Tranquility Bass - Let The Freak Flag Fly

Definately one of the stranger albums to come out on Astralwerks. I remember back then thinking it was a superb title for an album, but only ever got to hear it at a friends place.

However I purchased the lp just recently, and it has to be one of the most intriguing yet fascinating and complex low-fi records I can think of.

So many layers of music in each production adds up to straight ahead folksy trip hop grooves providing the listener with new surprising details each and every time.

I say this album stands the test of time and has matured in spite of and not because it dared go its own ways.

Definately not electronic. Definately recommended for its sublime productions from the little shed in the back of the woods.

Knowing the style of Kandel's previous work, "Let the freak flag fly" sounds like it came out from nowhere. Influenced by '60s and '70s, mixed with country/folk and even some african motives, this release looks like being produced while the author was under heavy psychedelic drugs. As a narrow-minded electronica fan, I just can't put this album even in the neighbourhood of electro music. A very, very strange release.

For an album that was originally slated to be released in 1995 then went unmentioned for two more years, this is possibly one of the strangest records to take such a long time to come out. It only took forever for it to be made and got delayed innumerable times and probably changed and got bent around the ear more times than most people would probably care to know about.
Mike was telling me about having every single channel on either a 72 or 96 channel board up and active in the production of this one.
This album put the trip in the hop of the time and went many many steps further.
Chances are this should be considered a folk or hickerbilly album.
It found some crap remixes and didn't really get handled right so it sank. Astralwerks didn't really know what to do with it, or know really how to promote it. It was probably too sideways a release and could not sit easily within the genres that it was unfortunately stuck in.
Eventually Astralwerks and Mike had a falling out and some form of lawsuit was brought about to get the masters back.