PLAIN VANILLA (2004)
Eight cuts from 1950’s mood music LP’s were digitized from
the original vinyl albums. Most of the time, no
identifiable melody was used in these reversions. Usually only
connecting phrases, transitional passages, chord changes, or a few
notes from an improvised solo were sampled to create the whole piece.
The original recordings were arrangements of standards. These
reprocessed tracks are more collages of non-essential elements from the
arrangement, or variations of the arrangements, rather than new
versions of standard tunes.
No effort was made to clean up the vinyl recordings. The hiss and
pops, and dust stuck in the grooves are part of the
records’ personal history. No sound outside the original
recordings were used.
The exotica niche of mood music enjoyed a perky revival in the
1990’s. However, much of 1950’s mood music was a
narcotic blend of lugubrious tempos, syrupy arrangements, and elements
of the now forgotten genre, “semi classical.” The
nauseous result is actually quite difficult to listen to today.
This quality is what makes the music interesting to confront. The
original album covers drip with a creepy, trashy glamor that intrigues
and repulses. The recordings are analogous to advertising art of
the period, which appears garish and unappetizing to our contemporary
eyes, but remains curiously fascinating. A large part of the
motivation of this project was to confront the mysterious power of the
music to attract and repel, and to immerse oneself in a consciousness
of style and taste that has been rejected and forgotten to the extent
that today it is normally only referenced in parody, if at all.