Ragamuffin Archive is thrilled to partner with our friend— singer/songwriter/musician, and newest member of the Ragamuffin Archive team— Hal Swift, to bring you “Slick Pop Sounds”, an all new series of Rich Mullins songs, remixed and reimagined for the 21st Century! Hal is utilizing AI software to isolate Rich’s vocals, as well as select instruments from the master recordings of Rich’s songs, and he is building new and exciting arrangements around them to create new versions. We are beginning this project by focusing on Rich’s self-titled debut album and, in the coming months, we will be releasing the individual reimagined tracks from that album on our YouTube channel.
A couple of quick things: while the software we’re using to create these tracks does utilize AI technology, what you will be hearing is absolutely real! Real musicians play the instruments on the tracks, and Rich’s vocals are genuine. The technology is only being used to isolate the individual stems from the records, in order to use them to create new arrangements— basically what Paul McCartney & Peter Jackson recently did to create the new Beatles single “Now and Then”. Secondly, we know that some folks may be put off by the idea of re-recording these songs. We get that. We can assure you that those records mean a great deal to us too. Our intention is not to replace those recordings, but to honor them. Our hope is that by doing this project, and sharing these mixes, both new and old fans will be encouraged to listen/re-listen to the original albums.
The “Slick Pop Sounds” project launches on Wednesday February 21 with Hal Swift’s arrangement of “New Heart”.