Just received the "Pedal Giant Animals" CD on Thursday. There is no music on the planet that compares to this. For years I have been waiting for music with intelligent, spiritually uplifting lyrics and Zen vocals such as Stan's. The lyrics have a quality of sophistication that leaps out at the listener with brush strokes of expanded imagery. I never knew that vocals could add such an expansive atmosphere to the music. Suddenly one is transported to a celestial place where Bali Nahoo is riding "the lion, curving space and breaking time..."
There are other catch phrases like:
"In my pyramid construction, I do it all. Changing waves into particles, I've watched the fractals grow...from a single seed into complexity, it's been a marvelous show"...
The music seems to encompass yet surpass the very best of HTM...
But the best part is, THE BAND HAS EVOLVED into a new entity, ascended to a new level.
When I was in my early teens, my mother would frequently ask me what music that was that I was playing...the complex arrangements of Happy The Man and the pastoral, softer pieces of Camel would often grab her attention.
I have no doubt that if this music was played in some public place like a coffee house, people would ask who it was. Play them the piece, "Pedal Giant Animals" and see what happens!
Happy The Man's music has always evoked powerful, personal images and feelings in me. It runs deep. I can not even begin to describe the feelings I have had when listening to "At the Edge of This Thought, While Crome Yellow Shine and Hidden Moods / New York's Dream Suite. And of course ALL of Kit's solo work...
New York's Dream Suite takes on a whole different dimension when Dan Owen sings it. Please, please, please guys...now that Stan has developed his own unique Zen vocal style, record a
new version of New York's Dream Suite! The band is better than ever now. You could easily do a mind-blowing version with a jazzier, more melodic mid-section and the wondrous, mind expanding vocals that it was meant to have!
I just can't wait for the Oblivion Sun CD now!
cheers,
chris