Product Reviews
Product: Ant-Bee - Electronic Church Muzik
Date: 2012-07-08
Electronic Church Muzik
Ant-Bee - Electronic Church Muzik
I was forewarned that this was different. Well, ok – but Ant-Bee [aka Billy James] has a wide array of influences and a long list of ‘70s music legends to help him out on various projects. The guy is a great drummer, as well as singer, producer, author, etc... On this album there's plenty of little ‘tracks’ and full of twisted psychedelic excursions, talk [“snorks”], sound effects, … then again this is coming from a guy hugely influenced by the likes of the Mothers of Invention [a few of whom appear here], the first few Bizarre Alice Cooper albums [Michael Bruce is on here too!], Gong, Utopia, and other more ‘left-field’ stuff of the late 60s/early 70s era]. Not a rock album by any stretch, but interesting to say the least, and it includes some very likeable and worthhwhile to check-out covers, such as “Living” [from the first Alice Cooper album – “Pretties For You”], Todd Rundgren’s classic “Don’t You Ever Learn” – featuring Murphy Brock on vocals [I thought this was Glenn Hughes at first!], and Peter Banks “Endless Journey” [w/ Banks also on guitar], as well as a few interesting originals, like “Flutter-Bye, Flutter-Flye” – a quiet track, co-penned by Michael Bruce [who also plays on this one], and “Sectrets Of The Dead” – co-written by the late Bruce Cameron, who also performed guitar & sitar on this.
A unique project, and one that is far from the usual 10 track pop-rock/rocker/ballad format; this one being 22 ‘tracks’ long, and one that requires a few listens to see how far-out this really is. Kudos to Billy James for coming up with such a unique listening experience; aside from writer, producer, and arranger, James also does a stand-out job as drummer, keyboard player, and singer throughout much of this.
