Wonderful Bossa/Light Psychedelia/Lounge/Easy Listening: The New Wave - Little Dreams The Canterbury Recordings 1967 (2011 Now Sounds) Stereo & Mono

 

Tommy André and Reid King, two illustrious Californian unknowns who, besides their passion for young girls in bloom, shared a common taste for graceful and airy melodies, psychedelic treats and new wave cinema (which explains the name of the band). 

So it's no surprise to find, in the middle of this collection of jewels made by the duo, a cover of a song from Michel Legrand and Jacques Demy's "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" rearranged into an intoxicating and melancholic bossa.

After this rereading, the rest of the album oscillates between pop, folk, jazz and classical music. The songwriting, staggering for young men barely twenty years old, is permanently sublimated by Gene Page's arrangements and the inimitable playing of the "West Coast" musicians of the time, most of them coming from the famous Wrecking Crew that Phil Spector and Brian Wilson liked so much. 

At the bend of a harpsichord note, we even find Van Dyke Parks, whom pop symphony enthusiasts know well for having greatly participated in the construction of the "Smile" cathedral with Wilson. Like the genius of the Beach Boys, André and Reid also possess that unheard-of instinct for complex (but never pretentious) harmonies and baroque reveries all wrapped up in oboes, vibraphones, strings, brass and light guitars.

Released in 1967, 'Little Dreams' was an instant hit and made its way to the US charts before being halted by a disagreement between the duo and the record company. The recent resurrection of this album, which went out of print too quickly, has further fuelled the fantasy of a "Summer of Love" as an inexhaustible source of musical marvels. We will keep it preciously on our shelves between Sagittarius' "Present Tense", the Hollies' "Butterfly" and Love's "Forever Changes". All those albums that leave the lazy journalist speechless and inevitably force him to give in to the temptation of adjectives. Magnificent. (Mickael Choisi, popnews.com)

A wonderful, almost beautiful album that these two young guitar virtuosos gave us in 1967. Great guitars, loose and airy sound arrangements, for me a great record. Enjoy.(Frank)

Flac (zippy)

mp3@320 (zippy)

Flac

mp3@320