Customer Reviews

Spirit Stereo Frequency

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

well, I wish I had owned this a few months ago while I was still in college...Let's just say this is a great after midnight listen - I'm not advocating smoking pot...but if you're gonna, this cd would be a great counterpart to that activity - seriously though, lush pop, great melodies - haven't paid much attention to the lyrics - this is like candy - a very enjoyable listen, probably worth 3 and 1/2 stars, but since that's not an option it gets for. as an enjoyer of good packaging and cover art though, I must say the album cover is fairly ridiculous - not worthy of the lovely music inside - but don't let that stop you from buying it!

Wow. A fully psycedelic trip through Farmer Dave & Jimi Hey's head. On the first listen I thought I couldn't make any sense out of it. Crazy crashing echoes and melodies and multi-tracked phsychedilic doo-dah boom bahs galore. But after a few more spins the odd becomes familiar and then the familiar becomes great. After a dedicated headphone session I must say all that was murky has been revealed and THIS ALBUM IS FLAT OUT GENIUS! It's very LA in it's cut-up sensibility. There's so much good stuff out there, the trick is to find a way to mash it all together and still somehow keep things coherent. Well, they definitey got it all in there. A fat hit of dub, some definite twang, some tape echo insanity, and tons of overlapping ideas, sounds, and melodies. Fall Down #7 features vocals that are twisted and bent back on themselves to such an extent that you dont know if it's the cd that's gone haywire or if it's your brain that's on the blink. It's the same effect Syd Barrett's "No Good Trying" has on a listener.

It's adventurous, and exciting, and freaky as all that. Thanks for the trip boys. I think I'll stay for a while.

A spin-off of Beachwood Sparks, this one album incarnation is AWESOME!!!
Think: Magical Mystery Tour/ For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite, I Am The Walrus Beatles, Moody Blues, Jimi Hendrix's sonic segway portion of " 1983...(A Mermaid...)moon, turn the tides", from Electric Ladyland...... a little early Pink Floyd, spaceman shaman DMT-Mescalito magic organic cosmic voices blending harmony shifting melting beauty.
A mystery why Spirit Stereo Frequency is still unknown. A masterpiece of recording , editing , musicianship, and spirit.

I've had this album since it first came out and I come back to it time and again. Like an a.m. gold sunshine saturday morning from my youth, where it takes me I always want to go. Can't recommend it enough...

I heard and enjoyed a few songs by the Beachwood Sparks, liked the cover art of this album, and the sample of the first song sounded really good. Basically, I bought this album on a few whimsical notions. Sometimes those loosely linked factors that I consider when buying new music lead me to awesome records. I don't know if I'd go as far as saying Spirit Stereo Frequency is 'awesome', but it is quite good, and has several great moments- the opener Daylight Till Dawn being one of them. When I first listened to the line "I wanna wake up in the morning" resound on this first track, I became very enthused about my purchase, as this song sounded so canorous to my ears. We're On Our Wave kept the good vibes flowing with a sweet opening guitar riff and a permeating, irresistable mellowness. Fall Down 7 threw me out of my groove. There are a lot of cool things going on: the crowd cheers, the horns, the Mexican lyrics, and the heavy reverb. For some reason though, I just felt like this song was overloaded and too heavy. It's also about two minutes too long. I would have liked this one if it was toned down a bit more. The next track, You'll Be Down, has some catchy, chugging guitar riffs, but it obnoxiously breaks out of its cool, rocking feel and drifts back into slower, hazy psychedelia. It's not a bad track, just too unfocused. Sky Bicycle is very nice. It conjures Simon and Garfunkel's 69th Street Bridge Song with its gentle, lovely sound and abounding peacefulness. Oh, When? is all over the board. Like most of the songs on this album, it has so much to it, but again, I think the lack of cohesiveness in the structure of these song is irritating. Sad K. might be the best tune on the whole cd. Like Daylight Till Dawn, it has a stunningly good chorus, beginning with the pertinently optimistic lines, "Hey we can find our love in the tears." Anchovya Suite is a brief, pretty little ballad preceding the the even prettier Winter Light. The instrumentation in parts of this song is really beautiful. As funny as it may sound, at times I think this song sounds like a bizarre, nebulous cover of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The coda, All Night Radio, starts off pretty good, but following the precedent established by the previous tracks, digresses into superfluous noodling. My major complaints with Spirit Stereo Frequency include the excessively amorphous individual song structures (some may argue that this makes the songs, but I'm not very fond of it), the inability to end a song- most are watered down by the time the needless, experimental excursions come to a close and finally, the omnipresent echos and reverbs. If some of these numbers were more lucid, they'd really be indispensable pop gems. With these negative aspects of the recording said, I still think Spirit Stereo Frequency is a very cool record worth picking up. Daylight Till Dawn, Sad K. and Winter Light alone make it worthwhile. To their credit, Dave Scher and Jimi Hey did something with this album that popular musicians rarely do nowadays- establish their own new, creative sound. This album is definitely overflowing with creativity, and it's hard to compare with anything else out there today. Again, I'd say with all factors being considered, this recording is a good buy.

I saw these guys at a club in LA in April. They were unbelievable. The music "hooked" me the second I heard their first song. The crowd was cool and attentive to what was going on with the band. Then I bought the CD 'cause I could not resist after seeing them live.

These guys are great, as is their CD-highly recommended for anyone that loves psychedelic music, 2004 style. I played the CD driving on Mulholland and the two went well together, twists, turns, beautiful...as a visitor on a trip to LA seeing/hearing and now owning the CD must have been in the cosmos. These guys are good, really good...I wouldn't even hesitate - this CD is FAB.

Hey-what a great album. I caught the show at Spaceland while I was in town, and bought the CD.

Absolute dreamy psychedelic music. I recommend it for anyone who loves music filled with great guitars, vocals, harmony and keyboards etc.

This is gonna be one of my favourite albums of 2004 already! It's a massive album. Get ready for Summer. Yeah it's hard to get your head round this at first, but totally rewarding once you do. If you wanna hear Beachwood Sparks with retro rock on crazy drugs, this is it. Highly addictive! Buy it now.

There is nothing else like this record. The music echoes and moves in ways that I have never experienced...truly magical. Imagine all of your favorite bands-Zombies, Beatles, Floyd, Dead, playing on four different stereos at the same time, then add tons of dub-like effects. That is All Night Radio. This record can totally change the way you hear music forever if you let it...

All Night Radio's Spirit Stereo Frequency sounds like a classic lost album from 1967 (vocals drenched in reverberation, psychedelic instumentation and a heavy emphasis on melody). But, as it was made in 2004, the sound quality is far better than any group could have hoped for in the sixties.

All Night Radio modern approach to psych adds a new chapter. Sky-cycle continues the trend of psych songs about two-wheelers [Bike - Pink Floyd (1967); My White Bicycle - Tomorrow (1968); Bike Ride To The Moon - The Dukes of Stratosphere (1987)].

Fans of ELO, The Moody Blues, Super Furry Animals, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Pink Floyd (circa 1967) should get this gem while they still can. It's a CD that'll grow on you.

[DW]