Music – Page 2 – Richard Rathe's Reflections

“Earth” by Imogen Heap

I’ve been a fan of Imogen Heap for several years. Her latest album Ellipse has one of my all time favorite songs—Earth. It describes how a frustrated [Mother] Earth deals with her rambunctious offspring, homo sapiens.

These Legoland empires choking out mine/Now you’re everywhere, everywhere multiplying around me child/A strain on my heart/This rock can’t tolerate anymore// [Chorus] Stop this right away/Put that down and clean this mess up/End of conversation/Put your back in it and make it up to me now… [lyrics]

Earth is a polyrhythmic, polyphonic, a cappella masterpiece. [listen (2)] This is what she does best, building up complex aural worlds using little more than her own voice (and a little help from her computer!).

Her breakthrough hit may have been 2005’s Hide and Seek [listen], which features her processed voice with minimal accompaniment. It was covered beautifully [listen] by the UCLA Awaken A Capella group.

Long Form Rock Classics – Caravan, Pink Floyd and The Rascals

Here are three obscure but most excellent rock “concerti” from the early 1970s. In addition to the jazz orchestra classics by Frank Zappa, I keep coming back to these three:

Nine Feet Underground (sample but not a typical passage) from In the Land of Grey and Pink by Caravan — 9FU is a progressive rock masterpiece. It rambles through several loosely connected improvisational and lyric “movements” with multiple key changes and unusual time signatures. Available only on CD (there are other live versions as well on MP3).

Atom Heart Mother (sample) by Pink Floyd — AHM is very classical in form and instrumentation. It makes use of a small orchestra and chorus (a sort of “ninth symphony” of rock classics). Available on CD and MP3.

Peaceful World (sample) by The Rascals — PW is a pleasant extended jazz improvisation. One of the nicest musical “grooves” I know of. Only available on CD.

Fraser & Debolt

Here’s a blast from my past! During college my friends and I discovered an obscure Canadian folk album called Fraser & DeBolt. It was quickly apparent that this music was like nothing we had ever heard before. It was stylisticly original, spontaneous, dissonent, and emotionally appealing on many levels. Released in 1971, it became one of the most important albums no one has ever heard of. These reviews and liner notes are worth a read. [I hadn’t made the connection until now, but it also anticipated another favorite of mine, The Trinity Session by the Cowboy Junkies (also Canadian BTW).]

Update: Unfortunately the mp3 files posted on the F&D site back in 2007 are gone. I found their cover of the Beatles’ Don’t Let Me Down, which gives you some of the flavor. [Song begins at 1:20 into the clip after a long intro.] There is also a reissue on CD (but read the comments for some concerns). Listen to these thirty second clips to get a good overview of the album. Daisy DeBolt continues to perform and record new music. “Eclectic” only begins to describe it! I prefer the earlier titles I Can and Soulstalking.