasing music as Earthtones since 2019. Alderson cut his teeth as a DJ in the 1990s while attending art school in Bristol, UK. In the early 2000s, his DJ collective, Voices, began a near-decade-long residency at one of London’s legendary clubs, Plastic People. During this time, Alderson assisted several times with setup at the London Loft parties hosted by David Mancuso and the Lucky Cloud Soundsystem.
So, when Alderson and Bandura first connected at the Ojai Rancho Inn at Bandura’s record release party, their shared musical passion was evident, and their future collaboration was seemingly inevitable. The world had changed radically between International Sunshine’s abrupt end and the start of The Listening Garden. A turn towards more ambient styles of music seemed to be a part of the zeitgeist, and Alderson and Bandura felt that a deep listening offering would resonate with the community.
With Alderson’s hi-fi efforts in full swing and Bandura several years into Light and Space, the two began to explore ways of returning to their Ojai-focused musical events. Bandura came up with the name The Listening Garden. However, he says it was partly inspired by the ambient pioneer Laraaji and the garden motifs he employed during his 2019 live performances.
It took work to transform Light and Space, with its concrete walls, wood floors, and large glass windows, into an acoustically sound environment. After renovating the room, Alderson began assembling the hi-fi system, which consists of Altec Lansing Model 19 speakers, Alpha Recording System rotary mixer, and Class A amplification by Mark Levinson. With a beautifully designed and acoustically treated space, pristine audio, elevated musical taste, and relationships with some of LA’s most forward-thinking musicians, The Listening Garden seemed destined to be something special. However, successfully delivering powerful and intimate community-focused productions season after season takes effort.
“I see the Listening Garden less as a concert and more as an experience,” says Vera Rodriguez, professional dancer and co-producer at the Listening Garden. Fellow co-producer Amber Deylon, a former manager of Light and Space who practices in the community as a death doula and grief guide, adds, “We like to keep it local and utilize our connections with our friends.”
Creating this locally focused and cohesive experience extends beyond and helps support the act of listening itself. Deylon and Rodriguez work with local businesses and artisans, such as their neighbors from across the street at Izakaya Full Moon serving casual Japanese fare, the Ventura-based Show Pony mobile bar, and tea enthusiast and friend of The Listening Garden, Jade Fielding, who facilitated the tea ceremony on the 14th. All of this contributes to the familial quality of The Listening Garden.
Before performances, there isn’t the usual anxious anticipation that is so often present at conventional music venues. The unhurried atmosphere is felt as soon as one enters the space, and the apparent care and attention to detail that permeates every aspect of The Listening Garden helps cultivate a sense of well-being that allows one to ease into the sonic happenings.
The transformational power of sound and listening has long been a source of mystical inspiration. As the Sufi scholar and musicologist Inayat Khan states, “The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.” However, in the Stargate sequence, that is, contemporary digital life, accessing the simple joy of listening can be more challenging than accessing the near entirety of recorded music.
While we have seen a rise in hi-fi bars and a resurgence of audiophile culture in recent years, pristine audio is only one component of what makes The Listening Garden distinct. Experimental music pioneer and founder of the Center for Deep Listening, Pauline Oliveros, reminds us that “performance space is as important as voices and instruments.” The Listening Garden’s attentiveness to the effects of environment, community, and intention has made it so that one can, in fact, “better deeply listen in Ojai”.