Description
Label Review.
1968 album. Also available on vinyl.
Our Overview.
This is the first Now-Again issue in a series of reissues centered around Axelrod’s Capitol Trilogy – ‘Song of Innocence’, ‘Songs of Experience’ and ‘Earth Rot’ – which will see release through 2018. “‘With Song of Innocence’…Axelrod unleashed his remarkable imagination, one that would forever shape his reputation as one of the decade’s most eclectic and creative producer-composers.” – SPIN
Axelrod came to prominence in early 1968 when he produced The Electric Prunes third album, ‘Mass in F Minor’ which was mildly controversial at the time for melding religious overtones in a jazz rock format. Axelrod won a solo contract with Capitol Records and this was the first of three records for the label. This one was based on ‘Songs Of Innocence’, a 1789 collection of illustrated poems by William Blake.
This audiophile reissue, has been transferred directly from Axelrod’s original EQ’ed master tapes at Capitol Records by Ron McMaster. Axelrod’s debut, and a ‘60s masterpiece is celebrated as psychedelic, the birth of jazz-fusion, the harbinger of hip-hop, ‘Song of Innocence’ is a hybrid that no one, not even Axelrod himself, could describe. Grounded by Wrecking Crew vets Earl Palmer and Carol Kaye’s funk, torn between the juxtaposition of musical elements, put at ease, Axelrod’s sweeping arrangements, which utilize brass and strings in a way that no one of his era did. It’s both violent and sublime. Contains 28 page booklet that delves into Axelrod’s incredible life and music, replete with never before published photos and an interview with Axelrod by Eothen Alapatt and Wax Poetics’ Brian Digenti.