City Noir (c) Billy Brandt 2019
BILLY BRANDT
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The Title Track From the Album by Billy Brandt 2019
www.billybrandtmusic.com
This raindrop-glistening record offers Brandt’s most sincere talents as a pulp writer, performer, and elegant singer, as well as his biggest step forward as an artist, proving honesty and craft always win the day.
Billy Brandt vocals, Brian Monroney guitar
& vibes, Chris Symer acoustic bass, Alexey Nikolaev sax, Tim Kennedy piano, Jeff Bush percussion, Brad Boal drums &
bongo, Kelly Ash & Darelle Holden backup vocals
Videographer Ken Hill
Recorded at Studio X & Admiral Studio
Engineered by Reed Ruddy
Pro Tools & assistant engineer by Andrew Ching
Mixed by Reed Ruddy
Mastered by Ross Nyberg
Cover & Disc Photography by Andre Moreno
Video & Other Photography by Ken Hill and Billy Brandt
Design by John Hubbard / emks.fi
How this album came to be…
It started in the middle, a lot of things do. The beginning was too long ago, too far away. In order to get there, he would
have to think with the end in mind.
The radio in his truck played a song about a Beau & Cello.
He was stopped in traffic and he listened as he looked around. He could see the city unfold in front of and around him. There
to the west rose beautiful skyscrapers of steel and glass and
to the east on the hill sat the modern tent city homes of blue tarps and shopping carts sprawled out along the highway.
“This certainly isn’t the end.” He thought. “This was just another movie”. Another scene from the middle of a film
that he thought he had watched before.
The city had changed. For a moment it was as if the color
had washed away and the city became like a film noir; the detective, the criminal, the femme fatale, the patsy and the loser all jockeying for space on the city streets. And it’s the
city, always the city, like the old movies, that is the main character, the main player in this tale. He had always liked the color of black and white and here it was, a post-modern film noir and its sound stripe playing out in his mind as he drove
a traffic-laden highway. Add jazz; add bongos, a crime, a love story, a card game, a saxophone, and Tango Happiness.
Add Frances Doesn’t Care For The Blues, One Of a Kind, Gonna Be Those, Ooh Sha Dooby each is its own theme, each its own melody. That is how this album came to be.
Now he is at the end.
You are at the beginning...
The beginning to the soundtrack of the motion
picture from your imagination in the City Noir…