Description

Product Description

In the mid-1970s, Hans Fenger taught music in the Langley, British Columbia, school district, using an experimental method inspired equally by Brian Wilson and Carl Orff. Occasionally he would record his students in the school gymnasium--elaborate affairs involving more than 60 kids per session. The result is this compelling collection of semi-accidental genius. Picture the Shaggs and Danielson presiding over an elementary school assembly for shy kids, and you begin to understand how sweet, sincere, and slightly unsettling these recordings are. The Langley students perform their favorite 1960s and 1970s hits as if they never heard the originals; they turn "Mandy" into the kind of lo-fi pop song that Neutral Milk Hotel would perfect 20 years later, and sing "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" like a delegation of extraterrestrial children on a friendship mission to Earth. Fenger's arrangements are spacious but elaborate, with prominent Orff percussion instruments that coat everything with a glimmering otherworldliness. The Langley students must've been proud just to hear themselves on tape, but for those of us encountering these artifacts for the first time, it's impossible to come away unmoved. (The photographs are precious, too.) --Mike Appelstein

Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description.

Reviews

Customer feedback

Product rating

Voting

Customer Reviews

There have been no reviews for this product.

Innocence & Despair

Description

Reviews

Customer feedback

Send to Friend

Send to friend