Review: Lucas & Friends: "Discover A World Of Sounds"

Lucas & Friends:
"Discover A World Of Sounds"

DESCRIPTION BY PEA HICKS, THE ARTIST:

"Lucas & Friends Discover a World of Sounds" is a bit of sonic archaeology, excavating found audio recordings made by Americans over the past 50 years. These recordings were dug up by Pea Hicks over many years as he relentlessly pawed through bins of cast off cassettes,

reel-to-reel tapes and even early recordable phonographs in the thrift stores of Southern California. The resulting collage is a surprisingly listenable unfolding of tape letters, songs, poems and other funny business that just about anyone can relate to and identify with.

REVIEW:

This is unlike anything I've ever heard on CD before. None of these recordings were ever made for public audience, so it feels a bit like reading a diary book, or looking throught the family snapshot album of people you don't know at all!
Think Jack Mudurian and "The talent show", recorded by themselves or family, on primitive equipment, long before they were "discovered" by the good people of Arf! Arf!, alternating with spoken pieces by kids, like the "Jerks". These Jerks are a couple of annoying kids over-recording a Fisher Price "Discover A World Of Sounds" cassette, with all kind of insults and kid talk, most of it not easy understandable for me.
My favorite pieces are the 5 christmas songs - very charmingly sung by little kids - and several other songs, brought very passionately by a whole, not very talented, family. Personally, I'd like a bit more music, and a bit less "Jerks", who tend to irritate after a while, but heck! that might just have been the whole purpose of this CD! (think "irritainment")
This is a wonderful disc for DJ's and people who make compilation tapes. It was a good idea of the maker to include 38 track divisions, althought the whole CD runs in one continuous piece from start to end; that way, one can insert bits and pieces inbetween other records.
Lucas & Friends "Discover A World Of Sounds" sounds more like a radio show than a "normal" music CD. You can't "listen" to this CD in the background, you must pay attention to it, as if it was some sort of radio play or document. After all, it IS a document!
A document of, and a tribute to, the wonderful world of home recordings... and the sound of background noise. ;-)

DETAILS:

Lucas & Friends: "Discover A World Of Sounds"
CD, Vinyl Communications VC-118, USA, 1997, 69:49 minutes
Contact: Pea Hicks: e-mail: phix@adnc.com
or Vinyl Communications, P.O. Box 8623, Chula Vista, CA 91912, USA