Lou Maxwell Taylor - Cheshire Tree Suite

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Artist:	Lou Maxwell Taylor
Title:	Cheshire Tree Suite
Label:	Myshkazippy 00100
Length(s):	43 minutes
Year(s) of release:	1999
Month of review:	11/1999

Line up

Lou Maxwell Taylor - korg m1, keyboards, guitar, vocals, percussion, bass, drum
Dan Reiter - cello
Frank Lev - clarinet
Chuck Rosene - bass
Radim Zenkl - mandolin
Kerry Parker - voice, fiddle
Kevin Toney - bodhran
Barry Cleveland - guitar, dombek
Mike Masley - percussion
Alex Artaud - percussion
Derek Bianchi - snare, guitar, bass
Rob Carr - percussion
Lygia Ferra - voice
Vladimir Kalistov - harmonica, sintharmonica button?

Tracks

Cheshire Tree Suite (in 13 Parts) 43m

Summary

A home production with quite a lot of help from friends. The album is comprised of one track which will make reviewing a bit difficult, but I'll try to refer to parts as a I go along.

The music

The Big Now is the first part of this suite and it shows itself already very much as a suite right now. The cello sounds nicely dark, but also sometimes more clear and melodic. Another main component of this thoroughly melodic classical sounding piece are the tingling keyboards. Someone Has Stolen My Star features a piano like synht (the Korg I guess) and the soothing vocals of Max Taylor himself. The solo is on acousitc guitar. The song is quite accessible and features eome nice clarinet with its warm timbre. Lost Lake opens as singer songwriter, but which also features a fiddle giving it at times a folky aspect. What Life Is is a percussive piece with more involved vocals: some whispered, some strong. The overall feel is Arabic here, but again there's a slight folk influence (the phrasing especially), while he music is quite back in the mix and repetitive. The folkiness stays in Cheshire Tree Seque. After the "accordeon" we come to the melodic instrumental News Of The Flood. This is only Taylor on his Korg. In Welcome To The Vise we return to the melodic singer songwriter music. The Ruins Of Babylon is dark doomy track with dito vocals. New music For Morris Dancing is quite frolic, but also sounds somewhat off-beat. A female voice accompanies the voice of Max Taylor on The Living And The Dead, which also features some Greekish influences and accordion. Maybe a bit too sweet here. After a return to the intro and the Cheshire Tree song with the Cheshire Tree Reprise the album closes with the urgently repetitive The Unexpected.

The artwork seems a bit "work in progress". The booklet is not a booklet as such, but a collection of leafs. Maybe this is a preproduction version, I'm not sure. The words in the booklet are not perfectly readable.

Lyrically the album is observant in a sense and from it I can read a dissatisfaction with every day life in the States. A romantic it seems.

Because of the clarity of sound and production it is easy (and fun) to pick out all separate instruments.

Conclusion

Proggy singer songwriter music, quite melodic and flowing and with a very varied instrumentation. Musically and vocally the album is quite folky at times. Personally I found it very likable but lacking a bit of bite now and then. It would probably make the music have more identity as well. Of course, this IS supposed to be one single tune, so family resemblances should not be surprising. Sometimes Taylor tries to sing a bit more daringly and this is good. Notwithstanding the folkiness I'm also reminded of latter-day Peter Hammill (not the vocals though).