Audio Garbage: Shades of Gray

When developing the twentyten's fall 2011 collection we created a collection inspiration by landfills and desert shades. We create a digital print created from a photograph of trash collected from the Navy Yard where we worked. When it came to the presentation we needed to pick out music. I thought the sound track for the presentation should sound like audio garbage to fit the theme of the collection. However, few tracks fulfilled the mental melody in my head. Random chaotic sounds that could be still deemed music was not easy to come by.  Unfortunately a different direction was decide upon after no success. 

Today I discovered the music that I was looking for 6 months ago. With my initial search I tried finding tracks by painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, I heard one called Suicide Hotline that would have fitted the bill, but had no luck. However, today I had success! Basquiat's band, Gray, has an album that was release last November called Shade of. This album features the track I first heard and several even better recordings of tape players, strangely played instruments, and phone calls nearly 30 years after their creation aka audio garbage. Glenn O'Brien wrote a review of the album for GQ this past April and I couldn't agree with him more.

[Shades of Gray] is refreshingly stripped of flagrant virtuosity but it is conceived brilliantly, played perfectly, and arranged impeccably. The words stick to your ribs. The mood music melodies transport you into pleasant interzones of the Leone/Rota cine-music sector.It's the soundtrack of a better world. While much contemporary music is rash and in your face, this collection is witty, contemplative, ironic, sexy, sweet, and profoundly unexpected.

I highly recommend downloading this album from itunes, picking up a copy at Other Music here in NYC or ordering Shades of from amazon.com. You can listen to one of my favorite tracks, Wig, via pushsaferecords.com. Enjoy the trash!