Trippy Brigadoon | Dixie's Death Pool (5 minute sampler)

dixiesdeathpool.bandcamp.com/...
Trippy Brigadoon, the 11th Dixie’s Death Pool album, born in the throes of the pandemic. It affected so many aspects of life, including (maybe especially), our most intimate relations. Isolation, boredom, anxiety, the ominous quiet. Never experienced anything like that before. I was furloughed, getting by on government money, and nursing a strange cocktail of existential dread, spiked with the joy of recording every day. Oh yeah, and uh, my marriage-well nevermind.
Alright, chin up. Let’s imagine fairyland and weave a story from these unraveling threads. Brigadoon, defined by the Merriam-Webster, is an idyllic place unaffected by time, and remote from reality.
June 2020, I synced synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, fx pedals and pressed record. Bleep bloop. For a month or so I messed around, capturing everything. Next: overdubbing keyboards, synths, strings - pretty much anything else lying around. Lyrics and vocals were starting to come as well. Taking advantage of the lockdown hush, I recorded outdoors: percussion at Science World, trombone and snare drum at the Emily Carr campus. And in my time of need, oh lord! in my time of need - I found and filmed The Meadow, aka Stanley Park. F* yeah! It’s on my YT-check it. Most of the album came together like this. Come summer, after living alone in my head for such a long time, I needed professional help. Quinsin Nachoff’s classy NY sax has me looking for a new zoot suit. And behold cellist Peggy Lee’s cool blue flame in the soul dark of night. Closer to home I assembled a portable rig and captured John Korsrud’s fiery trumpet on a sunny August afternoon in the parking lot of the Vancouver Academy of Music. Took the ferry to a drizzly Galiano Island and spent the day tracking Dan Gaucher’s killer drums (!!!). Fast forward a year, and in October ‘21, after a few months living on my own, I recorded Some Dame in similar fashion: synths, drum machines, overbubbing vocals, guitar etc. There are 4 exceptions to this approach: Yr Kiss Is Magic - reworking of a 2012 session recorded at the Hive, featuring the sublime stylings and narcotic languor of Todd Hutzulak (e.guitar / clarinet). Edgar Bridwell (violin), Marina Hasselberg (cello) and Matt Skillings (e.bass / vibraphone) give elegant shape to the ship in the mist, while Russell Sholberg (double bass) changes the course. The horizon is punctuated by epic snare cracks (Stephen Lyons) and the clouds part. Enter Kim Stewart with heaven sent voice all the way from 2014, aka Twilight, Sound Mountain. I am deeply grateful for the contributions of all these talented musicians! Originally a 20 min set by David Leith, Butterfly On A Swaying Grass, has a beguiling mix of voices: the enigmatic Lief Hall, a Vocaloid robot programmed by Leith, plus my own pride and joy, Cosmo and Veda. Space Kitty was improvised Halloween 2020, including vocals and pyrotechnics caught by an out-the-window mic. Nothing and No One, aka Minor Shade, debuted August 2, 2019, on my YT as a guitar instrumental.
One last note: on several occasions an instrument recorded for one piece ended up in another altogether - honestly, what is this thing called music? As in life asking “What If?” is essential to finding the mystery. Dive deep or simply drift dear listener, but be warned! The adventure has many intoxicating passages, and time may impair better judgment. Lee Hutzulak, September, 2023