The Squid's Ear Magazine


Drake, Bob: L'isola Dei Lupi (ReR Megacorp)

Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and song-writer Bob Drake's 10th album, an unusual and quirky journey through rock, RIO, and prog references, exploring the "The island of the Lupi" through a strange set of songs, a showcase for Drake's immense skills and enigmatic curiosity in 16 miniatures of descriptive passages, brilliant playing and exceptional production.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Bob Drake-drums, guitar, vocals


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Includes a foldout color map of L'isola Dei Lupi, "The island of the Lupi" from graphic artist Joe Mruk, with lyrics and a 4-page color booklet with disc information and artwork by Bob Drake.

UPC: 752725040624

Label: ReR Megacorp
Catalog ID: CTA-BD22
Squidco Product Code: 26517

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2018
Country: UK
Packaging: Jewel Case
Recorded at La Borde Basse, in Caudeval, France, between Octpber 2016 and April 2018, by Bob Drake.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Bob's 10th solo album sees Bob playing all the usual instruments (and a few more this time) in another collection of eccentric, songs with impossible structures, extraordinary harmonies, informative lyrics (rather outre in their subject matter, as Bob's small platoon of fans like it), virtuoso playing (in a casual sort of way), some great production and impressive musical economy.

The album comes with a remarkable fold-out map and archimboldo-esque design by graphic artist Joe Mruk.

Bob Drake (b.1957) has played a lot of instruments with - and has engineered - all sorts of bands from the early 1970's on. Between 1978-1989 he played an important role in Denver's underground music scene, and was a founding member of both Thinking Plague and Hail. In the early 1990's while living in Los Angeles, he wound up engineering sessions with just about everybody-from Ice Cube to Shirley MacLaine, and it was there he met David Kerman and became part of 5UU's. It was also around this time that he began to write and record his own solo albums.

Since 1994 Bob has lived at his home studio in Southern France, where he has played on and recorded and/or mixed hundreds of albums by artists from around the world. He is also known for his definitive re-mastering of classic albums by Art Bears, Henry Cow, ZNR, Cassiber, Homosexuals, and others.

With output this vast, Bob is dangerously close to becoming a cult."-ReR Megacorp


Includes a foldout color map of L'isola Dei Lupi, "The island of the Lupi" from graphic artist Joe Mruk, with lyrics and a 4-page color booklet with disc information and artwork by Bob Drake.

Artist Biographies

"Bob Drake was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 6, 1957, and spent his youth in Watseka, Illinois. There he taught himself how to play guitar and drums, but after hearing Yes's Fragile in 1972, Drake decided he wanted to be a bassist and bought himself a Rickenbacker 4001 bass guitar, which he still uses today. Henry Cow also had a big influence on him: "[T]hey were doing something I felt was a lot closer to what I was imagining I'd like to do - 'complex' intricate songs and arrangements, noisy things going on which fit organically in the music, and less emphasis on 'perfect' studio overcooked impersonal perfection."

Drake experimented with recording techniques and "warped rock", but soon found that no one was interested in "new and strange music" in his rural Midwestern home town. He moved to Denver, Colorado in 1978 where he worked for a while as a sound engineer on B horror movie sets. He also spent time recording local underground bands and playing bass guitar and drums with some of them. Drake put an advertisement at a local music store requesting a guitar player "into Henry Cow, Yes ...", and met up with experimental rock guitarist and composer Mike Johnson. Drake and Johnson played in a few cover bands before forming Thinking Plague in 1982. By 1990 Thinking Plague had recorded three albums and established a name for themselves in progressive circles.

In the late 1980s the Denver music scene "just evaporated" as musicians seeking "greener pastures" moved elsewhere. Drake, "flat broke" at the time, moved to Los Angeles where he found a job as a recording engineer. There he established a name for himself working with several mainstream artists like Ice Cube, Tina Turner and Engelbert Humperdinck. During this time he also formed an alternative rock group, Hail with ex-Thinking Plague's singer Susanne Lewis, and joined Dave Kerman's avant rock group, the 5uu's. Hunger's Teeth, the 5uu's' third album was praised for its "challenging music" and "production values", and made Drake a "sought-after engineer and collaborator".

Drake released his first solo album, What Day is It? in 1994. It was a limited edition (1,000 copies) self released record that Drake pressed himself. He later made five more solo albums, which were all released on ex-Henry Cow drummer Chris Cutler's UK independent record label, Recommended Records. In 1994 Drake and Kerman moved to an old farm house owned by Cutler and Henry Cow's sound engineer EM (Maggie) Thomas in Caudeval, southern France. They converted it into a studio which they called Studio Midi-Pyrenees. Later Drake worked closely with Cutler on a number of projects for Recommended Records, including the remastering of several albums and box sets, for example The Art Box (2004) and The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set (2009). He also joined Cutler's avant-rock band The Science Group in 1997, in which he played and engineered/produced the group's two albums.

Drake continued to work on and off in the 2000s with Thinking Plague and the 5uu's. In 2007 he formed his own group, Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosities to perform material from his solo albums live on stage. The group comprised Drake (guitar, vocals, violin, banjo), Kerman (drums), David Campbell (guitar, bass guitar, vocals) and Jason DuMars (soprano/alto saxophones, keyboards). They played at NEARfest in Pennsylvania in June 2007 with guests Olivier Tejedor (keyboards) and Lynnette Shelley (vocals)."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Drake_(musician))
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Isola Dei Lupi 2:17

2. Howling Courtyard 1:33

3. Hollowfang's Tower 1:54

4. Villa Dell'Orsata 2:06

5. Saint Marten's 1:06

6. Spotty Under The Trees 1:39

7. Ycnarr's Rock Collection Pleached Path To The Cliff 2:30

8. The Bridge To Nowhere 3:16

9. Sleepy Critter 2:26

10. The Endless Silent Rain 2:25

11. Cereal And When 2:06

12. On The Chemistries Of The Defensive Sprays Of The Spotted And Striped Skunks 2:21

13. Psychic Photography 2:23

14. Supplement To The Ritual 2:56

15. The Ascension Of Greyfoot Badger 5:19

16. Isola Dei Lupi Reprise 2:35

Related Categories of Interest:


Rock and Related
Progressive Rock
RIO (Rock in Opposition)
Today's Recommended Item
Song Based Music
Solo Artist Recordings
Drake, Bob
Staff Picks & Recommended Items
New in Rock Forms

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ReR Megacorp.


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