Don Rosler: Rosler's Recording Booth

photo: Krista Samoles

NYC songwriter Don Rosler got this inspiration for Rosler's Recording Booth when he stumbled upon a stack of voice-o-graph and recordio records on which people recorded messages for their loved ones (1940s-1960s). You entered a recording booth and spoke or sang into a microphone. The results were cut into vinyl you could mail to the addressee.

For his album he wrote musical postcards and assembled a wealth of guest singers to give voice to these invented live stories and outcries. It works really well and the mood is enhanced by inserting snippets from the sounds from the past. Laughing, crying, begging and trying to sound cool, - it's all there in these well written tunes.

With vocals by Spottiswoode, Terry Radigan, Jeremy Sisto, John Margolis, Tam Lin, Isabel Keating (her mother Carmen has a cameo), Tamara Hey, Kathena Bryant and Jon Albrink, Rosler has added another off-ramp on the Great American Songbook highway. Join him for a ride on the Cyclone on Coney Island (Your Won't Believe), stumble into another world (Give It a Whirl) or deal with getting older (Pretty As Ever). Rosler's Recording Booth is a concept album that should find its way to the desk of Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner. There is a great TV series in these stories and the soundtrack has been taken care of.

Rosler's Recording Booth is released on Fingers Crossed Records. Buy it from CD Baby or iTunes.

Tracks:

1. Recording Booth
2. You Won't Believe (feat. Spottiswoode)
3. But a Dream (feat. Tam Lin)
4. Give It a Whirl (feat. Terry Radigan)
5. Halfway Honest Living (feat. Jeremy Sisto & the Valentines)
6. We'll Have 'em All Over (feat. Ned Massey & Terry Radigan)
7. Hard Goodbye (feat. John Margolis)
8. Where Do I Come In? (feat. Spottiswoode)
9. Baby Footprints (feat. Terry Radigan
10. Pretty As Ever (feat. Jon Albrink)
11. Practicing (feat. Carmen Keating & Isabel Keating)
12. No Sleeping (feat. Terry Radigan)
13. Doris from Rego Park
14. First I Draw the Sun (feat. Tamara Hey)
15. Where I've Been, What I've Done (feat. Kathena Bryant)
16. Take It Slow / "Tunnel of Sound" Chorale (feat. Recording Booth Choir & Emily Bindiger's Choir)
17. I Will Not Sing A Song (End Segue)

» roslersrecordingbooth.com