SOUNDTRACK: STEPHIN MERRITT: Two Days, ‘A Million Faces’ (Project Song: November 4, 2007).
Project Song was a nifty little show that NPR Music created. The premise was that NPR would give a musician some prompts and a recording studio. They then had two days to write and record a song. I don’t know how much of the process was to be filmed, but presumably most of it. Then it would be edited down to a fifteen minute show. The results are pretty cool and it’s a shame they only made five of them.
The first one they did was with Magnetic Field’s singer/songwriter/wizard Stephin Meritt.
Merritt is quite prolific so this seemed like it would be no big challenge. They showed him six images and six words. He had to choose one picture and one word. He chose a picture and the word 1974.
Merritt does most of his writing sitting in a bar, with throbbing music in the background.
“Some recording artists write in the studio,” he tells All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. “I think they’re crazy.”
So for the first installment of a new multimedia experiment called Project Song, All Songs Consideredset up a bar for Merritt in NPR’s Studio 4A, an expansive wood-floored room with plenty of space for a creative artist to spread out and experiment. We supplied him with a grand piano, an assortment of other keyboards (including a ’70s MOOG synthesizer), drums and guitars — even a sampler, from which Merritt extracted the sound of a vintage Mellotron.
The photograph he chose, by artist Phil Toledano, is an incredible image of a man covered head to toe in what looks like a bodysuit made of baby dolls.
In Merritt’s imagination the man shape shifts as a criminal.
For the music, he chose a “Shepherd tone” which is the illusion of ever ascending pitches.
And then we watch Merritt recording instruments and vocals and talking to the recording engineer.
It is very cool to see how this song evolves with bass, guitar, synth and more added in.
The final two minutes wrap up his take on. He says he would normally work a lot longer. There is only one section to the song. (It’s verse no chorus?) Yes. The song is based on a loop because he finished the song sooner than he might have. “But I write lots of fairly simple songs, and I like this one.”
[READ: Feb 3, 2016] “Silk Brocade”
Once again Tessa Hadley easily transports me to another time and place.
In this story, we meet Ann Gallagher, a talented seamstress who has started a small business with her gregarious friend Kit. They are going to make couture dresses and more.
Unfortunately, old friends of theirs have come a-calling. And today, Nola Higgins straight from Fishponds, has come asking a favor.
Turns out that Nola is getting married to nobility and she hopes that Ann can make a dress from some gorgeous old silk brocade that was in his house. Ann is fully intending to turn her away–saying that Nola will never be able to afford their work–until she learns about the money. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 