Stevie Surprise’s Journey Via The Secret Life Of Vegetation was issued as a double-album soundtrack on October 30, 1979. And whereas “What is this?” could also be a superbly legitimate query in some instances, it wasn’t applicable right here. A much more pertinent inquiry would have been: “Hang on a minute. How can a guy who cannot see, write music for a movie, a predominantly visual medium?” Give it some thought for a second. The reply, in fact, is: that is Stevie Surprise. What can’t he do?
An anomaly amongst Stevie Surprise albums
Journey Via The Secret Life Of Vegetation was Surprise’s first new album for the perfect a part of three years. He hadn’t supposed it as “the new Stevie Wonder album” as such, extra as a soundtrack he’d created for the documentary of the identical identify, however Motown, hungry for recent materials from its confirmed musical genius, just about marketed it as a brand new Stevie opus.
That triggered a specific amount of confusion: the place was this report’s “Superstition,” “Sir Duke” or “Creepin’”? Nicely, there was a success, a US No. 4, in “Send One Your Love,” whereas two additional singles had been drawn from the gathering. The album bought properly at first – followers had been as hungry for Stevie materials as his report firm was – however clearly it was no Fulfillingness’ First Finale. Journey Via The Secret Life Of Vegetation stays an anomaly in Surprise’s 70s catalog: a little-visited cranny in his extremely authentic musiquarium, filled with prolonged instrumentals; nevertheless it has its highlights – and a few are very excessive.
The recording of Journey Via The Secret Life Of Vegetation
To reply the massive query: Stevie had the producer describe what was occurring on display screen, scene by scene, as a tough lower of the film performed, whereas the Motown genius labored on composing the music, and the engineer, Gary Olazabal, assisted with defining the size of every piece. Easy, once you’re Stevie Surprise.
Journey Via The Secret Life Of Vegetation
Journey Via The Secret Life Of Vegetation begins slowly; you’re instantly conscious that it’s going to be excessive on soundscapes and temper, and low on funk. A variety of it, comparable to “Voyage To India,” is basically classical in tone – on this occasion, each Western and the classical music of the subcontinent. There’s low-key thriller in “Earth’s Creation” and the tinkling “The First Garden” opens like a horror film theme. Should you’re in search of a reference level inside African-American music, it will be Miles Davis’ “Then There Were None,” earlier than the piece warms up with harmonica: a touch that extra common Stevie-ish music was to return? For certain, because the vocal monitor “Same Old Story” arrives, with its melody like a samba bringing out Stevie’s extra soulful aspect for the primary time right here.
“Venus Flytrap And The Bug” gives a contact of “Peter And The Wolf,” although extra just like the Jimmy Smith model than an orchestral one, slipping alongside as twilight jazz, with Stevie buggin’ vocally like like a Disney cartoon villain. “Ai No Sono” makes use of synth-like sedate harpsichord music, with chanting youngsters including to its Japanese vibe. Then comes a bomb in “Power Flower,” co-written with Michael Sembello and delivering a really feel that might have fitted Songs Within the Key Of Life. A powerful sluggish jam with touching harmonica and a wonderful rumble within the backside finish, this is without doubt one of the excessive factors for these in search of the flavour of the usual 70s Stevie.
One other thriller arrives with “Race Babbling,” an uptempo tune a tickle or two forward of its time, with excellent hurtling basslines and mad vocoder suggestive of early electro, 80s Herbie Hancock, and, inevitably, Kraftwerk – although its sense of a free movement was uncommon within the digital music of that period. The hit “Send One Your Love” is a beautiful Stevie ballad, however, as is usually the case on … The Secret Life Of Vegetation, it lacks a touch of funk within the backside finish. “Outside My Window” has an analogous concern for followers of ordinary Stevie: it has that beautiful rolling really feel of “Isn’t She Lovely,” however you’re ready for a harder drum beat to kick it alongside tougher.
Glowing with heat, “Black Orchid” is one other little miracle befitting Stevie’s “classic” albums (the lyric is laden with extra than simply horticultural issues). The whimsical ballad “Come Back As A Flower” additionally has shades of early-70s Stevie; sung by Syreeta, it will have handed muster completely on her second album. And when you’re used to the absence of particular grooves, it comes as a little bit of a shock when the driving “A Seed’s A Star’/“Tree Medley’ delivers grooves by the trug-load, offering echoes of the funk-Latin vibe of “Another Star.” “Finale” reveals additional dancefloor vibes with chugging synth and hissing drum machine beats.
The reception and legacy of Journey Via The Secret Life Of Vegetation
Journey Via The Secret Life Of Vegetation is an exceptionally lengthy suite of typically prolonged temper items through which “songs” are few and much between, and grooves within the funky sense hardly ever crop up. However there’s magnificence right here. Stevie’s unquenchable need for experimentation and love for melody are in full impact, and a few of the magic and thriller of the botanic planet is evoked.
Stevie’s obsession with electronics allied to the kind of jazzy chords he favored are in proof all through; this might not be the work of anybody else. It’s a soundtrack, not likely a Stevie Surprise album, however the truth that there’s a sprinkling of songs worthy of Stevie’s basic albums amid the scene-setting sounds is a bonus. It might be a curiosity, however the album’s very existence was some form of marvel in itself, and the love and nearly obsessional nurture that went into it sing out of each monitor.
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