Two more reviews, credits and minor updates
As the updates are mostly focused on The Empyrean at the moment, that’s how it is today as well. The album page has been updated and now it’s more neatly organised. A review is coming soon, so don’t be confused by Lorem Ipsum. The rumour mill was moved to a history page and thanks to awesome treznor from the board, there is now a page from album credits. If you’re interested in helping the musicians on the board tab the album, click here. And remember, the list of all the places where you can get the album has been compiled, too.
Speaking of the board, its migration has been completed. The link from the old forum index should point there and the former URIs will be set to point to new ones, too.
And now for some reviews of The Empyrean. Remember, if you come accross any, do send it over.
Thanks to Mark who scanned it and numerous other people who reported it, Invisible Movement now has a review that probably won’t be bashed in comments. Chris Campion appears to love the album and to actually have listened to it, which isn’t the impression I’m getting from some other reviews. The review is available on the web, in the printed edition and below. The album was given four stars and it’s placed second on the Top Ten Albums Of The Month, with only Lily Allen’s It’s Not Me, It’s You placed on a higher position than it.
Beyond the reach of pop charts and radio formats, Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante has carved out a parallel world as a solo artist over a series of intensely personal and brilliantly realised albums. His 10th, The Empyrean, is his most ambitious to date.
The title takes its cue from a term used by Dante, Milton and Keats to describe the highest point in heaven. Frusciante describes it as a concept album (about two characters that exist in the mind of one person over the course of a lifetime) but esoteric knowledge is not a prerequisite to understanding it. On repeated listens, the record reveals itself as a veiled narrative about the struggle to create, the desire for achievement and validation, the temptation to exist. In truth, all of Frusciante’s solo albums have been concept albums of a sort, acting as a filter for his personal philosophy and a commitment to realising the world of his imagination. And, at its heart, the story of The Empyrean is his story too.
Frusciante joined the Chili Peppers as an 18-year-old guitar prodigy. With his affecting songwriting and a guitar style that sought to marry technique and intuition, he helped the band become, within four years, one of the biggest acts in the world. Disgusted by the straitjacket of success, Frusciante’s head flipped. He quit the group in 1992 and, soon after, released Niandra Lades and Usually Just a T-Shirt, an album of haunted compositions that recalled the raw, fragile solo work of Syd Barrett and Skip Spence.
Depressed and addicted to heroin, Frusciante renounced music and took up painting, casting himself into self-imposed junkie exile at his Hollywood home. When a reporter for the LA Weekly met him in 1996, his teeth were rotting in his mouth, his arms were traced with scars and burns and he had just escaped a near-fatal blood infection.
In 1998, Frusciante (then 28) made another choice: he kicked drugs, rejoined the Chili Peppers and helped re-ignite their career. On his return, he talked earnestly of supernatural experiences, of interacting with spirits, sentient entities that existed simultaneously in parallel dimensions. This could all be dismissed as the faddish cosmic shtick of a muddled rock star if Frusciante hadn’t been so resolute in constructing a personal cosmogony through his music that is as consistent as it is compelling; he sings to and sings through the voices in his head in an oeuvre predicated on the idea that music is a living being. His dedication to music was now such that he claimed abstinence from sex and relationships were necessary to maintain discipline and focus. In 2004, he released six wildly different records, exhibiting a commitment to his craft that made other musicians look positively workshy.
Recorded over two years at his Laurel Canyon home, and featuring appearances by a gospel choir, a string quartet, Johnny Marr and fellow Chili Pepper Flea, The Empyrean is characterised by endless shifts of tone and volume, through peaks and troughs of emotion that balance melody with layers of dissonance. It opens bathed in the earthy buzz of analogue recording equipment with an entrancing nine-minute instrumental, which owes something of a debt to Funkadelic’s classic ‘head’ track Maggot Brain, then floats through a faithful cover of Tim Buckley’s Song to the Siren. Then it really takes off, spinning through vistas of sound, and in Frusciante’s singular vision the earth seen from above starts to look like heaven from below.
And here’s a an excerpt from a completely different review from Away Team:
When John does decide to put vocals to some of the tracks, he has an amazingly good voice, along the lines of old-era Peter Gabriel when he fronted GENESIS. John’s not even British, but he uses a pretty cool faux-Brit accent for most of the tracks, my favorite of which is track #3, “Unreachableâ€. He’s experimenting with very cool recording techniques and some unique vocal effects to compliment his already well-known guitar virtuoso. Let’s face it, this is a fucking Hippy Jam album and won’t score ANY points with CHILIPEPPERS fans, but will totally find a place on the radar with Langerado and other similar 3-day concert event party-goers, easily.
Click here for the whole “review”.
Once again, feel free to send links to other reviews; just go and sniff ’em out.
