Roadrunner Press Release SLOB
Tullscapes
"Cup Of Wonder" Update news
Last Friday I received this information from my contact at Roadrunner
Records and thought you might be interested.
Cheers,
Jan
========================================================
PRESS RELEASE
new solo album from IAN ANDERSON
'THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF BIRDS'
On March 6th Papillon/ Roadrunner Records is to release 'THE SECRET LANGUAGE
OF BIRDS' the new solo album from Ian Anderson. While Anderson is best known
as the leader of Jethro Tull, his third and latest solo album sees a more
pastoral approach as he returns to his roots.
"For 31 years, I've been the unplugged guy in a rock and roll band, but I
always like to come back to the simple and essential elements of
singer/songwriter music."
"Although I wasn't very brave at the beginning of Tull, by the time we made
the 'Aqualung' album I had included 3 or 4 genuine acoustic pieces, which
were predominantly me playing alone in the studio with acoustic guitar,
usually with a live vocal and maybe embellished with piano or a string
quartet."
"For that reason I've always felt that the kind of acoustic album that I
would make would probably sound like at least a part of Jethro Tull's
history so I avoided it. But this time round I thought I'd do what I
believe the fans expected of me; so I guess I'm doing the personal,
sometimes introverted, sometimes humorous and sometimes quite revealing kind
of music that wouldn't really work for me in the context of Jethro Tull.
This is just me in the studio doing my rather private little thing with a
few musicians who kindly came along to adorn the product."
Anderson resides in the South West of England, a rural setting that provided
part of the inspiration behind the record. "I don't get out and wander the
countryside as much as I'd like to, for me it's more a state of mind. I
tour the biggest and busiest cities of the world and when I come home I like
the contrast and the peace, I'm eternally grateful that I can work from
home."
"If you're lucky enough to live in the country, and wake up in the morning
to the sound of birds, you may wonder sometimes what it is those birds
actually see as the not so silent witnesses to bedroom shenanigans. In 'The
Secret Language Of Birds' I'm imagining the ultimate in corny chat up lines,
where the guy says to the girl 'Hey, come home with me and learn the secret
language of birds!"
"There are several tracks on this record which make considerable reference
to visual images, often specific images by specific artists. Like many
people of my generation, I began not as a musician but actually studying
painting, therefore everything I write does have a visual reference. Indeed
the track 'The Little Flower Girl' comes from the painting of that name by
Sir William Russell Flint, 'A Better Moon' refers to a work by Balraker
while L.S.Lowry, who is famous for his townscapes peopled by matchstick-like
figures, was somewhere in the back of my head while I was writing the song
'Circular Breathing'. Even the songs not directly connected to a painting or
artist start from pictures, when I go on tour or holiday it is always
visual references that are the genesis of the lyrics to my songs. I tend to
be an illustrator in that sense, I use lyrics to substitute for the
paintings I don't paint, it's my stock in trade."
"The favourite over-asked question is whether I write the music or lyrics
first. It's never the same thing sometimes it's a title, a line of melody or
a chord progression, or it can be more cerebral an intellectual proposition
or a gut feeling that I want to express in words."
"Sometimes the music comes and already has a degree of completeness and
doesn't require to be developed necessarily with lyrics. Equally there are
occasions when I think, I really like this lyric, what a shame I have to
ruin it by putting it to music, but I'm not a poet and never wanted to be,
so I end up having to find some music to go with them. Then again I can just
have a nice little tune, but just scratch my head for hours and still not
come up with a title I'm comfortable with. It often helps to have a title in
the first place and a picture in my head, that's the ideal. It doesn't have
to be a big colour glossy image, it could be a simple black & white, but the
form, line and tone are just the same tools of expression that the visual
artist uses, they all cross over very neatly in to the musical domain. The
semantics are the same, but the end results are poles apart, yet in some
ways irrevocably linked."
Anderson also explains the stories behind more of the tracks on 'THE SECRET
LANGUAGE OF BIRDS', "I've always had a soft spot for Boris Yeltsin, I wrote
the music to 'Boris Dancing' based on a visual image of a CNN news report
from when Boris was seeking re-election. He was filmed in Red Square,
sweating profusely, bright red in the face, boogieing frantically in front
of a young Moscow rock band. He nearly died from a heart attack just a
couple of days later. The song is in several rather difficult to follow
time signatures, as when Boris was dancing he wasn't quite on the beat.
'Boris Dancing' is just a celebration of his strange, individual dance
style."
"The song 'Postcard Day' is really about the point in mid-holiday when that
sense of guilt comes upon you and you think 'God, I'd better send some
postcards home, cos if I leave it to the end, we'll get home before they
do' - which rather negates the point."
'Set Aside' probably doesn't mean a lot to our friends in North America, but
the agricultural policies that are necessary, it would appear, in this day
and age are to literally set aside areas of agricultural land in rotation,
in order NOT to produce crops. The ridiculous irony is that although there
are millions of starving people throughout the world. In richer Western
countries farmers are actually being paid not to grow anything. This song
dwells on the dereliction that attaches itself to farms and farmers from
this policy, because it becomes a sadly infectious, depressive state of mind
which visits itself upon those farmers who are intrinsically paid not to
grow crops. It's a sad world, make the best of it."
"On a lighter note, I think quite a few people know that I'm keen on spicy
food, particularly those who have visited our website . I use a lot of
chilli peppers when I cook at home and the generally accepted number 10
strength killer is the habanero - in the Caribbean a close relative of this
is the Scotch Bonnet, which I also refer to in this song. 'The Habanero
Reel' is just an ode to capsicum, which gives off that excessive, burning
heat. Of course, the best thing about it, as I say in the song, is that it
is strictly legal!"
Ian Anderson is preparing to play a short series of low-key, acoustic club
shows around the release of 'THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF BIRDS'. Subsequently,
he is to tour Scandinavia and Eastern Europe with Jethro Tull, whose most
recent album 'J-TULL.DOT COM' was released in autumn last year. Anderson
will also be appearing in Venezuela, where he will be performing with the
Caracas Symphony Orchestra. In addition Sky Choice will be broadcasting a
major documentary on Ian Anderson during the week of release.
'THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF BIRDS', which features a stunning sleeve by
celebrated artist Bogdan Zarkowski, will be released by Roadrunner on CD
only - RR 8557-2.
The Jethro Tull website can be found at: www.j-tull.com.
Dwarf Nebula
DN
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