Product Description:
Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic: Martin Swope (guitar, percussion); Ken Field (soprano & alto saxophones, synthesizer, percussion); Erik Lindgren (piano, samples, programming, percussion); Rick Scott (synthesizer, percussion).
Additional personnel: Willie Alexander, Ken Winokur (percussion).
Producers: Bob Winsor, Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic.
Recorded at Lyx Studios, Worcester, Massachusetts between December 1989 and June 1991.
This was the band's final album with founding member Martin Swope, who left just a couple of years after Roger Miller (who had also founded Mission Of Burma, in which Swope functioned as behind-the-scenes sound manipulator). Swope brought a volatile angularity to otherwise highly controlled compositions and arrangements. Less a traditional musician than a sound artist, Swope's contributions are also the band's strongest link with one of their clear influences, Brian Eno (whose "Sombre Reptiles" is one of the three covers).
Erik Lindgren wrote the bulk of the remaining originals, which are primarily in a modern classical mode. The set's two remaining covers further delineate the band's wide ranging musical taste--Danny Elfman's theme from The Simpsons television show, and the gorgeous closing number, "Our Prayer." Written by Brian Wilson, the latter had been previously recorded by the Beach Boys as a wordless song. Here each voice is recast as one of the ensemble's instruments.
