Monday, August 2, 2010

Elephant Cloudland – The Album!

Happy Monday afternoon everybody.  Musical Monday continues, as I’m here with an announcement that’s exciting to both Eberle & me, & I hope will be exciting to some of you, too.  Back in June 2004, our group The Alice in Wonder Band recorded 9 tracks that we intended for use as an album to sell at gigs.  We were generously allowed to use the chapel at Marymount Hermitage—a room with amazing acoustics—& we brought our friend Joshua Housh up from the Bay Area to do the sound.  Dani Leone, whom readers know as L.E. Leone & Sister Exister, accompanied Mr Housh & did a lot of everything to help out.  The Alice in Wonder Band members who participated in the recording were, in addition to Eberle & myself: Deadre Chase, our vocalist; Lois Fry on violin & viola; Art Troutner on oboe, tenor recoder & mandolin; & Bob George on clarinet.

For a variety of reasons, we never did get the tracks mixed in a final way, tho we were happy with the results overall.  Then the band broke up at the end of the year, & while we gave away a handful of copies to family & friends, the project lay dormant.

I’m happy to say that, six years after the fact, the album is finally available!  It’s a free digital download on BandCamp, & you can download either the entire album or individual tracks right here.

There are only 8 tracks on the album as it now exists (tho over 40 minutes of music).  We recorded Billy Taylor’s “Cool & Caressing” that day, but we don’t have rights to this, so I can’t include it.  I also chose to use a live recording of Eberle’s beautiful song “Plum Alley,” since the mixing on the studio recording is in need of serious help & I don’t have the master tracks to work with.

Hope you enjoy it!  & stay tuned, because next Monday I’ll be posting the Alice in Wonder Band song for August, complete with slideshow (of course!)

4 comments:

  1. John, it never ceases to amaze me how much talent there is out there. The Alice in Wonder Band is a classic case in point.

    I remember seeing HEM at the Salisbury Arts Centre some years ago. No one had heard of them and, I for one, was taken aback by that. I believe they have several successful albums out there now.

    More power to Alice!

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  2. Hi Martin: The Alice in Wonder Band was a lot of fun, & both Eberle & I (& I hope our ex-bandmates) are very proud of the music we made. I do hope folks decide to download the album. It's free after all!

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  3. This is such fun news! Thanks, John! I'm on my way to check it out....

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  4. Hi Willow: Thanks for checking it out! We're happy about the music even if the mixing isn't picture perfect--& you can't beat the price!

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