David Axelrod
Songs Of Experience

David Axelrod is undoubtedly one of the most original and innovative composers that music history has ever known. Born in Los Angeles in 1936, David quickly approached arrangement and the creation of complex musical scores, eventually reaching the definitive maturation of the well-known mix of Jazz-Funk sounds, Rock influences, majestic orchestrations, and "cinematic" atmospheres, which have made him internationally recognizable.

This "Songs Of Experience", released in 1969, two years after the magnificent "Songs Of Innocence", represents one of the highest points of Axelrod's discography, a work that well synthesizes the visionary genius of the Californian artist. The album, like its predecessor, aims to translate some poems into music, this time eight, drawn from the vast literary production of the poet and engraver William Blake (specifically from the collection "Songs Of Experience", which gives the album its title), attempting to highlight the strong analogies and conceptual similarities between Axelrod's music and the work of the English 18th-century artist. It starts with the engaging drum and string progression of "The Poison Tree", interrupted beautifully by an acid violin solo, before giving way to warm sounds with a vague Proto-Lounge and Downtempo flavor that introduce the subsequent and very sweet "A Little Girl Lost", whose legendary guitar riff serves as a backdrop to the usual and evocative orchestration and to calm, relaxing rhythms, almost dreamy. The Hammond organ and the strong drumming of "London" immediately project the listener into one of the darkest and smokiest noir, while the restless introduction of the next track "The Sick Rose", all Moog and brass, soon gives way to a continuous alternation of calm and more tense moments, which almost seem to reflect in seven notes the sporadic and fragmented flow of a dormant mind. "The School Boy" is linked to the previous "A Little Girl Lost", with its calm harpsichord intro, immediately followed by dreamy arrangements reminiscent of Chopin and the usual, intense showers of strings. Applause-worthy, no doubt about it. The complex composition of "The Human Abstract" immediately brings to mind "Midnight In A Perfect World" by DJ Shadow, which samples its historic piano riff, "The Fly" is pure ecstasy translated into music, the concluding and dark "The Divine Image" (also widely sampled and present in numerous "Rare Grooves" collections) attempts a transcription on staff, clearly controversial, of the "divine vision" prophesized by William Blake.

In short, beyond the fame of an incredible precursor, beyond the plundering by producers worldwide, David Axelrod succeeds in his endeavor, assembling sounds of great musical and visual power that do justice to the controversial personality of William Blake, and that even today sound fresh and absolutely not outdated, clearly not for everyone, but undoubtedly endowed with quality and deep charm. A must-have.