Their sound is difficult to label; they have the sensibilities of a much darker group, but somehow Ingredients the Band stays in the realm of the delightfully absurd. Ingredients the Band came to us looking for a show in Portland, as they were a Eugene, OR band trying to expand into larger cities. The band was already fairly well-known in the college-town that is home to the University of Oregon, but members were graduating from school, and they needed shows all over the pacific northwest.
Ingredients played a show at The Banana Stand with Project Eldridge, whose members had just come from a funeral of their dear friend who had died of a heroin overdose. Now that's fucked-up in and of itself, but this was the second show we had hosted in less than a year whose band members were still reeling from such a specific tragedy. Ours is not to judge, and there was a period of time when the concerts at The Banana Stand were less regulated than they eventually became. Without going into incriminating details, the show fell into a stupor of chemical excess and overt depression, leaving a group like Ingredients the Band in an awkward position having to perform their colorful songs to a very lit crowd.
In any case, we weren't satisfied with how Ingredients the Band were represented in what we had captured. So, we invited them back, but for a private session. A couple weeks later, Ingredients came back on a Sunday afternoon while Louie and I ran sound.
It was an interesting experiment. The band played through their set twice, and we summed the best songs into a single recording. Playing the songs twice allowed for minor errors to be corrected the next time around, but the lack of an audience really took out a lot of the energy and depth to the recording.
The occasional clank of a beer bottle, the shouts of an exuberant fan, the swell of applause at the end of a particularly righteous shred – all of these background noises add to the listening experience. That's not to say this album doesn't rock, because it certainly does. With tracks like "Groovy Groovy Man" and "Tiger Hunters" it's a treat to hear talented musicians have fun with their collective imagination.