Andrew Eckel

Bio:

************************************************************** Andrew Eckel's new album Make a Laser Sound is a 15-track, kaleidoscopic funk-fest with unexpected harmonies and unpredictable lyrics. There are several songs about love (some celebrating it, some cynical about it), several following a stream of consciousness, and others about a sanitation workers' strike, a hostage situation in a restaurant, guards at an art museum, and the 2007 Boston bomb scare caused by LED signs advertising a cartoon (Aqua Teen Hunger Force). Eckel sings, raps (a little), and plays piano, drums, marimba, vibraphone, and more, and sixteen of his friends show up to play other instruments.

The making of Make a Laser Sound was an ambitious, two-year project in Cambridge, MA. For the first time, Eckel would show the influence of his favorite album, Beck's Odelay, as well as other ambitious musical cyclones like Boys For Pele (Tori Amos), Flood and Lincoln (They Might Be Giants), Remain in Light (Talking Heads), Blond on Blonde (Bob Dylan), and Paul's Boutique (Beastie Boys). The plan was also to cram as many good ideas as possible into every single track, and to jump at any lucky opportunity to put interesting instruments on the album. This resulted in the use of many players from the MIT Wind Ensemble, a harpsichord, a Turkish crescent, a waterphone, video game sounds, a toy piano, six backup singers, and a Fender Rhodes. The album was made on a $0 budget, using no recording studios, but Andrew mixed the album with painstaking precision, putting in the kind of extra time that almost no outside producer would've ever spent on it, so it the entire album glistens and shines like the kind of expensive album that would have bankrupted his record label, if he had one. Make a Laser Sound is full of surprises and is available now.

************************************************************** You write the lyrics, and I'll write the song: www.PoetryToMusic.com. **************************************************************

Member Since:

May 03, 2006

Influences:

The Short List:
Galt MacDermot, Beach Boys, Phish, the Wu Tang Clan, James Brown, Flaming Lips, Beatles, Al Green, Tori Amos, Neil Young, the Beasties, Beck (esp. for Odelay, my favorite album), Pink Floyd (especially Dark Side of the Moon) the Avalanches, and anything produced by the Neptunes.

The Long List:
Snoop Dogg, Marilyn Manson (for Holy Wood), They Might Be Giants (especially as a duo), Smashing Pumpkins, Missy Elliott, T.I., Dr. Dre, Busta Rhymes, DJ Shadow (for Endtroducing and Brainfreeze with Cut Chemist), Phil Spector, various Tropicalia groups, Portishead, Jethro Tull, the Talking Heads, Bobby Birdman, Cake, Tom Waits, Rage Against the Machine, the White Stripes, Herb Alpert...I'll list more later!

Sounds Like:

Pop music, with a lot of surprises. ..

Record Label:

naw