Essence

Guy Called Gerald

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 21, 2000)
• Original Release Date: August 25, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: K7
• ASIN: B00004OCRY
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #144,098 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Five years after the release of his formidable Afro-futurist manifesto Black Secret Technology, Gerald Simpson unleashes another chapter in his musical life. The stance on Essence is less confrontational than its precursor--it's more a soulful, life-affirming offering to elemental forces. "The First Breathe," a swooning instrumental piece that inhales and exhales rhythm, seems to provide the musical blueprint. Gerald has sagely surrounded himself with an ensemble of distinctive vocal talents to help flesh out his musical tracks. Lamb's Louise Rhodes lends a disarmingly honest vocal to "Humanity," while Lady Miss Kier scats through "Hurry to Go" like a dislocated diva. Gerald's brother David appears on two tracks ("Could You Understand" and "I Make It"), showcasing his soul rogue persona. Most prominent, though, is Welsh singer-songwriter Wendy Page. She contributes the album's most breathtaking cuts, among them the hallucinatory "Fever to Flame," the Percodan reverie of "Beaches and Deserts," and the unbridled rage of "Landed," which closes the album with a welcome show of force. --Amazon.co.uk

Product Description
Drum & Bass. His First Album in Five Years. Merging Subtly Ambitious Elements of Drum & Bass and Dub Over Immaculate Melodies and Tones. 'Essence'hopes to Vitalize the Stale Nature of Drum & Bass. Guest Vocals from Lady Kier (Deelite), Louise Rhodes (Lamb).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Aural Experience..., October 13, 2000

By	Jason E. Pellinen "jason_p" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazing album, by an amazing artist. Best way to listen to this is with a good pair of headphones and LOUD.

The vocals on this album are amazingly written and amazingly sung. Lou Rhodes from Lamb provides the best vocals on the track "Humanity" and it was wonderful to hear Lady Miss Kier's (rember "Groove is in the Heart"???) voice again on "Hurry To Go Easy". But what deffianately takes the cake here is the 2nd track titled "The First Breath" it's the track to which all the rest of the songs are tied to.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars -=Beautiful and Innovating=-, September 29, 2000

By	"f909" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This is one of the most powerful Jungle/Drum'n'bass albums of all time. It is given to us in a unisound performance so that we can all enjoy this masterpiece-similar to that of Derrick May's Innovator. Gerald delivers us a powerful message in his introduction about our future, similar to that of the Mayan Factor: Where 2012 is considered to be the last day of the 13th Baktun Cycle in the Tzolkin (reference this material on Amazon's books, Dr. Jose Arguelles, The Mayan Factor-Path Beyond Technology). Essence is a bit more advanced than Gerald's earlier release of Black Street Technology since it deals more on the fundamentals of the Universe and our existence. Essence as he puts it, is the notion that we are aware of our existence and that we as human beings are networks communicating with one another semiconsciously in the growing and expanding universe. Due to our network capabilities as harmonic modules we will be able to one day understand the order of the cosmos. I haven't heard such spectacular performances since Goldie's Timeless and Roni Size's New Forms. A QUICK NOTE: FOR THOSE SEARCHING FOR NEW RELEASES ON DRUM'N'BASS ALBUMS, DON'T EXPECT "HARDCORE BREAKS." IT DOESN'T DEAL WITH DRUGS AND JUST NOCTURNAL ACTIVITY. IT IS MEANT TO BE PURE, AT ALL TIME, POSITIVE AND TRANSLATED IN GERALD's FORTE-JUNGLE. Take consideration in buying this wonderful masterpiece. My girlfriend and I fell in love with this album when we first played it. Individually, when you go to work or do some recreational activity, listen to Essence, and think about those you love and how important you contribute to the world.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Its Just My Humanity Getting the Better of Me, February 4, 2005

By	TastyBabySyndrome "T(to the)B(to the)S" ("Daddy Dagon's Daycare" - Proud Sponsor of the Little Tendril Baseball Team, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

First, I need to clarify the fact that I sample a lot of electronica (Drum n Bass, experimental, EBM, 4x4, Trip Hop, and countless other genres) because I'm somewhat obsessed with the notions driving the music, and that I don't see that much of it as "simplistic." Its kinda been that way for me since I heard an artist recounting how he took sounds from NASA relays and looped them into his music, producing the tweeks" and "whistles" that set the table for his beats. He then went on to say that we weren't really sure what a lot of those sounds were, and that we could actually be observing something in our lifetime that no human had ever observed. So, when I hear a tweek or a whistle, I can't help but thinking that it could be the dying cry of a star drifting into the background and not some static residue.

That said, A Guy Called Gerald has quite a few things going for him on an album that I would actually encourage people to pick up. It has the qualities of both a Trip/Hop album and a Drum n Bass outing, and its sound quality is exceptional. While I wouldn't call it "flawless", I would say that its one of those albums that has the ability to really absorb the listener the way I like, not really aging when I listen to it over the years and having enough range to drive away droves of long nights with relative ease. The album itself has diversified points where beats crash against the shoreline and push songs home, and it has places where it almost seems to paint points of light in the sky. And that seems to be the point, too, with the spoken word intro track saying that the individual human being is, in itself, a universe and another spoken word track featuring some alien sightings. Atop that, there are the vocals of Wendy Page, adding to almost any of the tracks in just the right light, and that of Louise Rhodes.

When I went out and picked up this release, I was originally after the song Humanity because it featured Louise Rhodes (Lamb's superb female vocalist) and because I love what she can do with her voice. Anything she sings on emanates such a beautiful flavor from its audio pores, and this track wasn't an exception to that rule. In my mind its one of the selling-points for the album, and the song I'd actually tell people to check out. It has a nice Drum n Bass sound to it, and Rhodes has the voice to make the work shine. I also like Could You Understand (featuring David Simpson) quite a bit because of the way the bass paints the background and the way the beat almost paints a tribal electronic tempo, and Beaches and Deserts (featuring Wendy Page) because it has that calming sound that crackles with the calming static of a record playing in the background as it mingles lightly with savory symbol led beat.

If you're curious, check the album out and see what you think of it. A Guy Called Gerald does good work, and quite a few of the tracks are what I'd called "repeat-play audio pleasures."