Mud pie music

>> Toronto/Santa Fe sample duo
Original Recipe make shit beautiful

“There was something almost romantic about the idea of blasting music back and forth over telephone lines,” says Dean Williams, reminiscing about the simultaneous dawn of the Internet and his music project, Original Recipe.

Appropriately enough, the Mirror caught the Canadian half of the culinary-inclined act (Steve Mason lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico) in the middle of lunch in Parkdale, site of “the best roti in town,” Williams says. For dessert, there’s Noisette, the duo’s latest sample-based confection, on Vinyl Republik Records. It’s a toothsome but rocky blend of beats, grooves and melodies dotted with vocal goodies. The quality and tone of the music fluctuates somewhat with the source material (more on that “terrible shit” later), but Original Recipe have their process down to a science—Williams even had a hand in designing some of the software they use to coordinate their computers and vast amounts of hardware. But when he and Mason met years ago, the two 17-year-olds were fiddling around making modules to accompany “demos”—the early computer nerds who worked on this stuff are collectively described as the “demoscene.”

“It’s not an activism reference, though we are very passionate about things like breakfast foods,” Williams explains. “No, it was basically centred around using the most minute amount of code to put together visual presentations that were often accompanied by music.”

After downloading each other’s “demo” music from bulletin-board modems (“hyper nerdy stuff”), Mason, then living in Indiana, visited Williams in Toronto. Pre-dating ProTools, iTunes and MySpace by over a decade, the pair promptly created a track in one evening, using a “ghetto-ass DOS program,” then made some cover art and uploaded the song and the JPEG to the proto-Internet, to be enjoyed by the tens of people with access to it.

Apart from the ongoing attraction to the technology that facilitates their music and long-distance partnership, Williams credits their complementary skills for the project’s longevity. He says he’s the beat man and Mason the melody man, making their joint efforts stronger than either of their solo side projects.

“People always tell me my [solo] stuff is too drum-oriented,” he says, “but I just think heads ain’t ready.”

The biggest challenge now, with all the modern technology at their disposal, is resisting the urge to use it all. Among Original Recipe’s efforts to limit their palette are tracks like “G-Note Virginia,” composed entirely of bits of a Gino Vanelli record, an example of the dollar-bin calibre of vinyl culled for their art.

“Anything you can buy for a dollar that you’ve never heard is almost guaranteed to be the worst thing ever. There’s a certain joy in repurposing this music for human consumption. We take shit and make beautiful shit sculptures.”

But don’t look for shit at their show. Chef’s outfits, hors d’oeuvres and omelettes, cooked right before the audience’s eyes, have figured in past Original Recipe performances, but Williams will only hint at what to expect in Montreal.

“There’s certainly going to be a tie-in with drive-in food advertisements, and keytars and a death-metal guitar pedal are going to be involved.”

As for how “live” the show will be, he adds, “We just try to look as busy as we can while we’re basically playing Minesweeper.”

With Pete Samples and Test
Monkey Vs. the mortal titans at the Lighthouse (930 ChampaGneur) on Saturday, Feb. 3, 9:30 p.m., $5