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Line up / Musicians
Nancy Nairn - female vocals
J. Spider Barbour (James G. Barbour) - rhythm guitar, cicada, vocals
Jon Sabin - lead guitar, mandolin, vocals
Ralph Kotkov - keyboards, vocals
Paul Album - bass, vocals
Dahaud Shaar - drums, percussion
Jim Friedman - arranger & conductor (02,04,05,11), producer
Peter Winkler - musical director, piano (01), arranger & conductor (07-10)
Jeremiah Burnham - flute (07)
Tracks Listing
01.What Will Become The Morning
02.Lacewing
03.Cynthia Gerome
04.April Grove
05.Father's Getting Old
06.30 Poplar
07.Baby, Let Me Show You Where I Live
08.Fitzpatrick Swanson
09.Lake Hope
10.Piece Of Sun
11.Summer In Your Savage Eyes
12.Dr. Root's Garden
Bonus Tracks
(previously unreleased)
13.The Dues Are Hard
14.Gimme Your Love
15.Sink In Deeper
16.Window Shopping
17.Well I Can Ride
18.Cold And Windy City
19.Cynthia Gerome
20.Dr. Root's Garden
United States ( Ithaca, NY), Psychedelic Pop, Psychedelic Folk
\"Take elements of psychedelia, jazz, folk, dixieland, science, and science fiction, and combine them into a perfect one-shot slab of vinyl, and you have this album. Definition is one of the most musically accomplished, adventurous, and literate records ever released!
In lesser hands, this amalgamation of such disparate elements could render a product that is patently unlistenable, but group frontman J. Spider Barbour more than lives up to his name. He weaves a complex web guaranteed to ensnare the listener. From the amazing high-speed piano runs of \"What Will Become of the Morning?\", to the poetic lyricism of \"Lake Hope\", to the playfulness of \"Baby, Let Me Show You Where I Live\", there's not a single wasted moment, even when logic and reason dictate that there should be. After all, what other album wouldn't sink under the weight of Barbour's winged insect fixation?
It shouldn't work! It should flop! It should result in nothing but howls of derisive laughter! But, somehow, Barbour is able to show you creatures that you've probably never regarded as anything but \"creepy\", through his eyes. The small, buzzing subject of the song \"Lacewing\" becomes a character so sympathetic as to almost bring a tear to one's eye. This is an album of extremes, but doesn't strike the listener as an extreme album.
It's a \"hippie\" album in the sense that it views the previous generation as ether hopelessly confused (\"Father's Getting Old\") or irredeemably bitter (\"Fitzpatrick Swanson\"), but doesn't pander to a messy, two-chord, hippie, stoner stereotype (as heard in the ragtime-based \"30 Poplar\"). It has a density (witness the lyrical content of \"Cynthia Gerome\", the story of a femme-fatale who has suddenly lost the magic), but isn't impenetrable in the way that, say, some of Zappa's works are. It's an album that flows along leisurely for half an hour, and then decides to take on the concept of the end of the world (\"Dr. Root's Garden\", which seems to be the basis for a concept album that never was, but should have been).
There are some in the rock cognoscenti who refuse to believe that anything can approach the Sgt. Pepper - Doors - Surrealistc Pillow trinity. Do yourself a favor and listen to this album before you listen to them! For my money, this beats all three. Now that the album has been reissued on CD by Rev-Ola (with eight bonus tracks to boot), everyone can hear for themselves without paying \"collectors' market\" coin. Delicate, intricate, and just flat-out amazing, this is one definition you won't forget.\"
