Check this out!
http://patternbased.com/pb/projects/pb4-dear-birds/
This is a CD that my new friend Joe Minadeo gave me just a few weeks ago.
I started listening to it and just kept it in the CD player! I listened to it many times all the way through. I used it to produce a test signal for some of my current speaker design work. I just really wanted to know the whole thing well enough to be able to hear the first tiny bit of a track and instantly remember what I was about to hear! Now that I know it I can feel the emotional swells in context and anticipate dramatic moments about to come.
This recording is AMAZING!
I love it!
It defies all categorization.
It is sort-of instrumental, although there are some voice sounds and some words here and there.
It's full of traditional instruments like real drum set, percussion and bells, acoustic piano, guitar, electric bass, double bass viola, trumpet, a variety of stringed instruments, etc... plus electronic synthesizers and a wide range of environmental sounds, like bugs in the trees and trains in the distance and even the squeal of a FAX machine over a phone line.
All of this is arranged in layer upon layer of musical interludes that range from cool, trippy jazz to pop rock to psychodelic sound collage. But, it is all totally cohesive and flows perfectly from one intellectually stimulating track to the next. It has a wonderful story-like quality to the whole thing.
All of this is quite nifty on its own, but what makes it really worth having is the production and recording quality! It is pure genius!
I don't want to compare it to anything, but this whole collection is filled with brain-sticky ditties and awesome uses of non-musical sounds, even more so than Beck or Radio Head!
But probably the way coolest part of this is the fact that I walked to the house, recording studio where this was made and I know Joe!
James.
