Tangle Eye

The remix has become such a part of musical culture that we rarely think about it. But sometimes something comes along that's more than just a remix; it's a re-imagination of music. That's what Tangle Eye - the duo of producers Scott Billington and Steve Reynolds - have achieved with their take on Alan Lomax's field Southern field recordings on Alan Lomax's Southern Journey Remixed. Moby's Play with its Lomax sample this definitely is not.

"These people weren't singing because they thought they were going to get famous, or get money or sex or whatever. I hear these people really singing who they are."

The pair had issued some 12" Zydeco remixes a decade ago, and wanted to find a whole album to work on together. Then, "because Rounder Records already had a relationship with Alan Lomax, it seemed that might be a connection we could make," Billington recounts. "And I'd known those voices for a long time, they're such compelling voices. It was a long process to get the okay to go forward with this project, and we made several tracks to send to Anna Chairetakis, Alan's daughter. I think she was scared we might trivialize these recordings - I think we were too. Our ideal is to illuminate these voices, so it was a bit of a daunting prospect in the beginning."

They decided to set their parameters to singers from the Southern Journey recordings, "and it was a little closer to home, knowing we'd be doing the project in New Orleans and having those musical resources accessible to us. The main requirement was compelling voices, and there were many in there. But they had to consider a few other factors.

"In order to do remixes that are groove-based, you need to have original performances that happen to a steady meter. That's one reason the prison recordings are so prominent here; when those people are singing as they worked, they might as well have had a metronome with them."

What sets this album apart from so many remixes is that, above the samples and loops, they use live instruments in their settings of the songs. The twelve tracks vary from the greasy Memphis atmosphere of "Home" or the reggae/Second Line blend of "Chantey" to the downright gospel of "Soldier" and the raw, early Little Feat slide on "Work Song." According to Billington, "it varied from song to song - what is going to make this work best. It's like new settings for an old gem, or something like that."

The idea for each musical frame "came from listening to the voices and trying to hear their natural rhythms. There are no machines on this record, it's all samples. We'd build those percussion loops and parts, trying to hear what was in the vocals. The fishermen on "Chantey" ("Menhadden Chanteys" by the Bright Light Quartet), that came to us quickly: Listen to that lilt in the voices, there's almost an island feel to it. So we worked on our percussion approach, Steve and I messed around a while trying to find a bassline and a harmonic patter that would fit. Then I brought it to Chris Wilson, a Jamaican who runs Heartbeat, Rounder's reggae label. He's been a musician for many years. He came back a week later and said, "I've got an idea, let me show you this." So then we took our voices to a studio in Boston, and he put down the guitar and bassline. I took that back to New Orleans and wrote the little horn part. We wanted it to be a little rough, like an old rock steady record, and we thought it would be great to hire a couple of teenage musicians. The trombone player is 16, the trumpet player is 15, but I think they were more accomplished than we'd expected! They added their parts, and that's how it turned out. "

A pair of tracks, the venerable "O Death" and "Hangman," hewed close to original their Appalachian performances, although the latter does add a twist.

"There's also a drum loop on there from the Mississippi Fife and Drum Ensemble. We just started playing around with that, the little turnaround sample, and it fits so eerily with Almeda Riddle's vocal, it's almost as if they did it together. Now and then we'd just discover something like that. And for some reason with it I heard the changes to Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," and that's sort of the harmony under the verses, that I played on a Wurlitzer piano. Most of the time, when Steve or I played something, we'd then get someone who could really play to do the part, but in that instance, my playing works."

The album took almost two years to complete.

"We'd do one track at a time, or we'd have two going. Steve and I both have many other responsibilities, so we had to squeeze in time to do it." And working on it renewed Billington's respect for Lomax's work."

"I think sometimes he was a little more of a producer than he's sometimes given credit for. He did coax things from people. And I came to realize, especially on the 1960 recordings, he was very good with a tape recorder and a stereo microphone."

Whether it'll be the start of a series remains to be seen.

"My hope right now is that it'll sell enough to justify sending us back to do another one. Over the years I've worked with some really great singers in the studio - Charlie Rich, Solomon Burke, Ruth Brown - and the trick there has always been to provide a musical setting, or an environment that will draw out of the singer the transcendent performance. Here we started with voices that were already transcendent; it's almost the opposite of the way I've always gone about making a record. The voices are definitely pre-American Idol voices. These people weren't singing because they thought they were going to get famous, or get money or sex or whatever. I hear these people really singing who they are. If this will bring these voices forward to people, that'll be a success."

Tangle Eye

"These people weren't singing because they thought they were going to get famous, or get money or sex or whatever. I hear these people really singing who they are."

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