News
News and updates from Frozen Taco.
New Album Completion Scheduled
February 22, 2026
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.
New Album Undereway!
July 01, 2023
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.
Another New FT Website Launched
January 15, 2018
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.
Matthew Reiss interview on Roxy Radio
July 22, 2013
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.
Young Chinese Piano Virtuoso Plays (and Sings) FT
August 31, 2011
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
June 17, 2011
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”
May 03, 2011
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
February 27, 2011
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
February 26, 2011
New Song: Change is my Guest
February 25, 2011
New Song: Elegant Fiction
February 24, 2011
Starting with the third song, “Elegant Fiction”, the remaining songs on the album were created in old-school FT style - Matthew presented the lyrics to Theron and the duo then immediately worked through several ideas before settling on the direction of the song. “Elegant Fiction” is similar to Relic’s “The Hawk’s Well”. The songs are in the same key and both the chorus and the verse follow similar patterns. “Elegant Fiction” is more upbeat and is likewise a simpler song. If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that each verse features slightly different chord progressions. The first half of the “Elegant Fiction” lyrics were written three years ago; the second half, just before the final recording. Like “Don’t Let it End,” the song originally had one meaning, and it was a challenge to stay true to the original intention of the lyrics. It’s an observation of the lives we live in cyberspace.
Lyrics: Convince myself of an elegant fiction Crossed a boundary, embracing a lie. The pain is real, the joy an addiction. I’m taken by an imitation of life. Funny how I play at living; Reflections of me. Making choices, taking chances From behind a screen. Convince myself of an elegant fiction Crossed a boundary, embracing a lie. The pain is real, the joy an addiction. I’m taken by an imitation of life. Why should I care if I win or lose, It’s just a game I play. Why should I care, no purpose, no meaning. It’s just a means of escape. An elegant fiction. From a distance, my existence rests in the palm of my hand. Yes it’s lonely, my imitation. This I understand. I hope you understand. Please understand. Convince myself of an elegant fiction Crossed a boundary, embracing a lie. The pain is real, the joy an addiction. I’m taken by an imitation of life.
New Song: Don’t Let it End
February 23, 2011
The second song on the new album is “Don’t Let it End”. This song features the oldest, at at least fifteen years, melodic idea on the album. Matthew re-discovered this idea in an old tape that Theron had sent him years before and decided it would work nicely for the song. Matthew wrote the lyrics for “Don’t Let it End” after a visit to Chicago, little knowing he would be moving there a year later. In fact, Navy Pier is visible from the window of his apartment. The song was originally written about aging, but has multiple meanings now. This was the first song recorded on the album - in the summer of 2009, in Chicago overlooking Navy Pier.
New Song: A Small Life
February 22, 2011
Introducing FT’s latest album: “Chorus of Echoes”
February 20, 2011
The songs have been recorded, the edits have been made, and the album cover is complete (thanks to Jason Wood). Frozen Taco invites you to hear its first album in five years: Chorus of Echoes.
First pass at an album cover
February 17, 2011
Mixing “Chorus of Echoes”
February 14, 2011
Here are a couple of pictures editing the new Frozen Taco album, “Chorus of Echoes”. We did all the work on a MacBook Pro running Ableton Live Suite 8.0, which includes numerous mastering features, all of which are much more sophisticated than anything that Frozen Taco has used in the past. Looking forward to recording some songs in this software as well!
Christmas 2010 Recording
December 27, 2010
Awesome news to share: FT is very close to releasing a new set of songs!
Dance Version of ‘Outside My Window’
July 21, 2010
A dance version of “Outside My Window” was performed in China by DJ Davide Succi with special guest, longtime FT guitarist, Theron Welch, on the guitar. The show took place in the city of Haikou, on the island province of Hainan, right on the beach! “Outside My Window” was picked because of it’s simple synth line and singable melody. There are numerous versions of the dance version of the song floating around (look for those to be collected and made available on this site), but this live version of the song was arranged especially for the performance in Hainan, China. Parts of this version of the song, which already contains a ton of new material for the guitar, were written and arranged on the day of the performance. Read more background on the story here. Enjoy the show: [vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/13477395[/vimeo]
Select Guitar Tunes
April 17, 2010
Here are some select instrumentals over the years. From oldest to newest:
FT Theme for Firefox
March 26, 2010
Just for fun, we created a Frozen Taco (old school Frozen Taco, that is) theme for Firefox. Actually, Firefox decided to use the delicate word “persona” instead of theme. Basically, a Firefox persona will replace the boring gray background of your browser with the graphics and design of your choice. They are easy to create and Firefox encourages anyone to create and submit a persona. So we did. Anyway, here it is for all you zillions of fans out there!
FT’s Five Favorites
March 15, 2010
Each of the songlists belowcontains five tracks selected by the members of FT. These aren’t necessarily the top songs, but they are important to the band members, for one reason or another. Enjoy a sampling of some of our favorites.
Hits from High School
January 24, 2010
Here’s a collection of the “popular” sillier songs from our high school days, something for the folks who were at Brookstone at the time. We used to sell Frozen Taco albums for a dollar a piece, and “you supply the tape”. We netted literally tens of dollars using this clever marketing scheme.
A Frozen Taco Christmas
December 15, 2009
New FT on the way
July 09, 2009
Chicago, IL Hi folks! As usual, we spent some time working out some new song ideas. We always make rough recordings of new songs as they progress. But, one of the goals in getting together this time was to make real progress on some of the songs by making official recordings. With that goal in mind, Theron brought his new guitar all the way from China, a custom made guitar made by David Webber out of British Columbia. The result was great progress made on three songs: “Don’t Let it End”, “Nothing to See”, and “A Small Life”.
FT Facebook page added
July 03, 2009
We added a little Facebook page just a few moments ago. Actually, there’s not much there because the purpose of the Facebook page is to direct folks to this site so they can download and listen as much as they want. No purpose in uploading all the files (200+) to Facebook again!
New FT Test Website Launched!
April 29, 2009
Hello to all who may be checking! Today is the official launch day of the new test version of FT’s website. All media files are uploaded, but not quite ready to go. So, when is the official launch day of the released website? That will be when all album pages are created and all media is accessible. That shouldn’t be too long from now. The trick will be hunting down all the right text to add to the website. The hard part, the website platform, is done.