From Wikipedia:
The Free Design were a Delevan, New York-based vocal group playing jazzy pop music. Their music can be described as sunshine pop and baroque pop, which were pop music subgenres at the time, which later influenced the bands Stereolab, Cornelius, Pizzicato Five, Beck and The High Llamas.
Early workThe members were all members of the Dedrick family: Chris Dedrick (who wrote most of the songs), sister Sandy and brother Bruce were the original lineup. Younger sister Ellen joined the group later, and youngest sister Stefanie joined near the end of their initial career. Their father, Art, was a trombonist and music arranger. Their uncle, Rusty, was a jazz trumpeter with Claude Thornhill and Red Norvo. They formed the band while living in New York City. Chris has said the group was influenced by vocal groups like The Hi-Los (who performed in Greenwich Village frequently at the time) along with Peter, Paul and Mary and the counterpoint experiments of Benjamin Britten. Their trademark sound involved complex harmonies, jazz-like chord progressions, and off-beat time signatures, all products of Chris's classical training.
The band released seven albums from 1967 to 1972, the first six on Enoch Light's Project 3 label and the last one, There is a Song, on the Ambrotype label. For the most part, they were accompanied on the albums by studio musicians.
After the breakup, Chris Dedrick recorded a solo album, Be Free, which went unreleased until 2000, then moved to Toronto, where he became a music producer, arranger, classical composer and soundtrack composer. He has worked with directors Guy Maddin and Don McKellar, winning a Genie Award for Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World. In 1997 Dedrick won a Gemini Award for his work on the television series Road to Avonlea.
Revival of interest
During their career, The Free Design never gained the commercial success they, and a small fan-base, felt they deserved, a plight they noted in their 1969 song "2002 - A Hit Song", in which they describe how to create a hit, then continue, "there's just one fact that we can't quite shirk/ we did all this last time, and it did not work." They remained an obscurity after disbanding in 1972. Starting in the mid-90s, however, interest in them began to grow as part of a general resurgence of interest in easy listening and sunshine pop from the 60s and 70s. In 1994, Japanese musician Cornelius reissued the Free Design catalog on his "Trattoria" label. In 1997, the band Tomorrow's World covered their song "Kites Are Fun", and in 1998, the Spanish "Siesta" label put out four compilation albums of their music. Stereolab, whose lounge-inspired music clearly showed a Free Design influence, named a 1999 single "The Free Design" (though the song itself had no direct connection to the band). The Free Design song "Bubbles" was covered by Dressy Bessy on the 2000 Powerpuff Girls soundtrack.
Perhaps inspired by this newfound interest, in 2000 the band re-grouped, after a nearly 30-year retirement, to record the song "Endless Harmony" on the Beach Boys tribute album Caroline Now. This experience convinced them to record a new full-length album, 2001's Cosmic Peekaboo, which featured the original lineup minus Ellen Dedrick.
In 2001 the label Cherry Red released a Best of Free Design compilation. The Free Design song "I Found Love" was included on the 2002 Gilmore Girls soundtrack. From 2002 to 2005, the original albums were reissued in the United States by the Light in the Attic label. In 2005, the label put out The Now Sound Redesigned, an album of Free Design remixes from established acts like Stereolab, Super Furry Animals and Peanut Butter Wolf.
Free Design Discography:LPs
PR 5019 SD
Kites Are Fun 1967
PR 5031 SD
You Could Be Born Again 1968
PR 5037 SD
Heaven/Earth 1969
PR 5045 SD
Stars/Time/Bubbles/Love 1970
PR 4006 SD
Sing for Very Important People 1970
PR 5061 SD
One by One 1971
45s
PR 45-1324
Kites Are Fun / The Proper Ornaments 1967
PR 45-1331
You Be You And I'll Be Me/ Never Tell the World 1968
PR 45-1336
Umbrellas / I Found Love 1968
PR 45-1345
Make The Madness Stop / Eleanor Rigby 1968
PR 45-1347
Close Your Mouth (It's Christmas) / Christmas is the Day 1968
PR 45-1350
You Could Be Born Again / A Leaf Has Veins 1969
PR 45-1352
Ellen Dedrick: Nature Boy / Settlement Boy 1969
PR 45-1356
Where Do I Go / Girls Alone 1969
PR 45-1358
Dorian Benediction / Summertime 1969
PR 45-1366
2002 A Hit Song / Hurry Sundown 1969
PR 45-1370
Butterflies Are Free / My Very Own Angel 1970
PR 45-1375
Bubbles / I'm A Yogi 1970
PR 45-1387
Don't Cry Baby / Time and Love 1970
PR 45-1404
A Friendly Man / Stay Off Of Your Frown 1971?
