Arrested Development's "Reunion" - It's really not a reunion, we've been together again for 8 years now, but the U.S. thinks the world revolves around us...so we supported that stupidity by saying "Since The Last Time" was our first record in 12 years. Really it isn't. (It just is in the U.S.) We've been doing music over in Europe, Japan, Australia, and Singapore long before we ever decided to do it in the states.
Our first true reunion was in 2000. We did a record for Japan called, Heroes of the Harvest. It was a major victory for us! We got to do it in Tree Sounds Studio's with a dream team of musicians and Engineers. I really loved that moment in time. We recorded way more material than we expected to. We tracked over 30 songs. We ended up doing a EP called "Da Feelin'" first then the full length record. Our thought was to try this thing again. Over the years since our split in late 1995, we we’re just living life, doing things creatively but wondering what would happen if we did something together again. Many groups and solo artists came and went, some of which inspired us and others didn’t. Hip-Hop had gotten so degrading lyrically, socially and even in real life, with the slayings of a number of artists, that we wanted to do a hip-hop record in the tradition of honest hip-hop. We gotta admit that we struggled with insecurity due to the fact that we hadn’t been out in such a long time, and we were getting older, married, children etc. Plus all the individual members were in such a different space than 5 years ago. Eshe was straight up and down R&B, Raz was into hardcore hip-hop and dance stuff, and Speech was the flower child, crazy-eclectic. Baba always was a blues fiend; of course he came from a totally different generation than we did, so that was expected. We wanted to maintain our own sensibility, but yet be somewhat current and cohesive. That proved to be much easier said than done. Our major inspirations were the Roots, Common and the likes. That doesn’t mean that you’ll actually hear their vibe on the tracks, we were just inspired by them. We wanted to play most of the stuff live, so we hired our band members to help convey what we earlier had programmed. And it turned out pretty cool. Now mind you we’re our worst critics. However, there are some very nice moments on this album. We didn’t like every song, and as we listen to some of it today we’re embarrassed, but not so much that we wouldn’t want the public to hear where we were. Don’t be surprised if you hear these songs later metamorph-I-sized in some of our later recordings cuz this album was not widely released. And a lot of the concepts could use further development. In fact, to you the purchaser, you’ll want to keep this as a collector’s item. No one except Japan has heard this, and the artwork for this release is totally different, than the Japan release. We decided to change the artwork for two reasons, (one) Japan owned the copyright to the artwork of their release, and (two) we thought the direction wasn’t true to who we really are. And it also wasn’t true to the title of the album. Art (musically and visually) is never finished; it’s constantly evolving. And we as a group hope that you enjoy this moment in time, with us. Tell a friend, to tell a friend. And until we meet, stay thirsty for truth. Peace… (Back) |
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