An Homage to Halloween, the Blues, and Neuroscience
The story of how Soundshop founder Akpanoluo Etteh’s first recording as a musician came together
When I tell people about the EP I recorded on Halloween 2020, I often say that it’s “my homage to Halloween, the Blues, and neuroscience”, which intrigues, but leaves a ton of questions. So this post is meant to break down how it all came together, in chronological order of when each concept was introduced: neuroscience, Halloween, and the Blues.
Beginnings:
Three years prior, in October 2017, I hosted my Music and Visuals salon. Presenters included a dancer, an animator, and artists sharing music videos. In those early days, the Salon had yet coalesced as a show with tickets, I still presented often, and the events often took place in my apartment. When I rose to speak in my living room, I told everyone to close their eyes, walked to the left of my audience, and said “without opening your eyes, point to where I am” which everybody was able to do. Finally, I asked the rhetorical question; how did you do that?
I — Neuroscience:
I went on to explain the neuroscience of how our brains are able to locate sounds in 3D. The ones that are pertinent to the recording are:
- Our left and right ears receive sound at different times if an object isn’t directly in front of or behind us
- Our left and right ears receive sounds of different volumes if an object is on the right or the left, because our heads lead sounds from the left sounding softer on the right and vice versa
- The drastic asymmetry of our ears add extra context about whether something is in front of or behind us, above us, or below
All of these signals are integrated in the brain stem and immediately calculate the origin of a sound. I then went on to explain that a binaural microphone enabled recordings to replicate these signals. A binaural microphone is generally a mannequin head with rubber ears and microphones in each ear. This setup means that what gets recorded replicates the conditions above: the left and right microphones receive sound at different times, at different volumes, and pick up the additional context that our ears do. Thus, when played back, it replicates a lot of the signals we’d get through normal hearing in 3D. I then talked about my dream of recording an album in which I brought together Soundshop collaborations to perform in multiple rooms as a binaural microphone traveled from room to room.
II — Halloween:
I did nothing about this for a few years, but on occasion, I’d bring it up. I was more focused on hosting Soundshop events to seriously consider it. Then, at my birthday picnic in September 2020, in talking to Elisa Winter about this idea, she encouraged me to figure out a way to create a “minimally-viable product” (MVP) of the concept. I landed on deciding to record three songs on a binaural microphone. Two weeks later, I decided to record on Halloween and began to corral a team of musicians and audio engineers.
I put together rehearsals with sets of brilliant musicians before I even knew what in the world I was doing. And as these rehearsals arrived, I made a playlist featuring songs that were either explicitly about Halloween or fit the vibe, including songs from three of the artists: Katherine Redlus, Lukas Papenfusscline, and Lily Desmond, to capture the vibe I was going for.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0TuC2kS6TKsCl4lI7L8bKe?si=49a5c38febf9424e
III — The Blues:
In each case, by the time rehearsal rolled around (or during!), I figured out what I wanted to do, and they all happened to be Blues songs. Here’s some details on each, and the musicians I had recruited to perform them with me.
“Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, or “In the Pines”, or “Black Girl” was popularized in part by recordings from Lead Belly from 1944 to 1948. I wasn’t aware of the song’s existence until I first heard Sleigh Bells’ version in 2019. Realizing that their version had to be a cover because it was such a stylistic deviation from their usual noise rock, I traced the song to Nirvana’s version on MTV unplugged, in which Kurt Cobain makes specific reference to Lead Belly being an influence. In the recording, Katherine Redlus joined me on harp, and Lukas Papenfusscline provided vocals to add to my own. I incorporated modified vocal flourishes that I’d heard from a Fantastic Negrito version. The song’s clearest tie-in to Halloween is the reference to decapitation from a car crash in the second verse.
“God Moves on the Water” was originally recorded by Blind Willie Johnson in 1929, which I first heard through a cover from the band Larkin Poe — two sisters, who are, fittingly, descendants of Edgar Allen Poe. The other Halloween tie-in is that it’s about the infamous sinking of the Titanic, the consequent death of thousands, and the prayers answered or not, of those on board. For this track, I was joined by Jeremy Stoddard Carroll on slide guitar.
“Saint James Infirmary Blues” was popularized by Louis Armstrong, but I first heard it through MTA accordion player Melissa Elledge. Random aside: the month after I started Soundshop in 2017, I performed it with buskers in Louis Armstrong’s birthplace of New Orleans, during Mardi Gras. So I have a deep emotional attachment to this song. Anyway, this song has Halloween all over it, given that it’s about a man describing the scene of his deceased lover in the infirmary. I didn’t quite identify with Louis Armstrong’s final verse giving instructions on what to do with his dead body, so I made my own:
- His verse:
When I die, bury me a straight laced shoes
A box backed suit and a Stetson hat
Put 20 dollar gold piece on my watch chain
So the boys’ll know I died standin’ pat - My original verse:
When I die, bury me in silky floral
A pair of crocodile shoes
Add a couple of flasks of whisky
So you know I died one with the blues
On this track, I am joined by Elisa Winter on cello, and Lily Desmond on violin.
Recording Day, Halloween 2020:
Tim Korn of dungeon beach sound studio, a frequent patron of Soundshop, served as the principal sound engineer for the day. He brought a binaural microphone and all the additional gear necessary for the recording. My then-roommate Brett served as an additional sound engineer and filmed the event on his iPhone. With the musicians gathered in Elisa’s backyard, we began recording the songs, starting with “Where did you Sleep Last Night”, then “God Moves on the Water”, and finally, as the sun set, in front of a cracking fire pit, we recorded “Saint James Infirmary Blues”, which on a recommendation of Elisa, was paired with a seamless intro non-blues Halloween tune “Have You Seen the Ghost of John.”
After the recording:
Tim provided a mix of the audio, which I posted to Soundcloud a few weeks later. You can check it out here. It’s crazy to think that from inception to recording it came together in three weeks. But I genuinely believe it’s a testament to the community that I’ve created through Soundshop. And for that reason, when I came up with an “artist name” for this project, I called it “Akpanoluo and Friends”. I hope you’ll enjoy!
With love and music,
Akpanoluo
Akpanoluo Etteh is an artist,
founder of The Soundshop and
Data Lead at Bandcamp
