Tom Noble’s spirit world

“It was a combination of being broke, having no infrastructure, moving in New York — all that stuff,” Noble says. “It’s just like it took its toll on the record. There were points where I forgot about it, and then I would play it for people — like, ‘Oh yeah, I made this record’ — and they’d be like, ‘Dude, what the fuck, you gotta finish it!’” He polished up the tracks, and after a few label hits and misses, signed it to Razor-N-Tape. Finally, ‘Tom Noble Presents: House Of Spirits’ will be let free into the world.

Noble is already in the vague planning stage of his next production move, but it’s doubtful that the results will be a copy of the current release, thanks at least in part to Darwin Jones’s untimely death. “Personally, I don’t think I really want even to do that anymore anyway, because that was my vibe in, like, 2006,” he says. “My vibe now is way more sexy Mediterranean disco, like ‘Get Another Love’ by Chantal Curtis, or even [Two Man Sound’s] ‘Que Tal America.’” New sounds to explore, new tunes to be made — a life in music continues.

In mid-October, almost exactly one month before ‘Tom Noble Presents: House Of Spirits’ release, Razor-N-Tape’s JKriv led a live performance of the album’s cuts, performed by the Joyful Noise band — a top-tier combo of NYC all-stars, including vocalist Brandon Markell Holmes and vocalist/flautist Domenica Fossati, who laid down a mind-blowing solo on the band’s performance of ‘Love Trip’. The dancefloor was packed, the vibes were flowing, and Noble took it all in from the back of the room.

Was it weird to see a band performing his songs live, so many years after their original conception? “Very weird,” he replied. But he had a huge smile on his face as he said it — as did absolutely everyone who was there.