Music info: VGMdb
Listening: YouTube
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I got the urge to listen to some music by noted synthesizer enthusiast Spencer Nilsen, so I’m putting on his original album Architects Of Change for the first time in ages. This was released a few years before his “big break” (if you’re a VGM dweeb) writing music for some SEGA CD games, but by the time he released this album he had already been making a career as a session musician and composer of commercials and other business music, so this didn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, that’s directly what led to this album:
“I did 3 1/2 hours of original music for Eastman Kodak for a series of instructional videos for professional photographers,” Nilsen said. “John [Archer] heard it, loved it, and we started working together. He pitched the idea of my doing an album to American Gramaphone (the label for which Archer produces and records) and we proceeded from there.”
And the album makes a lot of sense when viewed through the lens of “guy who wrote a bunch of corporate music releases an original album.” If you’ve heard me talk about music in any forum whatsoever for even just one single minute, you would probably assume that would mean I’d find this album enjoyable, and you’d be right because I do! It fits in that very ’80s zone somewhere in the middle of smooth jazz, new age, and world music, with a piano or keyboard usually leading the way. Some of the tracks just come and go, but all in all it’s a pleasant way to get transported back in time to the age when dudes looked like this (this is Nilsen’s glamour shot from the album):
Recommended tracks:
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“Church On Wally St.” is a percussion-heavy jam with some killer bass by Mark Hunter
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“Paper House” is the track that sounds the most like a PowerPoint presentation, and it gets weird rhythmically at 2:48 when it starts slipping in some extra beats (you could look at it as 12/8 with some 14/8 bars)
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