Model Shop is a 2005 album by the Los Angeles group, Spirit, which collects the material they recorded in 1968, for the soundtrack to Jacques Demy's film Model Shop. Chronologically, the album's material falls in between their second and third albums, The Family That Plays Together (1968) and Clear (1969) respectively.
For his film, director Jacques Demy wanted a band that captured the vibe of Los Angeles as he saw it. After hearing Spirit perform in an L.A. club, he decided that they would be the perfect group for his film's soundtrack. However, the film itself was considered a failure and no soundtrack album was released at the time. Most of the material remained unreleased until 2005, following the discovery of a master tape of the original mono mixes.
Model Shop differs from other Spirit albums of the era, in that most of the songs were written collaboratively. Also, with the exception of "Now or Anywhere" and "Green Gorilla", the pieces are exclusively instrumental and highlight the Jazz leanings of the band.
There are noticeable musical overlaps between the pieces on the soundtrack and Spirit's second and third albums. Work on Model Shop had begun in the middle of recording sessions for The Family That Plays Together, and two outtakes from that album, "Fog" and "Now or Anywhere", would appear in different form on the soundtrack. Later, when Spirit began to gather material for Clear, the band drew from much of the material on the unreleased soundtrack. For example, "Model Shop II" became the title song to Clear and "Song for Lola" was used as part of "Ice".
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