It’s quite possible I’ll get accused of going on about David Axelrod, but I only just started listening to him!
Of course I’d come across his stuff as being one of the focuses of DJ Shadow’s rabid sampling of diverse sources, but it wasn’t until I actually sat down and listened to Songs Of Experience all the way through that I ‘got it’.
You do have to be in the right frame of mind for it. The ideal is chilling out with something to read (nothing as kitchen-sink-real as a newspaper or non-fiction) and a couple of hours where you have no plans to do anything else. That’s when it’ll grab you.
The best I can offer as a sampler of how to approach that state is below. The Fly is from David Axelrod’s 1968 album Songs Of Experience.
It’s cinematic. It’s chopped up. It’s frickin genius.
