The music of Perfect Jewish Couple (PJC) captures the innovation and popularity of synthesizer music in the mid-80s. The music of PJC consists solely of original tunes created on layered keyboards and synthesizers and early workhorse drum machines such as the Roland Drumatix TR-606 and the still-popular sounds of the Alesis HR-16. Layers of live percussion and lush violin add an organic element to their music, enabling it to breathe.

PJC was always a studio band: Shari Lauter wrote layered songs, which her music partner Kelly Hale would write lyrics for and then sing in his gorgeous tenor. For a few tunes, notably Heart on My Sleeve, Kelly shared a vocal line & catchy hook, which Shari then produced into a song they both consider their Best Tune That Should’ve Been an 80s Hit.

Shari and Kelly love performing live. Performances were done with just the two of them, and initially, backing tracks were mixed onto cassette. As the group’s popularity grew, they added background singers, live percussion, guitar, and sax – sometimes up to 6 people on stage, still playing to the pre-recorded backing tracks of original tunes.

When PJC performs now, they play the optimized backing tracks from a laptop, but it’s still those same songs written and recorded in the mid-80s.

PJC released a 7” vinyl EP in 1985 featuring two songs: Step Back and the duo’s first composition on the B-Side, The Fall (We still have a couple of copies of the vinyl 7” from 1985, Ménage a Trois).

Around 2000, Shari learned The Fall had become a favored “anthem” of mid-80s synth music, the genre now known as Minimal Synth. Fans had copied the song from cassette to cassette literally around the globe.

The resurgent popularity of Perfect Jewish Couple led the duo to release their CD, Time Capsule, in 2007. Since all the songs had already been recorded back in the 80s on period instruments, the task was to transfer the original 10” reel-to-reel tapes onto hard drive for mixing & editing.

The painstaking process included first baking the tapes in a low-temp oven to revive the magnetic tapes, specifically enabling better reproduction of higher frequencies.

Then Shari spent the next three months learning the Digital Audio Workstation, in this case, Digital Performer, editing, mixing, and sweetening the original recordings. The duo added some new vocals on a tune or two, amped up the bass on New York Rain (using the same Arp Axxe synth the original bass line was played on).

The Time Capsule CD is available for purchase. Each of the tunes is also available for individual download.

DO NOT MISS:

• Heart on My Sleeve
• The Fall

Personnel:

• Kelly Hale: Vocals & Lyrics
• Shari Lauter: Song Composition & Production, Keyboards, Violin, Percussion