Review:'Burrito Brothers, The' 'The Magic Time Machine Of Love'
- Label: 'Think Like A Key Music'
- Genre: 'Alt/Country'
- Release Date: '1.8.25.'- Catalogue No: 'TLAK 1217'
Our Rating:
The Magic Time Machine Of Love by The Burrito Brothers
This album lives up to the title The Magic Time Machine Of Love by using AI to help mix ancient recordings, or parts of recordings, into new songs and the material is used sensitively to create a rather magical new album by The Burrito Brothers who are Gram Parsons, Al Perkins, Chris P James, Tony Paoletta, Ian Dunlop, Steve Allen, Peter Young, Sherrie James & Terrie Lonow, Bob Hatter, Fred James, Joe Webber, Dave Lemonds, Jeff Lewis, Michael Curtis, Danny Ramsey, David James, Joe Corneal, David Fontana, Rick Lonow and Scott Baggett.
The album opens with a short intro by Gram Parsons stating he thought they would be huge in England. Before they take on Whiter Shade Of Pale in a slow plaintive rendering of this mythic classic, that rises majestically and has some stunning organ playing. With an interesting almost gospel inflected outro asking for some Freedom in a Charlie Mingus style.
Captain Bobby Stout was recorded in 2007 and is a deep blues rock version of this old hippy classic, that has them trying to pay all sorts of debts off, one sizzling hot guitar solo at a time, with a short snatch or two of David Bowies Fame, the blues get deeper and the song gets ever more monumental.
Pride Of Man is one of the tunes to feature vocals from Gram Parsons, isolated by AI allowing them to build the track around them, they follow the Quicksilver Messenger Service arrangement and this really cooks along, with some great pedal steel playing, Gram's vocals are rich and impassioned making this a wonderful use of modern technology.
Peace Song is the Jesse Colin Young song that the band recorded in 2007, with the timeless message that the idiots in power never seem to hear, lets try to stop all the killing and get along with each other, this has a laid-back feel with gospel-tinged backing vocals, on this soulful version and tribute to the recently departed Jesse Colin Young, it's time to stop all the pointless fighting and killing now.
Used To Do uses a backing track recorded for the international Submarine band comeback album in 1987 that never came out, they have now finished the song off, with some heartfelt vocals for the aftermath of a messy break up, he just wants to find someone else to love him like you Used To Do, the chiming guitar and pedal steel on this are well worth listening to.
Gram Praises is thirty seconds of Gram talking up Al Perkins before he sings More And More that was a first attempt at posthumous vocals from Gram, recorded back in 2009 with Al Perkins pedal steel shining through, with some great duetting vocals from Sherrie K James as she harmonizing with Gram.
What Goes On is sadly The Beatles song and not the Velvet Underground one, I had no idea about a Beatles song of this title, with lyrics that are not a million miles from the Velvet Underground tune, this is a honky tonk country hoedown taken from the unreleased 1987 International Submarine Band album.
Time Machine is a plangent journey into the past, recorded in 2024 and looking back at the bands lifetime in music, the strings add layers of feeling, pedal steel rises and falls sounding in places like John Cale's Antarctica Starts Here this will reward multiple listens, it shifts in the middle into a strident blues rocker.
Gram then introduces Whiskey Woman with a tale of mad drunk driving, before the heavy drummed intro adorned with more pedal steel wonderment, to find out just how intoxicating they find that Whiskey Woman to be, this has a blasted desert country feel.
Tales Of Desire has vocals that sound like they should be on a windblown metal anthem, with the slow building country backing almost being bombastic enough, this is the song that really doesn't work for me, it's over the top, but not quite over the top enough.
They go back to 1983 for Number 19 that has a great echoey vocal, full of love for that woman who gave them the slip, the laid-back woozy pedal steel and shuffling drums are added too by some very out of it keyboards.
The album closes with a cover of Timothy B Schmidt's Right Where We Belong that feels like a statement of where the band feel they are, in this most mixed up of worlds, creating music that's both ancient and modern simultaneously, a song that could have come out at any point in the last 50 years or so, although it does feel more 1980's than anything it's still a good closing number on a far better than expected album by The Burrito Brothers.
Find out more at https://www.thinklikeakey.com/release/507563-the-burrito-brothers-the-magic-time-machine-of-love https://thinklikeakey.bandcamp.com/album/the-magic-time-machine-of-love https://www.facebook.com/CosmicNashville
