Riding The Riff - Primordial Soup Kitchen (USA 2009)

Recently I received an e-mail by -valis (from the fantastic psychedelic blog Trip Inside This House - if you don't know it already you are asked to check it out immediately!), who suggested to post "Primordial Soup Kitchen" on homemade-lofi-psych to help spread RIDING THE RIFF's impressive EP as far and wide as possible. And of course it's a pleasure to post this album, a masterpiece with great songs and recorded and arranged very much in a psychedelic spirit, that somehow reminds me of the (British) (MAGIC) MUSHROOM BAND - with its mix of neo-psych and electronic trance music. Enjoy!

RIDING THE RIFF from St. Louis, MI, are Jim 'Seamus' McKinney and Manik Myk. The band has been in existence for about a year now.

Here's some info by Manik Myk:

"I met Jim "Seamus" McKinney through our mutual friend John McClellan. Jim had recorded, on his four track, John McClellan's CD entitled "Sea Shells". -- When the band John and I were in, Atlas Dropped the Ball, finally decided to record we tried several options. First, we tried to record it ourselves on a sixteen track, but had little success. Next, we tried a friend who was the opposite of a perfectionist. We met with little success. John suggested Jim. We made a crude 4 song demo. I was not that impressed with three of the songs (no fault of Jim's), but I really liked his production on my song "Demons to Chocolate". -- While Jim McKinney and I were almost neighbors in Maplewood, we did not start hanging out until I lived across town in Hazelwood. The first recordings we did together were songs that I wrote and were political in nature. The first e.p. was called "Heaven". We decided, after this, that writing political songs meant that not only did you reduce the size of your potential audience, but the songs had a shelf-life of about six months tops. Jim McKinney suggested that we do (a) psychedelic EP. I wanted to make sonic Christmas present. So, we did both. We made an EP that included "The Woman With the Love", "Turn Me On", & "Demons to Chocolate" with a retooled Jim McKinney bass part. about this time, Jim suggested that we name ourselves Riding the Riff and I agreed. We even, for an nanosecond, had a drummer and a bass player, but we never did a show. -- Jim told me that anytime I wanted to record at his studio I could. I wrote the lyrics for "My Life Among the nominally Sentient", and decided he was the man to produce and record it. I recorded it one afternoon and let Jim add his magic. Working with Jim is kind of like that Italian fable where you leave leather out at night, and the next morning you have shoes (presumably made by little shoe-gnomes or something). -- He had already recorded "Everything is Alive" and had featured some of his friends, including me, reading metaphysical books. I believe that this song sums up Jim's metaphysical beliefs rather succinctly. -- "Kissing the Flame" was another one of Jim's songs. I was fortunate enough to play bass on it. I watched him for several hours as he pursued the definitive guitar lead. "The Day the Roses Bled Sunshine" was a throwback to the Christmas album. (...)

We do not label our music. We ladle* it since it is Primordial Soup. (*A ladle is a long-handled utensil with a cup-shaped bowl for dipping or conveying liquids.)"

(M. M.)

http://www.myspace.com/ridingtheriff

Other EPs by RIDING THE RIFF:

'Heaven' - which contained "Heaven", "D.M.B." (Do More Bongs), "Gitmo" and "Rome".

'Riding the Riff Christmas 2008' - which included "The Women with the Love", "Turn Me On", and "Demons to Chocolate".

All songs recorded on the Roland VS 2000 sometimes using Q-Bass.

 

RIDING THE RIFF - Primordial Soup Kitchen

(USA 2009)

(mp3-zip, 4 tracks, 24,7 MB, 18 min, front artwork incl.)

01 The Day the Roses Bled Sunshine

02 Everything Is Alive

03 Kissing the Flame

04 My Life among the Nominally Sentient

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