Artist: Doug Randle
Title: Songs for the New Industrial State
Label: Light in the Attic
Release Date: 1.13.09
UPC: 844185095198
Territories: World ex-France, Australia
Once in a blue moon we are lucky enough to stumble upon a forgotten treasure: an old sports car sitting for decades in some barn, a guitar your dad only played once in the 60′s, or a great album that everyone somehow managed to miss the first time around. Doug Randle’s Songs for the New Industrial State is just such a treasure. Originally released for purchase in 1971, long time composer and multi-instrumentalist Randle created a fantastic and challenging sunshine pop album for a new era he saw dawning in the world around him. Randle’s album is a revolt from the monotony of the work week; he refuses to be just another suit getting up every day to do the same thing as yesterday. The album was picked up by Seattle-based Light in the Attic records (Rodriguez, The Black Angels), who have quite a knack for finding overlooked masterpieces from the past and reissuing them.
Randle’s music fits in perfectly with the most heralded recordings from the late 60′s and early 70′s, working in the same musical vein as the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds with its intricate production, harmonies, and pop sensibilities, but with an arguably more matured and veteran musicianship that highlights Randle’s compositional background and a touch of 70′s soul. While much of his contemporaries’ music dealt with more microcosmic issues, Randle attempts to react to the newly established megacorporations and emerging technologies of the 70′s, inspired by the insightful commentary of John Kenneth Galbraith’s 1967 book, The New Industrial State. Randle begins his album with “Isn’t it a Pity” by noting the situation and context in which he operates, observing pretty girls and pretty boys are too shy to interact, but warning of the change on the horizon. One of the album’s most ironic and memorable moments is arguably “Coloured Plastics.” Randle sings, “Coloured plastics, stronger than steel, why do they always break when I need them? Colored plastics, brighter than a thousand suns, why do their colors always fade away?” The psychedelic pop tune draws from Simon and Garfunkel’s “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme,” claiming that the message of the 1966 song has been downplayed and almost forgotten since the herbs are now unimportant when compared to the colored plastic containers they sit in. It is lyrics just like this that qualify Randle’s music: he has mastered the stylings and compositional forms of past songs, then applied them to supply a soundtrack to the abandonment of those very values due to the changing industrial world around him. Some may take the album to be dark, but its music is like no other: a combination of Randle’s ironic and striking lyricism with his unarguable ability to compose. Randle seems unaffected by fashionable trends in the changing music industry but aware of the best parts of what came before him, creating a collection of songs assembled from musical elements from numerous genres and instruments. Anyone seeking a fantastic psychedelic recording, an album from stereo’s golden years, a taste of sunshine pop, or a unique soundtrack for the protest of a changing world will find Songs for the New Industrial Age invaluable. Just as the track, “Warm in the Sunshine” states, “The Earth will turn, turn, turn full circle,” and with the remaster of Doug Randle’s fantastic album, the world has graciously turned enough for us to experience this masterpiece once again. This time we should be careful not to make the same mistake by overlooking such an original and unique gem again.
PromoTrack after the jump…
Doug Randle
“Coloured Plastics” (mp3)
from “Songs for the New Industrial State”
(Light In The Attic)
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Tags: Doug Randle, Rodriguez, The Black Angels
