Frozen Taco

Vocals Underway and the Album Has a Name — “Retro”

2026-06-30T00:00:00-04:00

After attending the thrilling World Cup match between Uzbekistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, we started on recording the vocals for the next album. Unfortunately, we did not complete them all, but we did finish about 70-75% of the effort resulting in completion of five songs, partial completion of three songs, with two still needing a good bit of work. I should also mention that the album was originally set to include nine songs, but will actually include ten. One of those from our completed list is our first joke song in many, many years, inspired by the fun of the World Cup match. That will be the last track.

We also have an album name finally: “Retro” and we might very well add a “Volume 1” to that title because there are still an album’s worth (or more) of quality unrecorded material. The word “retro” in this case refers various themes that apply to this album: 1) Some of the material is very old, dating back to the 90s, 2) We are using some of the old classic sounds from Korg synths and, 3) We are following the old style of recording quickly with not so many takes.

New Album Completion Scheduled

2026-02-22T00:00:00-05:00

Nearly three years to the day, we have a fairly firm timeline for completion of the album recording - late June 2026. Three years between the completion of the music and the recording of the lyrics is an amazing amount of time, again a symptom of adulthood and finding time for creative pursuits.

Matthew will be in town for the World Cup and we’ll do our best to complete all the recordings of the vocals. Then, it’s just a minor bit of “engineering” (I really don’t know much about this), creation of album art, etc. and we’ll release it on this site. I may very well make some tweaks here and there to parts of the music leading up to the recording of the vocals.

We still don’t have a title of the album, but it will follow of the theme of “old and new”.

New Album Undereway!

2023-07-01T00:00:00-04:00

It’s incredible to think that over ten years have passed since “Chorus of Echoes”. With adulthood and family life in full swing, the old days of cranking out many songs and albums per year are long gone. We still very much enjoy the process of exploring new ideas, crafting songs, and recording them.

With that said, I (Theron) had a few days of alone time and completed the recording of nine new songs for a new Frozen Taco album. I had to spend a good bit of time practicing to get my ability back up to a reasonable level to play a few of the passages that had been worked out and planned some years ago.

In the spirit of time passing, the album will feature themes of “old and new”. About half of the songs are very old songs that were never recorded but always had potential. The other half are “new” songs which where conceived sometime within the last ten years. Yes, that is “new” these days.

I’m very happy with the instrumental recordings, especially how quickly I finished them. As usual, we will not spend endless time perfecting and engineering the songs, but rather we are capturing what we have in the here and now, very much in the spirit of Plato’s ideas of “form”. Matthew still has to finish the lyrics and still has to come out for a visit to complete the effort, but we’ve got the momentum now to take it to the finish line.

Another New FT Website Launched

2018-01-15T00:00:00-05:00

I moved several websites over to a cheap hosting company. The old FT site, a WordPress at the time, promptly became infected with malware and a bunch of stupid posts about getting a university degree. The site got labeled as “malware infected” by Google and, for the longest time, all you saw was a big red warning page.

But no more! FT is now using the cloud and entirely different and more secure tech than WordPress. Come to think of it, I have no idea how these hosting companies stay in business anymore.

Anyway, the site looks pretty basic right now, but we’ll slowly refine it over time. The important thing is that everyone has access to all of FT’s songs again. Enjoy.

Matthew Reiss interview on Roxy Radio

2013-07-22T00:00:00-04:00

Frozen Taco’s very own Matthew Reiss (aha) was interviewed on Roxy Radio Online last week with DJ Steve Rotter. Matthew talks about Frozen Taco’s origins and shares three very different tunes. FT archivists verified that some details recalled are not entirely accurate, but it’s been a looong time Sorry, the original “Pecans” or “Cool Guys” was not among them. This is a long-running interview, topping out at just over 40 minutes.

http://www.frozentaco.com/interviews/corner_matt.mp3

Young Chinese Piano Virtuoso Plays (and Sings) FT

2011-08-31T00:00:00-04:00

12-year old Chinese virtuoso pianist Zhao Muzi took the opportunity to play an FT tune and share it with Frozen Taco. What an honor, huh? Maybe we can request a full instrumental version of Chorus of Echoes transcribed for piano. Or maybe we can have a few piano tracks on a new FT release sometime. Anyway, here’s “A Small Life” on piano (with the pianist singing along as well) for you to enjoy:

“Chorus of Echoes” available on CD

2011-06-17T00:00:00-04:00

FT’s latest album, “Chorus of Echoes”, is now available in CD format. The price? “Three dollars and we supply the CD”. :-p OK, that reference might be lost to everyone except us, but it’s a throwback to the funny high school days where we sold Frozen Taco cassettes for “One dollar and you supply the tape”. We’d collect the buck and tape, copy it, and return it. Pretty sophisticated, right? Well, seems we’ve progressed just a little beyond that, price-wise too. A little about the album: “Chorus of Echoes” is a simple and consistent album. The songs only contain acoustic guitar and voice. Each song is minimal in it’s expression of the idea presented. There are no long, drawn-out sections; each note and each word has a specific purpose, the absence of which would be noticed. You can pick up a copy of the CD here.

Sheet music for “The Walk”

2011-05-03T00:00:00-04:00

For me, cranking out various kinds of sheet music is a great way to relax. Here’s the latest from the Chorus of Echoes album, “The Walk”. You can see a list of currently available sheet music on the album’s site.

New Song: The Walk

2011-02-27T00:00:00-05:00

The sixth and final song on the “Chorus of Echoes” album is called “The Walk”. It was first created during Christmas vaction 2008 although the middle section wasn’t finalized until the summer of 2009. The final recording was made during Christmas 2010. The song also roughly follows roughly in the style of “Living in the Now” and “A Small Life” and features a simple structure of two verses, a middle instrumental section, and two final verses. Like “A Small Life”, it’s another somber song that’s written in a major key. The verse features a section of two measures of 3/4, giving a sense of urgency to the lyrics. “The Walk” features the most personal lyrics that Matthew has ever written. He sang this song almost daily for three years before recording it.

Lyrics: I think I’ll walk alone tonight I’m in no hurry to get home I wish I’d worn my coat, but still I think I’ll walk alone tonight My breath seeps from my mouth as steam powering this tiny train towards its destination with rhythmic puffs of steam I think I’ll walk alone tonight I’ve always had you by my side But now I feel the distance I think I’ll walk alone tonight I understand I’ve walked too far To make it back to what was home I’ll stop to rest when morning comes By night, again I’ll walk too far

New Song: Nothing to See

2011-02-26T00:00:00-05:00