Search - Various Artists :: Sensory Lullabies: The Ultimate Tribute to Jellyfish

This lullaby won't put you to sleep

David Bundy | St. Louis, MO USA | 09/12/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The bad news is that, while "Baby's Coming Back," Jellyfish isn't and never will. The good news is that through a legion of devoted fans and indebted musicians, they never have entirely gone away. The great news is that the next best thing to a fresh batch of Jellysongs is almost here -- an epic tribute album called Sensory Lullabies.



Burning Sky Records' two-disc, 35-song tribute to Jellyfish is two and a half hours of Jellybliss, with each artist offering a unique and affectionate version from a catalog of songs that were so far ahead of their time when they came out a decade and a half ago that today's most cutting-edge bands still cite them as influences. These "Lullabies" won't be putting anyone to sleep.



Alan Heaton and the Burning Sky team brought together 35 artists from four continents to produce complete covers of Jellyfish's two studio albums, 1990's Bellybutton and 1993's Spilt Milk, augmented with a handful of bonus tracks from Jellyfish's out-of-print-but-still-in-demand box set Fan Club.



The collection faithfully captures the hooks, harmonies and heavenly effects of a band that is revered -- and rightly so -- beyond proportion of its output.

Sensory Lullabies rocks. It rolls. It's a revelation. And it's full of wonderful surprises, even for those rabid Jellyfans who have listened to the band's entire catalog thousands of times.



Predictably, the covers range from the incredibly faithful (Millicent Friendly doing "All I Want Is Everything") to the judiciously tweaked ("Glutton of Sympathy" by Enfadados) to the wildly divergent ("Baby's Coming Back" by Wayne Cabral). But all of them take the sonic complexity of Jellyfish and ratchet it up a notch.

Curiously, despite the incredibly high production standards of Jellyfish's original releases, on most of the tribute tracks, the lyrics (and their genius) come out even cleaner and clearer. Careful listens to the new songs reveal other wonderful touches: Faint wedding bells on The Pozers' "Will You Marry Me?," the chugging build-up of Checkpoint Charley's "Family Tree," the sax accents on Robert Baird's "Russian Hill," and the speeded-up tempo of The Celebrities' "Bye, Bye, Bye."

Some things, however, were not meant to be tampered with, and threads seemed to sense that in their cover of "Joining a Fan Club." The guitar solo and sax-and-piano interlude, arguably one of the most electrifying musical passages out there, brings out all the same goose bumps the original version does.



Another treat is getting to hear songs like "Mr. Late," "Hello," "Will You Marry Me?" and "Always Be My Girl," recorded by Jellyfish as live versions, get the full studio treatment, with Ed James, The Sonic Executive Sessions, The Pozers and The Mayflowers respectively, adding the requisite flourishes that Jellyfish would have had they put them on a studio album.



The two covers that take the most artistic license are "Sebrina, Paste and Plato" by Rockosaurus Rex and "Watchin' the Rain" by Negative Earth. In both cases, the bands dialed back the jangly guitars and slowed down the tempo. "Sebrina" particularly takes on a different feel, trading its bouncy, psychedelic sound for an almost-but-not-quite-heavy-metal tone. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," as Jerry Seinfeld might have said, but to the most devout Jellyfish purists, these will feel the closest to sacrilege.



But the simple fact is that there isn't a bad song in this bunch. The songs are great, the musicianship fantastic. Each oozes creativity and reveals the passion Jellyfish continues to engender for listeners, fans and artists alike. And like slathering hot fudge on a delicious scoop of ice cream, every band adds a tasty new element to the already sweet sounds of Jellyfish.



Heaton's decision to sequence the songs identically to their original release (with bonus tracks at the end of each disc), is a real treat for fans who've listened hundreds of times to Bellybutton and Spilt Milk. You know what's coming, but it's fun to see how each band decides to get there as one song ends and another begins.



So if you've bought Bellybutton and Spilt Milk on cassette and CD multiple times to replace worn out copies or so you have car and home copies or if you can't stand to see them languish, unbought, at the used CD store, Sensory Lullabies is for you.

