"RHODE (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)" by VAXXERS

ARTIST STATEMENT FROM AL RIGGS WHO IS VAXXERS WHO IS AL RIGGS

I always use the VAXXERS name for when I want to try something new in between the singer-songwriter-adjacent records I make under my own name. It’s for trying new things out; new technology, new song structures, new way of recording, etc. There’s a strict set of rules for making a VAXXERS album, they are as follows;

1. The Album must be between 5-9 songs, 9 at the max.
2. The music must have an element of improvisation. As little structure as possible.
3. The concept behind the album must always come after the music has begun to be made.
4. The amount of time to make the album must be no more than two days.
5. You have to do something you have not done before.

I recorded RHODE in an afternoon using a lot of rhodes piano patches, my MIDI controller, and a bucket full of reverb. The music was inspired by the vast discography of Wendy Carlos, the godmother of synth, who would work with filmmakers (most famously Kubrick) to create scores that would end up speaking more about how you felt while watching the movie than the act of watching itself.

There was an idea I had long ago to write a neo-noir film that took place in outer space. Imagine, if you will, putting entire blocks of the streets of Chicago, New York, and Rome inside a massive space station, and playing the events off as if this wasn’t an insane undertaking. Raymond Chandler meets “Polaris”.

I never got around to developing the entire script and it lays dormant forever. But experimenting with the rhodes piano sound and different time delays created a sound that sounds like having an intense candlelit conversation while riding Spaceship Earth.

This is a soundtrack for a film I never made. The titles are all that are there for you to glean the plot from. It’s a love story between two non-binary members of the station crew, who are swept up in the murder of the station’s designer. There’s a ‘nighthawks’-style diner in the middle of one of the auxiliary power rooms. There’s a chase scene happening in slow motion outside in the vastness of space.There’s an interrogation scene, good-cop/bad-cop shenanigans. There’s a love scene.  I think there’s a happy ending.

Thank you.

-Al Riggs
July 2019