Alison Faith Levy and Mushroom- Yesterday I saw you kissing Tiny Flowers
(4Zero Records)
Alison Faith Levy and Mushroom- Yesterday I saw you kissing Tiny Flowers
(4Zero Records)
From Aural Innovations #37 (Sep 2007)
The San Francisco based Mushroom are back with a new CD featuring female vocalist Alison Faith Levy (Camper von Beethoven fame), who has appeared live with the band on a number of occasions, some of which are captured on this moody CD. Tracks 1, 4,5 and 7 are all recorded at Komotion Studios, while the rest are live (between 2002 and 2005). The CD starts off with a short mood piece (Electric Muse) to set the mood. Josh Pollock is next (yes that is the name of the guitar player as well) and is an 11 minute jam piece featuring quite a stoned spaced out vibe and Allison compliments this well with her vocal approach. Clay Alison is a really nice psych rock track with flute, Celeste, bass and bongos/congas, guitar and voice… A very nice audience recording.. Gas, Grass or Ass- Nobody rides for Free is a pretty funky track featuring some cool jazzy piano and trumpet. You Laugh…..(really long title) This one starts slow but then really builds up and the way the trumpet is played only very sparingly is quite cool. Her voice is quite haunting as well. Kraut Mask Replica rings in at 21 minutes and is the long space out track on the CD. Starts very strangely…Ocean Beach is a beautiful track, could have been on Jens (Spacious Mind) solo record. The CD closes with a cover by David Bowie… not one you would expect to hear… Great CD for the musically adventurous..
And yet another opinion from AI:
The first, Yesterday I Saw You Kissing Tiny Flowers, is credited to Alison Faith Levy and Mushroom. It would suggest an album of Alison Faith Levy tunes with Mushroom acting as her back-up band, but this, surprisingly, is not really the case. Here, Alison becomes a member of the band, her voice acting as another instrument in the ensemble, perfectly integrating into the Mushroom sound. The music is generally in a more rock-oriented vein this time out, especially when they’re joined by Acid Mothers Gong/Daevid Allen Band guitarist Josh Pollock, who provides some intense, spaced out leads, most notably on the song bearing his name as its title. Elsewhere the band returns to their roots with songs like the funky Gas, Grass or Ass: Nobody Rides For Free and with the dazzling (and amusingly titled) 22-minute epic Kraut Mask Replica. Through a series of animalistic shouts and growls, the slow but steady jam of this song evolves, catching fire halfway through for an epic, tribal freak out finale. Other tracks, such as the opening cut, Electric Muse, lean more towards a kind of acid folk and off-kilter singer/songwriter territory, suggesting the influence that Ms. Levy brings to the band. For her part, Alison’s vocals range from lyrical phrasing to jazzy improvisation. She’s not a “pretty voiced” singer in the typical sense of singer songwriters. Her voice is always interesting though, and like the band Mushroom does with their instrumental sound, she is always pushing her voice to explore different possibilities. It evolves as the music evolves, as she and the band find new synergies with each track. It was also nice to hear Mushroom alumnus Michael Holt back onboard for a few tracks, doing his “magic” like he did in the Analog Hi-Fi Surprise days. The album ends on lazy, joyous groove. Built around the repeated celebratory chant from the early David Bowie tune Memory of a Free Festival, The Sun Machine Is Coming Down and We’re Gonna Have a Party is the perfect way to close out the album.
For more information you can visit the band's record label web site
at: http://www.4zerorecords.co.uk
For more info, visit: http://www.myspace.com/mushroomoakland
and http://www.paisleypop.com/mushroom
Reviewed by Scott Heller