in association with Third Rail Projects
Listen to “Numbers on the Door” by Isaiah Singer
BROOKLYN | DEC. 9, 2022: Brooklyn indie rock artist Isaiah Singer releases a double-sided single, featuring the psychedelic “The Numbers on the Door” along with the B-side rocker “In Case This Time”, today on all streaming platforms. “The Numbers on the Door” is featured in the experimental dance film The Night Garden, a Global Performance Studio Film in association with Third Rail Projects.
“One of the directors of The Night Garden, Tom Pearson, is someone I’ve collaborated with for more than a decade now, primarily through my work with Sean Hagerty, the violinist and multi-instrumentalist who has been the composer and sound designer for Third Rail Projects since the immersive blockbuster Then She Fell. Sean and I met and formed a band together (Freedom Haters) in 2006, and we’ve collaborated frequently since then. He brought me in to play harmonica for Then She Fell, which ended up featuring prominently in his brilliant multi-layered immersive soundtrack for that show, so it’s sort of a fun return that we ended up using some wild harmonica sounds on “The Numbers On the Door”. One of my lockdown pastimes was to rework my harmonica rig, which has made it a lot easier to use pedal effects and controlled feedback, which is part of what you hear in the solo section of “Numbers”.
– Isaiah Singer
“I started writing “Numbers” even before I moved to New York, in the middle of the woods on a borrowed toy zither. I’ve misplaced the original recording, but that little zither loop has stuck with me. I dusted off the instrumental because the vibe just made sense for the end of the film. I was inspired to add some changes, and the melody arrived as an unexpected gift at the end of the process – after we had the song recorded, really. By that point, I was able to come up with some lyrics that owe an oblique debt to the images in the film, and Tom asked to include them in the final version.
– Isaiah Singer
“There are a lot of elements to this recording – it’s as overtly psychedelic as anything I’ve worked on, there are lots of layers of sound, and yet it feels pure to me – it’s one of those songs that arrived and advocated for its own existence. Sean’s violins and backing vocals really set the tone for the verses, and the film mix reflects that haunting weirdness. When we went to remix, I decided that I wanted to bring out more of the character of Mike Lunoe’s lovely drums, and so this mix ends up being a bit more direct.”
– Isaiah Singer
in association with Third Rail Projects
in association with Third Rail Projects
ABOUT: Isaiah Singer grew up surrounded by music: he passed the hat at the cable car turnaround at Ghirardelli Square while his father played the concertina on a slack rope; his mother ran the children’s choir. His early projects included solo folk recordings with harmonica and acoustic guitar, attending open mics around the SF Bay Area.
Fast forward to New York in his 20s, where he found himself playing with Genesis P-Orridge in Psychic TV. Later bands included incendiary garage punk rockers Snatch Attack and the chamber-punk trio (sometimes octet) Freedom Haters, who played one of the last shows at CBGB before it fell victim to the ravages of fashion.
Over the past ten years, Singer has been collaborating with composer/violinist Sean Hagerty and the Third Rail Projects theater company on shows including the ground-breaking off-Broadway immersive hit “Then She Fell” and “Ghost Light” at Lincoln Center.
Recent sync film credits include “Numbers on the Door” which appears in the experimental film “The Night Garden” presently making the rounds of film festivals with Best Experimental Short Film awards from the Roma, London, Toronto, and Tokyo Film Festivals, to name a few.
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