A crate of LPs obtained at a garage sale was the random inspiration for this CD. The records were mostly easy-listening arrangements of 1970's singer-songwriter hits. I was not a fan of the originals when they were current, but easy-listening covers? A debased genre conflated with the cringe-inducing low-point of American pop music. In other words, an irresistible treasure trove of raw material rich in reference and historical association. I couldn't wait to dig around in the tracks for inspiring fragments. Each one I found was like the bright plastic toy at the bottom of a box a cracker jack: cheap, shiny, and flimsy, bringing to mind the inferior workmanship of a pair of orange and brown plaid polyester pants I owned in the mid 70's, with wide flares and two-inch cuffs. Pop culture documentaries tell us radio was ruled by the much-beloved disco tunes during those years. Those of us who were there also remember being barraged with songs of enfeebled sentimentality, and the frail angst of what we were told was, "the mellow sounds of today's soft rock."
I collected scraps of guitar riffs, piano intros, background choruses, banjo fills, and vocal remnants, etc. These oddments, when isolated and reworked, no longer suggested their enervated original contexts. Out of context, they lost some of their nostalgic resonance and revealed a sparkly perkiness. They wanted to frolic and dance around like toddlers on a sugar high. So, I thought, letâs have them collide, bounce around, and have a good time.
This is not a tribute to the 1970's, in my mind a tacky decade of awkward left turns. Rather, as a designer pulls together bits of vintage elements into an overall arrangement for a new look, I mixed the old sounds with new MIDI percussion and bass parts, creating instrumental sounds from the sampled recycled material, and blended the ingredients into a candy coated bricolage, with added rainbow sprinkles.
AMUSANT! debuted the summer of 2007 at the Ersta Konsthall in Stockholm, Sweden, for an audio exhibit, "Art Is Not Mute," which included the work of over 150 sound artists.
![[item image]](http://ia341003.us.archive.org/2/items/AMUSANT/AMUSANT.jpg "[item image]")
![[help]](/images/question.gif "[help]")
)![[Attribution 3.0 United States]](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/us/88x31.png "[Attribution 3.0 United States]")