If you've thought the $400 the Fan Club box set commands on eBay sounds reasonable, Sensory Lullabies is for you. (And maybe you can explain it to my wife.)



If you've tracked down every side and solo project by every ex-Jellyfish member (including the two Moog Cookbook CDs), or you buy the CD of any artist who cites Jellyfish as an influence, Sensory Lullabies is for you.



And if by some accident, like living under a musical rock for a decade and a half, you've never heard of Jellyfish, but you love beautifully crafted power pop, clever lyrics and want to be introduced to a great bunch of musicians, Sensory Lullabies is for you (but you better get your own copies of Bellybutton and Spilt Milk, too).

Finally, as a professional journalist (and an amateur and unqualified rock critic), I owe folks this disclosure: Alan Heaton, the man behind Burning Sky Records and Sensory Lullabies, through an innocent e-mail exchange that began when I goofed up my shipping address ordering the Hello EP (a 5-song appetizer for Sensory Lullabies that is still for sale , by the way), took pity on my plight and offered to give me an advance copy of Sensory Lullabies so I didn't have to listen to Radio Disney or XM Kids for the whole drive on my family's summer vacation.



That's how I got this sneak preview of this fantastic album and why I'm qualified to tell you that it's an unqualified success. Not only has his effort - and that of his team and of the 35 artists and bands who contributed to Sensory Lullabies - produced a wonderful gift for the Jellyfaithful, but it's made 36 hours in the car with my four kids a lot more bearable. -- Dave Bundy



"

I Wanna Stay Home!

Gary Bauder | Orcas Island, WA USA | 09/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Yeah, I Wanna Stay Home...and spin these discs all freaking day! There are few bands in the history of rock that are more influential than Jellyfish, fewer still that had an output as limited as Jellyfish's two superb albums "Bellybutton" & "Spilt Milk". Through the magic of time, technology and the co-mingling of the passions of a select group of like minded Jellyfish fans, we are presented with this unbelievable package of audio & I daresay visual delights. The discs present both legendary albums in their original running order with a veritable bounty of bonus tracks encomapassing virtually all of Jellyfish's musical output, both released and non-released material, it truly is a little audio treasure. The performances are varied in their approach from dead on re-recordings of legendary Jellyfish arrangements to indivdual takes by musicians from around the globe. All the tracks have been lovingly engineered & mastered by Steve Turnidge of Ultra Violet Studios in Seattle to give the whole product a feel as if the performers all recorded their works in the same space, albeit with different sounds, but, maintaining an overall high-quality of sound production that simply must be heard. The packaging needs special mention as well, as each track is documented very well in a package that can be best described as visually sumptious. The overriding feeling one comes away with from this release is PASSION, passion for the music of one of the greatest bands to have entertained us, long live Jellyfish! Buy this tribute now!"

A fitting tribute for a band that was (and still is) ahead o

J. Camhi | NYC, NY | 10/28/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"There's just something about Jellyfish that resonates within their fans. Despite having been almost completely overlooked, their 2 albums represent some of the best written, arranged, produced and performed material from this era. The additional material they served up on 2002's Fan Club box set only strengthened the band's status, as much of it showcased their ability to replicate their incredible sound live (alas, I never had the good fortune to see them back in the day). But that was all, right? No more goodies for the fans except trying to track down more obscure 7" releases?



Fast forward 5 years, we have the release of this fantastic compilation. Alan Heaton has recruited a field of extremely talented and enthusiastic artists and delivered the mother of all Jellyfish cover albums! Every track on here is solid (to put it mildly), with each band faithfully recreating Jellyfish's best hooks and harmonies, while at the same time adding their own distinct flavors to the psychedelic rock musical gumbo (for a great example, check out Robert Baird's version of "Russian Hill," a funky, jazzy, trip-hoppy, groovin' pile of musical fun!).



This is a must-own for any fan of Jellyfish. Kudos to Alan, each of the bands who contributed, and everyone else who was involved in putting this together!!"