icarus syndrome-Trempeleau

I know this blog is getting to be a bit of an homage to all things Andy Herald, but hell, who's arguing with that? Anyways, this here is another topper on my all-time favorite albums list. If I recall correctly, I was handed this double CD-R on my first visit to the 7th Street Space in 2004. I had seen an early incarnation of the infamous Oracles (then under the guise of "The Icarus Syndrome Band" I think). I listened to the CD's all the way back to Chicago at a very early hour of the morning when I should not have been driving. "Wake Up" came through the speakers and I felt as if this album had been recorded specifically for my drive that evening/morning. I've probably listened to this album more times since then than any other that I own. It is completely and utterly timeless to me and is always something I come back to time and time again. It is a recording fit for all seasons. This album has been by my side through the hardest of times, break-ups, and bullshit as well the brightest and most memorable moments of love in my life. If icarus syndrome ever had a White Album, this would be it. I remember playing this a lot in a record store I worked at in Colorado some years ago. My manager described the sound of this album as the feeling one has when they're aware of being in between a deep dream and waking up, something he had always wanted to achieve in music.

Upon further research of the numerous incarnations of "Trempeleau," I realized this had been put out as a double CD (at least two different versions/track arrangements) as well as a condensed version on cassette. The more I conversed with others who had copies of Trempeleau, the more I came to know that there were also different versions of some of these songs that made it on some releases but not on others. I've collected here, to the best of my ability, the album in its original 2 disc format (as I received it in 2004, at least) as well as a handful of alternate takes/mixes of some of the tracks. This album is mixed so heavily around segues that on the more recent CD version I acquired, there were slight differences in the mixing and overlapping of said segues. I've only included 2 of these ("Do You Know" and "Oklahoma Kid") as most proved to be only slightly different. If any of you out there have other versions or takes of these tunes, let me know and I'll post them here. Due to the condition of the original CD's when they were finally ripped for the first time, they are some slight imperfections in a couple spots but nothing too major. Thanks to Bob Aspatore, Paul Kim, and Andy for helping nail down some of these songs. Outtakes.

icarus syndrome - Pie Rhymes

I was gonna wait for Mark to post this on the You're Sitting On It blogspot, but I already had this uploaded a while ago. I understand that Andy recorded this cassette right after working at a group home for the developmentally disabled. The imagery in the lyrics invokes thoughts of waking up in an embryo woven from the fabric of dreams. Thanks to Paul Kim for the sweet digital copy of this.

icarus syndrome-lord calverts cave

Well, here i am jumping on the blogwagon. My intentions with this blog are mainly to post music that i haven't been able to find elsewhere in the blogosphere. i will begin with a rip of one of my favorite recordings of all time, no lie. icarus syndrome's "Lord Calverts Cave," released on the cassette label, Rugburn Records, in the summer of 2006. i find myself coming back to this recording time and time again, never tiring of it's haunting tones. A bit of a back story of what this album means to me:

Andy gave me this cassette in conjunction with Vondervotteimittis (which can be found here) that fateful summer. The boys and i had been digging the sounds for a few weeks at the old Treehouse on Barry St. in Chicago. i especially took a liking to it and seemed to be primordially drawn to the incessant beautiful drone tones. Brandon and i took a stroll to the local liquor store around this time to peruse the whiskey. On the bottom shelf we noticed one called "Lord Calvert". "Holy Shit!", i exclaimed, "this must be what Andy's album is referring to!" Neither of us was familiar with the Lord at that point. We picked up a handle and headed home. The rest of the night got kind of blurry for me. There are strange mystic properties at work in Lord Calvert whiskey that none of us were expecting. It was a different KIND of drunk for all of us, i think. Things were very intense, loud, and primal. The last thing i remember clearly was Dave beating on the stove with a screwdriver to the beat of a Black Sabbath song. i remember feeling a strange introspectiveness magnified like never before on other whiskies while still maintaing a social character. When i came to in the morning, i was face down on the couch with my head hanging over the side staring at a pile of my own drool. Dave informed me that later in the night i not only opened up to him and cried on his shoulder but that i slipped and gave my head a crack sometime in the course of the night. i remember none of this. The rest of the guys had similar experiences of their own pertaining to the force of which the Lord cast his will upon them. The profound and almost ethereal onslaught of opaque epiphanies that this whiskey brought me immediately made sense in the context of Andy's tape. Since then, the Lord has been present at countless nights of intense truth searching with close friends, naked camping trips, the craziest of Sinners' shows, and more. Andy later made a trio of songs dedicated to Lord Calvert on his October Cassette album, concluding with one titled "The Retirement of Calvert." i've said it before and i will say it again; getting hammered on this whiskey (not just drunk, but HAMMERED) is like looking in to the depths of the human soul with all its beauty and ugliness congealing as one undeniable truth.