Ambrotype
LP
1016
There Is A Song 1972
MarinaCD
MA 50
various artists - Caroline Now! 2000
MA 52
Cosmic Peekaboo 2001
Beatball RecordsCD
BEAT 10
Chris Dedrick: Wishes 2005
COSMIC PEEKABOO
For the 2000 release of the superb Beach Boys tribute album Caroline Now!, the legendary Free Design reunited for the first time in three decades, stealing the spotlight from the band's indie pop descendants with a beautifully poetic rendition of "Endless Harmony." The full-length follow-up Cosmic Peekaboo restores the group's brilliance to its original luster, reassembling the founding lineup of siblings Chris, Sandy, and Bruce Dedrick for a remarkable comeback effort that more than lives up to the standard of their past classics. Resisting the temptation to incorporate even a dash of the electronic pop approaches of avowed acolytes like Stereolab, the High Llamas, and Cornelius, on Cosmic Peekaboo the group picks up right where it left off — although the harmonies are deeper and even richer than before. The infinite warmth and affection at the heart of all the Dedricks' work remains intact, with every note utterly free of the irony and detachment prevalent throughout so much of the music produced in their absence. Although Cosmic Peekaboo's incandescent performances and majestic arrangements barely acknowledge the 30-year gap, the lyrics cast a knowing eye on the Free Design legacy — the elegiac "Younger Son" evokes vintage classics like "Kites Are Fun" and "My Brother Woody," while "The Hook" updates the group's still-relevant chart lament "2002 - A Hit Song," gently chiding a new generation of navel-pierced pop icons while taking to task the music industry's reliance on style over substance. The record's emotional centerpiece is the haunting "Day Breaks," a sweepingly angelic tribute to sister Stefanie, to whose memory Cosmic Peekaboo is lovingly dedicated.
Chris Dedrick Vocals, Soprano Recorder, Keyboards, Recorder, Piano, Flugelhorn, Percussion, Trumpet, Native American Drum, Rhythm Guitar, Arranger, Producer
Bruce Dedrick Vocals
Sandy Dedrick Vocals
Rebecca Pellett Vocals, Keyboards
Tom Szczesniak Piano, Bass
Stefan Szczesniak Drums
Christian Szczesniak Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
John Johnson Soprano Sax
Brian Barlow Percussion, Cocktail Drums
Mike Francis Guitar
David Swan Piano
Marie Bérard Violin
Griffin Dedrick Guitar
Douglas Perry Viola
Brian Epperson Cello
1 Peekaboo 2:52
2 Younger Son 2:50
3 McCarran Airport 3:16
4 Destiny 3:17
5 Springtime 3:59
6 Listen 3:31
7 The Hook 3:30
8 Music Room 2:17
9 The Only Treasure 3:43
10 Day Breaks 5:24
11 Perfect Love 4:39
What happens when a group reunites and records again after 30 years ? Most of the time the voices are croaking or blank, the songs "modernized" with the help of a famous rapper or some DJ remix ... And you feel sorry for them, despite all the affection you still have.
This is not the case here. The Free Design perform their usual Sunshine Pop, with lovely vocal harmonies and modern Chamber Music arrangements.
This might be too cute for most of you, but it do some good after a hard day and before a good night. If you enjoy the recent Brain Wilson, try this, it is much better ...
The first new album from The Free Design for nearly 30 years!Rip from CD 256@ (artwork included 150 dpi)
within the music department of the State Radio of the Soviet Union in 1957. For more than thirty years, from the Fifties up to the Eighties the music of Ensemble Mescherina could be heard on radio and TV, in radio plays and cartoon movies almost every day. The ensemble managed to compose more then 700 pieces of music until 1990. Some of Mescherins compositions are public domain by now and can be hummed by everyone in Russia. One example is the track 'On the chicken farm', which was used in the very popular cartoon series 'Rabbit and Wolf'. In 1959 the Soviet government asked Mescherin for an electronic sound recording of 'The Internationale', to be sent to outer space on board of the first sputnik. Mescherin also designed and built many electronic instruments himself. Balalaikas, accordions and guitars, which he amplified, now sounded as if played on another planet. Mescherin and his ensemble were more or less the only experimental musicians in the field of electronic music in the USSR up to the Sixties. Thanks to the Moscow label Snegiri some of Mescherin's recordings have been dug out again of the Russian radio archive and released on CD again. It's a shame Mescherin (1923-1995) himself didn't live to see this. The Ensemble Mescherina is a crucial part of the musical history of the Soviet Union.
