Financial Crisis - virtual 7"

The Neighborhood Choir - Financial Crisis
The Neighborhood Choir - Screaming EMTs

also, a video for the tittle track and be found here.

Purify Yourself In the Waters of Lake Minnetonka

What?

The Neighborhood Choir - I Would Die 4 U (Prince cover)

Violeta Parra

Dan stumbled across an album by a Chilean folk singer named Violeta Parra. She was the sister of noted modern "anti-poet" Nicanor Parra, and established some of the first community art and political activism centers in Chile during the 1960s. In 1967 she committed suicide, depressed about the break-up of her relationship with Swiss flautist Gilbert Favre.



Nevertheless her albums are hauntingly simple, and I can't stop listening to them for a second.

Here is a link to the original post with her complete discography available for download. Special thanks to Pancho over at Experimental Etc.

New Johns

Here's a song i found one night listening through some old reels. The original track was only one channel; a live recording Parker made of Henry, Dan and I jamming. It was 11 minutes long and I selected a small section, then overdubbed a variety of other elements. The tape machine always compresses things in a strange way, and for some reason I believe it helped the song.

The Neighborhood Choir - To Those from Which They Came

Backlog #1

"Brownfields are abandoned or under-used industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations.^[1] In United States city planning, brownfield land (or simply a brownfield) is land previously used for industrial purposes or certain commercial uses. The land may be contaminated by low concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, and has the potential to be reused once it is cleaned up."

New virtual 7" later this week with two brand new songs with respective videos, featuring dancing indoor broom-hockey players, Peter Pan, a train conductor, and Frida Kahlo.

The Neighborhood Choir - Untitled

The Neighborhood Choir - General Sherman Befriend the Pine Martens

Expansion to the West

Last summer we decided to take a cross-country road trip to Portland, OR. We camped (sometimes illegally) in Nat'l Parks every night and spent the days going as far as we could. I have too many stories to even begin and most of it seems like a dream (although i certainly remember the 21 hour drive from Joliet, IL all the way to the Rockies). We got pulled over in the middle-of-nowhere Utah (in the midst of deviant behavior) and were saved from arrest by a violent hail storm. We saw bison, bears, and buffalo, ran over skunks, and had to stop in the middle of the road more than once because the donkeys were in control).

Rocky Mountain National Park

From stories we heard, Portland seemed like a utopian society, a bristling mass of musicians and artists all living in perfect harmony. Although we encountered few musicians and even fewer bristling masses of them, the city was indeed beautiful. We ran out of money upon arrival and took jobs on house painting crews. Parker and Dan worked with the venerable Michael Huss of Chrysalis Co. (ex-Pat Benatar marketing director or something) while Paul and I worked with Boss John of Dreamweaver Co. (he was an ex-Marine explosives expert and devout Dokken fan). Work was work, and in the evening we would retire to the back porch and listen to "Imagination Theater" on the ol' FM radio.

Portland, OR

We set up our instruments in the basement of our house (thanks Brinn and Nastaja) and worked on new songs. In early July we aquired our beloved Tascam 388 which remains the sole unit we record with now. "Elderly Maple" was the first song recorded. Marc Snyder flew out for two weeks to do some engineering and to be our friend. I turned 21 and slightly remember not wearing a shirt inside The Blue Monk. In the end, the purpose of our voyage was the voyage itself. Some more pictures and songs:










DOWNLOAD
The Neighborhood Choir - Expansion to the West
The Neighborhood Choir- Blessed Are Thee
The Neigborhood Choir- From East to West and Back Again

Inauguration

We've created this blog in order to provide a central location for the music projects of our own and those of our friends. The majority of the postings will be made from our headquarters here in Old Kensington, Philadelphia where we live above an old sheet metal manufacturing warehouse. Some background:

The neighborhood itself is rather destitute, mainly haunted by the shells of once prosperous manufacturing warehouses left to rust in the sweat of the Delaware River. Directly across from the entrance to our living space is the Drexel meat packaging plant which in the summer emits an odor so foul our street gets no foot traffic.

The Philadelphia Institute for Advanced Study (PIFAS) lies below us. It is a treasure trove of bicycle builders, visual artists, textile manufacturing, noise bands, synthesizer building, and many more strange career choices. The neighbors only refer to this rag-tag bunch as "the weird art ravers" although we are quite sure there are no raves occurring. You can watch an extremely informative video on their website.

Despite appearances, the area around us is surprisingly full of life. Gardens (with chickens and all) can be found springing from the remains of old foundations, and there is still the occasional yelp of children on bikes.


Our inaugural song posting is a one of the first completed in our new recording space; a patch-work assemblage of various samples by Daniel, drums by Parker, and vocals/bass by myself. It works best through headphones, although i certainly can't discourage using 5.1 Dolby Surround.

Download :The Neighborhood Choir - Toyland.mp3
Stream: