For Danny VanZandt, distinctive smells, tastes, and sounds trigger vivid memories.
The Detroit singer-songwriter explores those sensory experiences and the powerful recollections associated with them on his new album, Proust in the Kitchen With the Wooden Spoon!.
“It’s that concept of the Proustian memory that’s in one of his books where the character eats a cookie and has a flashback to a memory,” said VanZandt about his indie-rock release. “That—I think—is such a real thing and such a weird phenomenon that happens.”
As part of that phenomenon, he reflects on a gamut of emotions, ranging from gratitude to longing to anticipation, that arises when cooking and eating his late mother’s spaghetti and listening to music with friends.
“For me, my mom passing [away] was when I started thinking about that kind of stuff,” said VanZandt, who lost his mother in 2020.
“When she first passed away, the emotions wouldn’t come up on their own when just dealing with that, but then it would get reflected through a movie or a song. Then, I could process it and see the totality of it and that’s the way that I would deal with it.”
VanZandt processes everything through 11 emotive tracks on Proust in the Kitchen With the Wooden Spoon!. His sentimental lyrics and evocative instrumentation transport listeners to a special time, place, or feeling.
Each track feels like a magical short story soundtracked with elements of Americana, folk, rock ‘n’ roll, and alt-country.
“I remember listening to Spotify on shuffle and ‘Freak Scene’ by Dinosaur Jr. came on, and I had forgotten that song existed. I also had forgotten that Bug as an album existed and it reminded me of a CD a friend had burned for me in high school,” he said.
“It was such a faraway memory that I had not thought of in years, and I could see the color of the CD. When that stuff happens, that’s so crazy to me and so is the idea of how music can be a vessel that holds memories.”
I recently spoke with VanZandt about the album and the inspiration behind it.
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