SONG OF THE DAY
“Universal Frequencies” by His Name Is Alive (Stars On ESP, 4AD Records, 1996). Written by Warren Defever and Matthew Smith.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– His Name Is Alive is an experimental rock band/project from Livonia, Michigan.
– After several self-released cassettes, they debuted on 4AD Records in 1990, starting a long run at the label.
– Throughout the band’s long history, leader Warren Defever has been the only constant member, with a variety of musicians and singers contributing over the years.
– Defever began recording in his basement in 1985, while still in high school. His initial work consisted primarily of Defever alone recording the music to a 4-track recorder, with friend Angie Carozzo providing vocals. After Defever went off to college and met Karin Oliver, she became the band’s primary vocalist.
– The group’s work initially resulted in a self-released cassette. Defever sent the tape to 4AD in hopes of being signed to the label. Despite label president Ivo Watts-Russell’s initial rejection of the band, Defever continued to send him tapes, with new and improved versions of the songs appearing on each new tape.
– Ivo signed the band in 1989, believing that (along with his This Mortal Coil partner John Fryer) he could re-mix the songs into a proper album 4AD could release. Livonia appeared in the summer of 1990, and became one of the label’s biggest sellers of the year. “He took it apart, and he didn’t put it back together,” Defever would later comment on Ivo’s production style.
– Defever took an extended break to work on new projects and write songs for 1996’s Stars On ESP, an ambitious project three years in the making. He continued to collaborate with Karin Oliver and Trey Many on this release but also wrote songs with Matthew Smith of Outrageous Cherry, Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters, Ian Masters of Pale Saints, Erika Hoffman.
– Stars on ESP was a breakthrough for the band as Defever began to fully realize his potential as a musician able to paste many influences together in one cohesive work. On this fourth album for 4AD Records, the group mixes dub, dream pop, surf, country, and Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys into something altogether unique.
– Vocalist Lovetta Pippen, an experienced soul and gospel singer, joined His Name Is Alive after appearing as part of a gospel choir on Stars On ESP.
– While a deceptively simple and minimalist album at first glance, Stars on ESP is actually rich with detail. The over-arching concept is that the album is a pseudo-compilation of singles on the ESP-Disk label founded in 1966. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, ESP was noted for its roster of psychedelic, folk and progressive bands. The label had its own identity, similar to the way 4AD would develop its own identity in the 1980s.
– On the album’s sleeve, all the songs have the album’s 4AD catalog number (CAD6010) with a number appended after it, as if each one was a single.
– The album also seems to allude to the old days of pop music, that once a song became popular, several different artists recorded their own version of the song. Therefore, tracks 2, 10, and 15 are all different versions of the same song.
– The other main theme is Defever’s memories of AM radio and being a youth in the 1970s, and the songs both reflect the sound of the decade’s AM radio fare and are filled with memories of Michigan winters, summers and locations. There are several musical interludes that give the impression of turning through a radio dial, including snippets of songs that later appear in full.
– Perhaps taking this fascination with past AM radio to its extreme, “Universal Frequencies” is highly reminiscent of The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.” In interviews, Defever has called the song a “sequel” to “Good Vibrations.”
– 4AD’s vinyl LP release of Stars on ESP, a limited edition, featured a special mono remix of the album, further emphasizing the album’s tribute to the past glory days of AM radio (which is always broadcast in mono).
– During the years that Warner Bros. distributed 4AD’s releases in the USA, they used their own catalog numbers that did not correspond with the standard 4AD numbering scheme (one can tell whether a release is an LP, EP, etc., and what year it came out by looking at a 4AD catalog number). Nonetheless, the front and back cover CD artwork for the Warner Bros. release did use the CAD6010.01, CAD6010.02, etc., designations as mentioned above, even though the Warners’ catalog number was different. However, a special promotional release with a different cover re-did this scheme with the Warner Bros. catalog number (46207).