Roger O'Donnell
The Truth In Me
The first thing to strike you about this cd is the stunning packageing and artwork much as roger has embraced the modern technology of things like I tunes he has also made the hard product something very unique to.
Roger was a member of 2 of the most important bands of my lifetime, that being The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and The Thompson twins, though he spent the last 20 odd years with the odd break for good behaviour as a member of The Cure.
So what we have here is a labour of love turned into a full album, he was commissioned to compose a piece if music for the Moog film that came out last year the while track was to be written and recorded using just a Moog (in this case a Moog Voyager) . The Moog is normally thought of as a lead instrument or used for fat bass sounds, roger has put in a lot of attention to detail and used it for not just melodies but has made percussive sounds and given you the impression t at your in a lab with about 4 boffins all in white coats pressing buttons (I am of course thinking of footage I’ve seen of Kraftwerk in the mid 70s). The album starts with My Days, this album really benefits from being played through a good hifi as It has a large sonic width, the bass notes are really deep and the high sweeps are well really high! You cound call this track sci fi music, its not a million miles away from an old John Keeting lp I have from the 70s (minus the orchestra).The next track is one of a couple that are graced with the vocals of Erin Lang, best way to describe her is in the post All About Eve Cranes/Slowdive style and is sung in a very percussive style, the whole album has a very percussive feel even though there isn’t any drums on it, this I guess this is another reason why its not a normal album, its fair to say that it’s a groundbreaker as Ive not ever heard of any album that’s been written entirely on I electronic instrument (other than zappas Synclavia) and its not like a midi workstation , every sound has to be set up to be just right before recording. Well it’s a winner as the title track shows an almost haunting track that would grace the closing credits of any good film as long as it has a meaningful end.
Not with out you, If you shoved drums and guitars could sound like one of Rogers former bands, it would be interesting to see this one in that situation. Listening to the next few tracks I can see the drum and bass brigade getting hold of this and turning it into dance tracks, it has all the elements for it, This Grey Morning is a rather Jazzy number again with a percussive bass line, knowing roger is a big fan of the likes of Jan hammer and Herbie Hancock it does come through on this one. Tired of all this another one graced with Erins vocals and is probably the most likely contender for a single release should there be one from this album, and Is one id really like to hear with maybe some light percussion added. Last track and so I close My eyes, is tipping his had to the boffins in Germany, and why not.
This is a really good album, If you like electronic, Ambient or even Goth music, then I think you are going to like this an awful lot.
http://www.rogerodonnell.com
http://www.myspace.com/rogerodonnell
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