Another Roadside Attraction
by robin hilton
After four very short weeks, I’ve finished my CD for this year’s RPM Challenge (to write and record an entire album in one month). It’s called “Another Roadside Attraction.”
You can download the entire album, or listen to individual tracks below.
I apologize in advance for some of the horribly painful singing. And given more time, I’d do a lot of things differently with the production. But there are some moments where it almost sounds like I know what I’m doing. All in all, I’m just glad I made the completely artificial and meaningless deadline to get it all done in a month:
1. Intro
2. Stay
3. I’ve Got Bad News
4. Rabbit
5. Happy Birthday To Me
6. Dirt
7. The Holidays
8. A Strange And Beautiful World
9. Another Roadside Attraction
10. The End
Two New Vocal Pieces
by robin hilton
Far, far from perfect, of course. But I cranked them out very quickly:
“The End” – My dog was lying next to me when I recorded the vocals on this one and you can hear her sighing after the first verse. I think she was really, really bored with it:
“A Strange And Beautiful World” – Even if I had the best singer in the world doing this one, I’d still process the hell out of the voice. I like noise.
Two More Instrumentals
by robin hilton
I’ve done a third vocal piece for this year’s RPM, but I’m not really happy with it, yet. In the meantime, here are a couple more instrumental interludes I did. The audio at the beginning of “Interlude No. 3″ is from my 5th birthday.
Interlude No. 3
Interlude No. 4
Interlude No. 2 (The Holidays)
by robin hilton
RPM challenge track four: As always, I’d do some things differently if I had a little more time. But this one is close to being right.
Lesser-Known Love Songs
by robin hilton
Every few months, I get together with All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen, NPR Music producer Stephen Thompson, and former Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein, to talk music. On our latest roundtable we marked Valentine’s Day by sharing our favorite, lesser-known love songs.
Dirt
by robin hilton
I was able to come up with five new songs in the first week of the RPM Challenge: two vocal pieces and three short instrumentals.
This is the second vocal piece. It’s called “Dirt.” I’m a little flat on some of the vocals, and I’d do some things differently on the production side if I had more time. But this will have to do for now.
Interlude No. 1 (I’ve Got Bad News)
by robin hilton
One of my ideas for this year’s RPM Challenge is to drop little instrumental interludes into the mix. This is my first one: “Interlude No. 1 (I’ve Got Bad News)”
Two tracks down. Eight to go. My next one will probably be another vocal piece.
RPM Challenge: 2009
by robin hilton
This year’s RPM Challenge — write and record an entire album in one month — is under way. That’s roughly a song every three days. My first one for the challenge is called “Rabbit.” The vocals on the second half of the song aren’t very good, but I have to move on for now.
Cotton Road
Laura Kissel’s “Cotton Road” follows the production cycle of a global agricultural commodity through the stories of US farmers, migrant laborers, cotton merchants, Chinese textile workers, and consumers, illuminating the global trade in cotton and the connection between workers in the United States and China. At the nexus of this story of labor, economics, and consumerism is a small cotton seed, planted in a field in South Carolina in late spring. Though the story originates in a cotton field, it culminates at a discount store with the sale of mass produced cotton clothing. “Cotton Road” travels from farm to factory to reveal this industrial story: planting and harvest, mechanized ginning, the transportation of 420,000 bales through the port of Savannah and across the ocean to Shanghai. Once in China, cotton bales are conveyed to factory cities, transformed from bale to textile, from textile to product and exported as cotton commodified into clothing, back to the American South.
