Not much can be found on the 1940’s starlet Alice Armand beyond the few glitzy Romantic Comedies she performed in (most notably The Blue Bird), but if you go off her seemingly isolated endeavor into music, you can rest assured she was a troubled soul. I’m sure we’re all equally burnt out on the Cabin-in-the-woods scenario of recording, but there is something uniquely eerie about a Hollywood debutante escaping to a farm in the Adirondacks to record this brand of lonesome folk songs. According to the liner notes of the rare album, found in a home-pasted jacket, the songs were a “result of some Happening” which only adds to the mystery and intrigue of the nature of Alice’s escape and the reasons for these songs (Untitled Instrumental, especially, raises too many questions itself. Is this a sloppy cover of a Hank Williams song, or an ahead of it’s time foray into instrumental synthesizer music??). One thing is for sure, at a certain time of day, in a lonely room with the speakers just loud enough, these songs exist to remind how good it can feel to be alone.
Props to Waxidermy for turning us on to these tunes; you can stream a few of the songs below.
“Untiled Instrumental”
“Get You Foot Off the Pedal Mr. Brown”
“To Hawaii’s Shore”
“Peek Up at the Stars”
