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Format: CD
Jun 1998
Record Label: Warner Bros. Records (Record Label)
Recording Type: Studio
UPC: 093624689621 |
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* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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Track Listing
1. Throwdown at the Hoedown
2. Communication
3. Big Country
4. Sojourn of Arjuna
5. Let Me Be the One
6. Trane to Conamarra
7. Almost 12
8. Step Quiet
9. Oddity
10. Sleeping Dogs Lie
11. Trouble and Strife
12. Slow Walker
13. Shanti
14. Big Blink, The
15. Prelude to Silence - (African Languages)
Album Notes
Bela Fleck & The Flecktones: Bela Fleck (gut-string guitar, guitar, acoustic & electric banjos, nylon-string & gut-string banjos, sitar banjo, mandolin, keyboards, Theremin); Future Man (vocals, percussion, synthaxe drumitar, samples); Jeff Coffin (soprano, tenor & baritone saxophones, saxello, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet); Victor Lemonte Wooten (fiddle, cello, acoustic, electric & fretless basses).
Additional personnel includes: Dave Matthews, Amy Grant (vocals).
Engineers: Roger Nichols, Richard Battaglia, Bela Fleck.
All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.
"Almost 12" won the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition. "Big Country" was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.
Do yourself a favor and forget about the question, "What is this music?" Your enjoyment of this recording will only further increase upon realizing that these freak-o's don't necessarily know quite what it is that they're playing, either. All the better--the lack of self-consciousness is what makes this concoction feel natural. For the record, however, the identifiable ingredients include funk, pop, folk, jazz and, of course, Fleck's masterful, multi-colored banjo-playing. Tight arrangements meet tastefully with whim throughout.
LEFT OF COOL opens with the frantic funk-out entitled, "Throwdown At The Hoedown," an instrumental replete with foreboding melodies and wildly fast bursts of banjo- and bass-playing (indeed, Van Halen-style fretboard tapping has arrived on the banjo). Other tunes, such as the smooth-sailing "Step Quiet," offer vocal affirmations pleasing to the weary ear. A playful sense of exchange often leaps up between bass-samurai Wooten and the various horns assembled, weaving in and out of melodic conversations and inspired octave passages with glee. And, present as always, is Future Man playing his infamous synthaxe drumitar--reason enough to have a go at this odd little sonic gathering.
Industry Reviews
...While Bela and the boys tend to homogenize their eclectic sources, it's hard to resist a band that draws on bluegrass, funk, world music, pop and jazz with such glee and blissful lack of pretension. - Rating: B
Entertainment Weekly (07/17/1998)
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