Influences
Juana Molina, “Los Hongos de Marosa”
Lalle Larsson, “Dance of the Dead”
Mannheim Steamroller, “Deck the Halls”
Ital Tek, “Become Real”
Bjork, “Venus As a Boy” (less in anything specific but as an aesthetic to aim the previous influences, or maybe a comparison to go “hey, this vibe maybe could work at all”)
Story
My friend Alexia Matte, who’s a big part of my musical brain trust (and maybe this balanced breakfast), commented that all my songs were active. By that, she meant that they all seemed to have something they definitely wanted to say; none of them were willing to go into the background. In saying this, she hit on one of my personality traits that tends to unbalance sometimes – “pick me!” energy and not being able to blend into a social situation.
So I used that note as a creative prompt to develop a loop I’d built – which was intended to be a Juana Molina thing – into something more passive. Something subtler. If nothing else, it could provide a nice contrast to the rest of the album – a palate cleanser, which I think helps album flow a lot.
Along the way, it became a sort of jazzy “V of Mood” in terms of its retro instruments (what is with me and synth brass/Prophet pads? Seriously), with solos from the Oberheim Matrix 12, marimbas, and a Hammond B-3 organ. Given how vocally-oriented this album has been, getting to stretch out with so many solos felt really good. And given how I enjoy finding ways around using a snare, staying with kicks, hi-hats, and crashes also tickled my fancy.
As for the title…I’d had a food-based instrumental name waiting for a song to fit it. “The Two Walnuts of Things” was the original name for the instrumental idea that turned into “Poet of the Mic.” It was based on a sermon note I found in my deceased grandmother’s Bible, where she tried to draw distinctions between the physical and the spiritual but her frequently shaky hand turned it into something stranger:
Meanwhile, a different (and dark-horse) food-based title showed up – Virginia’s Peach Party Loaf. In doing some attorney-client privilege review for the Seattle Municipal Archives, I found a recipe a lawyer from 1981 had in a case file (because the writing on the back was about the case). And this thing, despite saying it’s “very good,” looks bizarre. The pimientos are where most people tap out, but Virginia lost me at celery:
It is one of the most 1981 recipes I can imagine – the cans of fruit rather than actual fruit and the love of making a Jell-O salad stand out. (My mom had a Jell-O mold that she’d make a congealed fruit salad in. I think it was primarily yogurt with peaches and black cherries. It…was edible. She also made pear salad, which is an abomination from the southern United States involving a pear half topped with mayonnaise, cheddar cheese, and a maraschino cherry. If you are looking to induce gags, you want to make this.) And given that this song is kinda off a bit and uses a bunch of instruments available around the time of this salad (with as many solos as the era too), it fit as well enough as anything else would. So I combined my two food-based instrumental title candidates into the final title. Ta-da?
Some press about it
“Like a painting, every creative brushwork and innovatory sound brought new colour and depth to the instrumental, and the imagination’s conjuring with it, to provide another canvas for exploration not only of the track but also one’s thoughts.” – Ringmaster Review
“Virginia’s Peach Party Loaf, With Two Walnuts is certainly one of the best song titles so far this year, a Krautrock soundtrack to a sci-fi epic, set on a spaceship that resembles a Peach picking party, with walnuts given as tokens of affection, they speak a xylophonic language.” – Whisperin and Hollerin
Next song: Lost Within This Time
restlessmosaic.com 