Introduction
As 2020 draws to a close, The Rhythm and The Flavor are looking forward to a brighter 2021.
Wow, imagine that, 2021. This is the first time I’m realizing that it’s actually going to be the year 2021. It kind of feels like the future now. Although we still don’t all have flying cars like Doc and Marty did in 2015 Hill Valley.
References to Back to the Future II aside, we are super excited for 2021 as it is shaping up to be the best year ever for The Rhythm and The Flavor! We are currently hard at work behind the scenes in our digital production workspace creating goodness for you, our lovely friends. We hope that you will join us on this journey into new and exciting opportunities for expanding the reach of our music. We want to introduce our music to new listeners, we want to make new friends and connect with them in a virtual community, and we want to help foster understanding and personal connections between people everywhere.
Story
As 2020 unfolded and much of normal life was brought to a screeching halt by the pandemic quarantine, we decided to take advantage of the time by being productive. We had a handful of songs that we had written over the past few years, but realized that by simply writing a few more songs we would have enough to make a full album of our original music. So we set about fleshing out some ideas that we had previously jotted down. We worked them up into complete songs and we also prepped the older songs for recording.
We spent the late Spring-early Summer period recording the audio tracks needed to make the album. While temperatures outside hovered around 113 degrees all through the Summer, we edited and mixed the songs.
Sept 4th 2020 we released our album “Comfort Food” which consists of 9 songs plus a bonus track. The first single released was the song “Slow Coup” which is a reaction to the political and social turmoil of the late-2019/early-2020 period, namely the Impeachment proceedings which were sabotaged by complicit Republicans in the Senate.
The second single released was the song “Souls in Isolation” which addresses the inherent side-effects of social-isolation and quarantining. And as the lack of coordinated Federal-level response to the pandemic continues, the adverse effects of the isolation on mental health begin to appear and people have to find their own methods of coping.
As school semesters were changed to online learning, we all got a lot more familiar with programs like Zoom and Skype. Suddenly everyone was a content producer, everyone had a video production studio in their home. Ring lights, video capture cards and office chairs soon sold out, as did cleaners, sanitizers and toilet paper and paper towels.
We decided to embrace the new digital reality and have been working to implement everything from streamlining our audio production and songwriting pipelines to increasing our web presence with a You Tube channel featuring music videos and live streams to rolling out new websites both for Rhythm and Flavor Productions, LLC (the business) and for The Rhythm and The Flavor (the band).
Currently, as Christmas approaches, we are working on finishing the websites. It was only a few days ago that we didn’t know anything about building websites, but now we are close to finalizing them. We will also be introducing a new shopping platform where you, our lovely friends, can get the album and other RnF branded merchandise.
We will also be introducing some non-RnF specific content as well. In the shopping platform we will have products and apparel with quotes, sayings and slogans from us. Our podcast “In Dialogue” will be making a return with a new format. And finally, we will be having a sister site, Galactic Pinhole where our very own Mike from The Rhythm and The Flavor (the non-Laurelann member of the two-person group) will be posting videos and other original content. At Galactic Pinhole the focus is on the more esoteric end of topics. We will bring you videos and podcasts ranging from pop culture and equipment reviews to tutorials and short films.
Conclusion
Rhythm and Flavor Productions is set up to have an amazing 2021!
We are now in the process of incorporating new knowledge and techniques to more effectively create our art. We sincerely hope that your will join us on this journey into the future.
Mike, Laurelann and Aslan (podcat)
