Land Of 1000 Culverts

Description

Here are 12 mini-epic songs that cover a bewildering amount of musical ground, all infused with a pop canniness that is probably the closest Bob has yet come to songs that might actually be played on mainstream radio, on a planet similar to this one. The sound is excellent: crisp, wide and contained, with great separation and 3D stereo. The drums are unusually featured and often engaged in eye-popping rhythmic pirouettes. Arrangements are complex and seamless and feature extended instrumental interludes - with echoes and references throughout to some of rock/pop history's best tropes and innovations. This is a record that invites repeated listening; a masterclass in song arrangement - and you can tap your foot to big chunks of it. It's what musicianship and recording studios were made for. Pure pleasure, with grit. Bob Drake (b 1957) has played a lot of different instruments with - and recorded - a plethora of bands, starting in the early 1970s. An important part of Denver's underground music between 1978-1989, he was a founding member of both Thinking Plague and Hail. In the early 1990s, relocated to Los Angeles, he engineered sessions with a wide variety of artists from Ice Cube to Shirley MacLaine, met Dave Kerman, became part of 5UU's, and started making solo albums - of which "Land of 1000 Culverts" is his 10th. Since 1994 he has lived in his home studio in Southern France and engineered over 150 albums. He is also known for his definitive remastering of classic albums by Art Bears, Henry Cow and others.